Most top owners of large NYC ‘rentals without retail’ on sidelines last year: Spotlight on D1

Only a small fraction of the top 30 owners of large multifamily properties in New York City that have no retail, known by the building class D1, bought such buildings in 2022, according to an analysis by PincusCo Media. Some were active in other building classes, but not in this specific one.

Most of the very largest owners of the building class, such as Lefrak, Cammeby’s International Group, Ved Parkash, Pinnacle Group and Related Companies, did not buy any properties in the class.

The only buyer among the top 10 owners was A&E Real Estate Holdings, which was the top buyer of D1 buildings last year, with total acquisitions of 11 buildings for $221 million.

The largest D1 property A&E Real Estate Holdings purchased last year was the 188-unit 2775 East 12th Street in Sheepshead Bay, for $38.9 million. This was part of a larger $250 million portfolio A&E Real Estate Holdings bought from Lefrak, which included 11 D1 buildings.

In 2022, buyers took title to more than 100 D1 buildings for a gross consideration of nearly $1.7 billion, making it the fifth most active commercial building class sold last year.

 

The building class D1 is defined as an elevator rental building with five or more units that has no retail. The number of sales represents about 2 percent of the total stock of such buildings, which is just under 5,200 in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx.

The top buyers by dollar volume were A&E Real Estate Holdings, Cape Advisors, 60 Guilders, Stonehenge NYC and TF Cornerstone, and the top buyers by the number of units were A&E Real Estate Holdings, PH Realty Capital and a four-way tie between Gilbane Development, Moshe Greenzweig, Chestnut Holdings and Elysee Investment Corp.

The top five existing owners of the asset class (excluding the city and nonprofit are Cammeby’s International Group, Lefrak, A&E Real Estate Holdings, Ved Parkash and the Pinnacle Group.

For this article we excluded city-owned properties for example those controlled by the New York City Housing Authority or the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and companies that operate mostly in the affordable housing space such as Omni New York and Atlantic Development Group.

PincusCo has no records that Cape Advisors or 60 Guilders was an active owner of a D1 property before the acquisitions this year. But others are significant players, though not with many D1 properties. For example, Stonehenge NYC and TF Cornerstone are among the largest multifamily owners in the city (PincusCo has compiled 19 properties under Stonehenge ownership with 2,550 residential units, and 22 multifamily properties under TF Cornerstone ownership with 8,724 units).