Valley West Apartments, an apartment complex in Wood-Ridge — Courtesy: Gebroe-Hammer Associates
By Joshua Burd
The original developer of a Wood-Ridge apartment building has sold the complex, in one of several newly announced transactions by Gebroe-Hammer Associates.
Brokers with the firm represented the seller of the property, Valley West Apartments, which commanded a price per unit of $250,000. Gebroe-Hammer did not disclose the number of units or the overall sale price, but said the deal came as part of $154.3 million worth of recent transactions spanning roughly 840 units in Bergen and Passaic counties.
Greg Pine, an executive vice president with the Livingston-based firm, represented the original developer of Valley West, which was built around 1974 and includes a medical office space and all one-bedroom layouts, and procured the private buyer. Senior Vice President Debbie Pomerantz also was a member of the brokerage team.
“While Bergen County was once exclusively known as an affluent suburb of single-family homes, it has since expanded its identity and sense of character to include modern-day transit-focused urban-sophisticate living — a lifestyle once associated with big cities,” Pine said. “As redevelopment and the delivery of new-construction market-rate units around municipal city centers and train stations have fed this decade-long transformation, existing multifamily properties are now considered prime investment-acquisition opportunities because of their inherent value-add and property repositioning potential.”
During a recent six-week stretch, Gebroe-Hammer also brokered multifamily sales in the likes of Palisades Park, Maywood and Ridgefield. According to a news release, each posed an opportunity for new ownership to implement modest capital improvements, primarily to kitchens and baths, in order to achieve upper-percentile market-rate rents and significant property appreciation over the long term.
The same goes for Passaic County, the firm said, citing two separate transactions in Clifton involving an average per-unit sale price of $180,455. The borough’s downtown section, defined as Main Avenue extending from the city of Passaic to the Route 45 overpass and at Clifton Avenue from First Street to Lexington Avenue, has been targeted as a special improvement district.
“Clifton, southwest Passaic County and the county as a whole — including its county seat of Paterson — have been leaders in the redevelopment and rehabilitation of its existing housing stock,” said Pomerantz, who is the firm’s Passaic County and North Jersey market specialist. “These initiatives have resulted in a dramatic rebranding for dynamic, transit-centric hubs that appeal to a multi-generational tenant demographic, from millennials and families to empty nesters and retirees.”
