By Joshua Burd
In a market that is undoubtedly challenged — with interest rate uncertainty and other headwinds for real estate owners — Peter Bronsnick points to one important source of confidence.
“I think that, more now than ever, people are looking to diversify their investments — and real estate is always at the top of that list,” said Bronsnick, Cushman & Wakefield’s managing principal and market leader in New Jersey. That has only helped to grow the pool of private buyers, he added, noting that “we’ve made it relatively easy” to invest in recent years through syndications and other avenues.
It’s a major reason why Cushman has leaned into the so-called middle market of New Jersey’s apartment sector, including deals valued at $40 million or less. That was clear this past July when the firm appointed brokers Niko Nicolaou and Ryan Dowd as co-leaders of its newly minted multifamily capital markets group in East Rutherford. In the process, it announced the addition of industry veterans from two of the state’s iconic middle market brokerage firms — Justin Lupo from The Kislak Co. Inc. and David Jarvis and David Oropeza from Gebroe-Hammer Associates — who bring vast experience in urban housing and garden apartment deals.
According to Bronsnick, the moves will help C&W gain market share and capture new business within the asset class, while exposing a new crop of private clients to the firm’s well-established, highly accomplished capital markets team in New Jersey.
“We’re looking to deliver to the marketplace a multifamily group that brings a level of sophistication down to the private client that maybe hasn’t existed in the past,” Bronsnick said during a recent interview. “The idea here is to take what makes them special — which is really their relationships and (the fact that) they have ultimate command of their submarkets — and then bring to their clients some of the institutional prowess that we have with the legacy team.”
The July announcement noted that Nicolaou, who joined Cushman in early 2022, has more than 15 years of experience and has represented clients ranging from private individuals to institutional owners, while Dowd has sold everything from luxury high-rises to infill suburban complexes during more than a decade in the industry. Jarvis and Oropeza joined the firm from Gebroe-Hammer after more than 20 years and nearly 37 years with the Livingston-based firm, respectively, while Lupo arrived with nearly a decade of experience at Kislak.
The moves were the latest in a string of notable hires since Bronsnick became Cushman’s New Jersey market leader in summer 2021. The firm has also added a six-member team led by powerhouse industrial brokers Mindy Lissner and Bill Waxman, formerly of CBRE, as well as executive and business strategist Mike Staskiewicz and John Obeid, who oversees research operations in New Jersey.
The infusion of talent is all the more critical as the market grapples with a slowdown in many aspects of leasing, investment sales and lending, much of it due to rising interest rates and indecision after the pandemic, even if there is still “a relatively healthy appetite for investment,” Bronsnick said.
“Nobody’s ever seen market conditions like this,” he said. “They’ve seen pieces and elements from other downturns or other challenging markets, but nobody’s seen this combination of events. And the best thing we feel like we can do is insulate those market vagaries with talent, where everyone shares not only a passion, but a similar mindset in terms of work ethic.”
And while the capital markets team will continue to work as a unit — while still serving large, institutional clients across all asset classes — he said it’s important to have the industry understand “that we have a concentrated expertise” within the multifamily practice group.
“We wanted to be able to communicate to the market who our day-to-day core team is and let our clients know very specifically that we are focused on this portion of the business for them,” Bronsnick said. “I think it resonates, too, because now you’re having a completely different conversation with your client base. And from what we’ve heard, they’re excited about it and excited to learn more about it.”
The carve-out also “gives everyone line of sight to things that they didn’t see or know before,” he added, pointing to the experience of the newly added brokers in places such as eastern Essex County and South Jersey.
Bronsnick also notes that the firm has actively recruited young associates for its capital markets team over the past two years, including those focused on the apartment sector, but cited the challenge of “getting those folks up to speed in time with what’s happening in the marketplace.” Adding the likes of Lupo, Jarvis and Oropeza allows Cushman to fill out its multifamily group from top to bottom, he said, as it takes the time to mentor and develop its talent pipeline.
“We saw this as a time to invest … We’re not going into our shell or into our corner and saying, ‘Hey, we’ll wait for the dust to clear.’ We’re building the practice group, we’re building the process,” he said. “We’re honing our craft, leveraging this team that fits in the middle and saying, ‘We are going be more prepared than anyone in the region to understand what the other side of the outcome of this is, simply because we invested the time and the money to grow.”
