By Lev Mavashev
THE COVID pandemic has many New York City property owners
feeling like a deer in headlights: Should I push forward? Take a step
back? Or should I just freeze and brace
for impact from the worst disaster to strike the world in living memory?
While little is certain in these uncertain times, New York
will never move forward unless its real estate industry moves forward. Next to
finance and big tech, the industry is the biggest driver of the state economy
and its 12-month enforced hiatus has cost the state $1.6 billion in lost tax
revenue.
The state can’t just print money to make up that shortfall,
so it is doing one of the only things that is certain in life: taxing. And it
has the real estate industry in its crosshairs.
From hikes in property taxes to capital gains, personal income to corporate tax, the state is creating a clear roadmap to recouping what’s been lost. At the Federal level, the new Biden Administration is looking to abolish 1031 tax exchanges and the banks are jittery over fears of inflation that could drive up interest rates.
As gloomy as this all sounds, real estate has always been a
glass half full kind of business and, for all of the reasons above, 2021 will
be a transformative year for New York City real estate as both sellers and
buyers position themselves to maximize the value of their assets and hedge
their investments against any prolonged slump.
Already, 2021’s quarterly investment sales numbers are
showing that the players are getting back in the game and, while the numbers
are a little different, the rules are still the same. Even after the upheaval
of a global pandemic, New York City continues to be viewed as stable and secure
real estate opportunity by investors, with multifamily the most coveted asset
class beyond the current COVID darling of industrial real estate.
For New York’s multifamily owners considering their future,
a number of factors currently play to their favor should they consider a sale
while 1031 exchanges are still a possibility.
First, we are more than a year into the Housing Stability
and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (HSTPA) that re-wrote the rules for how
owners of the city’s one million stabilized units could raise rents. While
there has undoubtedly been a contraction in values, the market has adjusted
both in terms of operating expenses and unwriting.
Pre-HSTPA, rent regulated apartment buildings that were
trading at sub-4% cap rates are now trading at 6% caps. Multifamily owners who
have been holding off on moving forward should consider this a window of
opportunity before the slew of tax changes coming down the pipe deals another
negative blow to valuation dynamics.
Right now, unregulated multifamily assets, particularly
those with a protected tax class (eg 2A or 2B tax classes), are generating a
great deal of interest among investors eager to lock into a stable investment
with a long-term upside strategy. Newly
constructed 70/30 properties built under the Affordable Housing NY Tax Program
are also catching the eye of investors who see plenty of upside in the free
market units, while enjoying a 35-year tax abatement. With COVID causing a
contraction in free market rents, no short-term fix to income stagnation and
the prospect of crippling tax hikes, it makes sense for those owners to cash in
now, too.
To maximize value of your assets in the current environment,
it pays to consult an expert who is well informed about a market where what you
know is just as important as who you know. We have completed numerous deals throughout
the COVID pandemic that demonstrate not just the resiliency of the New York
multifamily market, but the underlying value that can produce outsize results
for both seller and buyer.
Most recently, we were able to secure a $25 million buyer
for a portfolio of 115-units, all rent regulated apartments across five
buildings in Queens. We helped a
landlord with a negative cash flow and regulatory red tape liquidate a 255-unit
portfolio, by working with local housing agencies and canvassing qualified
operators who ultimately bid up the closing price to $22 million. Furthermore, we recently signed up a contract
on a package of tax class 2B buildings in Brooklyn at a price of over $1000/ft
achieving a post-COVID record on behalf of a seller looking to capitalize on
his asset and a buyer looking to grow his portfolio of stable multifamily
properties in prime neighborhoods with potential for future growth.
Each of these deals is representative of our philosophy of working with both sellers and buyers to broker a trade that exceeds their expectations with the kind of insider insight that creates options for building capital. While COVID may have caused a temporary paralysis akin to the deer in headlights, there is no doubt in our minds that the bricks and mortar of the Big Apple will always present a pathway forward.
Lev Mavashev is the founder and principal of Alpha Realty
