Two East Orange multifamily properties garner $11.75M 

284 Prospect St., East Orange. – GEBROE HAMMER ASSOCIATES

Gebroe-Hammer Associates said Oct. 5 it recently arranged the $11.75 million sale of a City Center apartment-property package totaling 88 units.

The assets included 255 Prospect St. (42 units) and 284 Prospect St. (46 units), both of which are garden-style buildings in a tree-lined residential neighborhood. The Gebroe-Hammer team of Executive Managing Director David Oropeza, along with Senior Vice President Debbie Pomerantz, exclusively represented the seller, F&C Realty Co. LLC, and procured the buyer, a private investor, in the transaction.

Collectively, the properties feature a mix of studio to three-bedroom layouts, a portion of which were recently renovated.

According to Oropeza, the Prospect Street properties offer new ownership a historically stabilized tenancy and an opportunity to achieve repositioning maturation.

“East Orange’s multifamily investment and redevelopment momentum has accelerated in the past 18 – 24 months,” said Oropeza. “Characterized by a multifamily-dense early-to-mid-20th Century vintage of properties, the city has approximately 30% of its dwellings classified as small apartment buildings and 50% as mid-to-larger apartment complexes. As such, the existing housing stock is ripe for repositioning while under-utilized parcels are primed redevelopment.”

Oropeza, who has spent his entire 35-year professional investment brokerage career with Gebroe-Hammer Associates focused on East Essex County, notes this wave of multifamily investment in East Orange mirrors that of its urban neighbor Newark, and is now extending into Orange and Irvington as well.

Oropeza

“In just the past decade, East Orange has evolved from its urban-industrial roots to become a popular residential, business and tourist destination favored by professionals who work throughout North and Central Jersey as well as New York City,” said Oropeza. “The city also experienced a surge in apartment-rental demand during the COVID-19 pandemic with the migration of former big-city dwellers who have chosen to remain in place in what has become a ‘new norm’ work-from-home era.”

According to Oropeza, East Orange’s renewal is being driven by young professionals and established millennials seeking affordable apartment-home living near employment centers, mass transit access points, educational centers and historic green space. The city has earned some of the highest walk scores in the nation thanks to a high concentration of shopping, dining and lifestyle services.

“East Orange and its municipal neighbors also are home to outstanding institutions for higher learning, all of which serve as a feeder for the tenant pipeline,” said Oropeza. “In addition to educating bachelor’s, graduate, medical and law students, each serves as primary employment and research hubs for a wide range of clerical/tech-support occupations, professors and high-level of executives.”