News

By Erika Schnitzer, Associate EditorJersey City, N.J.—Fisher Development Associates recently celebrated the opening of its sales and model center for Crystal Point, a 269-unit, 42-story condominium building on Jersey City’s waterfront.Within the first three weeks of sales, 20 units have been sold. “That astounded even me because the market is not strong right now, but people see the value and understand that it is the perfect storm for buyers,” with low interest rates and residences selling for less than they normally would, Adrienne Albert, CEO of The Marketing Directors Inc., the marketing and exclusive sales agent for Crystal Point, tells…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorMorton, Holmes, Pa. and Guttenberg, N.J.– The Kislak Co. Inc. recently completed two sales in Pennsylvania totaling $2.825 million.Silver Lake Apartments (pictured), a 26-unit rental property located at 6 Amosland Rd. in Morton, Pa., was sold for $1.88 million and the Holmes Garden Apartments, a 17-unit garden apartment located at 201 Holmes Rd. in Holmes, Pa. was sold for $945,000.At the time of closing, the building was 95 percent occupied.The New Jersey sale includes the $1.8 million sale of 143 69th St., a 14-unit property with three garages in Guttenberg. This garden-style community was 100…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorWashington, D.C.–The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has appointed John A. Courson as MBA’s new president and CEO. Courson, currently serving as MBA’s Chief Operating Officer, succeeds Jonathan L. Kempner who announced his departure from MBA last July. “Courson brings to MBA a wealth of experience and industry knowledge, and I am confident in his leadership both in terms of business savvy, political and advocacy skills,” says Kittle. Courson has previously served MBA as chairman in 2003 and as a member of MBA’s Board of Directors, the Residential Board of Governors (RESBOG) and the Commercial Real Estate/Multifamily Finance…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News Editor Ft. Lauderdale–In order to capitalize on the growing national and international demand for “opportunity investment” in the current real estate market, Adache Real Estate, a sales and marketing firm based in Ft. Lauderdale, has launched a Bulk Sales Division. The new division will be in charge of identifying opportunities and assisting investors looking for deeply discounted “bulk” purchases ranging from five to 500 units.  “The burst of the housing and the mortgage bubbles have caused severe problems in the U.S. economy”, says Adam Adache, president of Adache Real Estate. “At the same time, this crisis…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorOntario, Calif.–Sperry Van Ness Real Estate Services LLC has expanded its expertise in the Inland Empire commercial real estate market. Brad Freeman has joined the company as senior advisor in the firm’s Ontario, Calif. office located at 800 N. Haven Ave.  Irene Ryn, managing director for Sperry Van Ness Real Estate Services, oversees the region’s advisors and is responsible for the growth of the Inland Empire offices.“Freeman has consistently been one of the region’s premier investment brokers specializing in troubled assets and we are very excited to have him join the Sperry Van Ness team,”…

Multifamily Starts: You have to go back to January 1994 to find 5+ multifamily starts numbers that are lower than those for November 2008. So the near-15-year boom cycle is clearly slamming to a halt—helped along by banks that are either refusing to make construction loans, calling loans on work in progress, or refusing to lend to consumers who want to buy condos…or all three. The problem with this scenario is that the pipeline for 5+ multifamily construction is quite long, and the industry may find itself with sharply restricted supply in three years.CPI vs. Rent: Preliminary numbers show that…

By Linwood Thompson, senior vice president and managing director of the National Multi Housing Group for Marcus and Millichap Real Estate Investment Services Inc.San Francisco claimed the top spot of Marcus & Millichap Research Services’ National Apartment Index for the second consecutive year. While the metropolitan area’s large concentration of professional and financial firms is expected to result in job cuts, it ranked close to the top in almost all of the other measurements used in the index.The index, a snapshot analysis that ranks 43 apartment markets based on their cumulative weighted-average scores for a series of 12-month forward-looking supply-and-demand…

By Anuradha Kher, Online News EditorVallejo, Calif.–Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services recently arranged the sale of Blue Rock Village, a 560-unit multifamily community in Vallejo, Calif., for $54.4 million.Stanford Jones, an executive vice president and senior director of Marcus & Millichap’s National Multi Housing Group (NMHG) in Palo Alto, and Phil Saglimbeni and Sal Saglimbeni, both senior directors of the firm’s NMHG in Palo Alto, represented the seller, a publicly traded REIT. Marcus & Millichap also represented the buyer, a San Francisco-based private ownership group.“While capital markets turmoil has rendered it very difficult for most institutional buyers to…