Page 18 - RE-NJ

16 MARCH 2025
Martin Brady (left), executive ve v vic ice e
president for sales and leasing
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Photo by Aaron Houston for Real Estate NJ
OWNING THE SPACE
As New Jersey’s luxury housing boom continues,
The Marketing Directors remains a dominant force and a key player
“
H ere’s the kitchen” is not a phrase
you’ll hear during a tour led by
The Marketing Directors, the
residential development advisory fi rm.
Not if Jackie Urgo has anything to say
about it.
“It’s not that,” said Urgo, the fi rm’s
president, explaining the ongoing,
intensive training that its agents go
through when they’re leasing or selling
a client’s building.
“It is ‘Here’s why the kitchen is the
best kitchen you’ve seen’ — and the
reasons why.”
There’s no doubt that details matter,
especially in the hyper-competitive
world of high-end residential real
estate. The Marketing Directors has
proven that in New York City, where
it was founded in 1980, and in New
Jersey, where it has spent the last
three decades as a central player in
the luxury apartment boom. That has
made it all but ubiquitous in Jersey
City and the state’s other top markets,
thanks to not only its fl agship sales
and leasing services but the critical
research and consulting it provides to
builders during site acquisition, design
and other phases.
“Yes, we’ve been doing this for
decades, but we want our answers to
be based on real fact,” Urgo said. “And
that’s what our research department
is able to give us to make our product
and our pricing decisions and to give
developers a confi dence level that they
By Joshua Burd
should go after that site.”
The Marketing Directors arrived in
New Jersey in the mid-1990s when it
was tapped to sell the landmark Port
Liberte condominium project in Jersey
City. Since then, it has leased more
than 30,000 apartments across 123
rental properties in the Garden State,
while selling another 5,400 homes in
34 condominium projects. Those totals
include more than 25,000 rental or
for-sale units in the last 10 years alone,
and New Jersey currently accounts for
60 percent of its business, up from 45
percent historically.
With a team of about 70, the company
has a client roster in New Jersey
that includes the likes of Ironstate
Development, KRE Group, Panepinto
Properties and others, many of which
have used its services for 25 years or
more. Some 85 percent of its business
comes from repeat clients, a fact that’s
most evident in high-density markets
like the Gold Coast, where it often
works on multiple buildings in the
same neighborhood or around the
same train station.
That’s a good thing, according to Urgo
and the fi rm’s Marty Brady, who cite
Jersey City’s resurgent Journal Square
neighborhood as an example. Among
other high-profi le assignments, the
company has managed lease-up for
KRE’s three-phase, 1,840-unit Journal
Squared project that has come online
over the past decade. It has done so
for several other nearby buildings