What we have been up to: February 2019 Newsletter
We hope you are all settling into 2019 and your new year’s resolutions are still in progress. For Leaseum Partners, our year started with our Portfolio Manager, Michael Chetrit, purchasing a Manhattan office building, 850 Third Avenue, from Chinese HNA Group for $422M.
Leaseum Announcements
Our Portfolio Manager, Michael Chetrit, Buys Manhattan Building
Our Portfolio Manager, Michael Chetrit has purchased 850 Third Avenue from HNA Group, a Chinese Conglomerate. The building is in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan just blocks away from major attractions including Central Park and Times Square. The building counts the New York Police Department (NYPD) and Discovery Communications as tenants. Read about the acquisition in Bloomberg or in Reuters. With this latest acquisition, Michael Chetrit now has over 2 million square feet of New York City properties under management.
Market Outlook
Job growth and a strong economy signals good times ahead for Manhattan leases
The commercial real estate industry in New York City is expected to have a strong and vibrant 2019. Colliers International reported that the average asking price for rent in Manhattan was $75.90 per square foot, with a vacancy rate at 9.5% — the lowest in three years. The Real Deal reported that leasing activity hit a record setting year at 32.4 million square feet, the highest annual total since 2000.
2018 also proved to be a great year for NYC’s multifamily market. The sector experienced year-on-year increases for every metric across the board and buoyed by a sharp increase in institutional sales, hit a two-year high in dollar volume. Overall, NYC saw $11.1 billion worth of multifamily transactions across 473 deals and 896 buildings last year. In retrospect to 2017, these figures represented a staggering 55% increase in dollar volume, 5% increase in transaction volume and a 16% increase in building volume. There were 14 deals valued at $100 million or more in 2018 to just the six in the year prior, with the largest being Brooksville Company and Rockpoint Group’s $905 million acquisition of Starret City, a Brooklyn affordable housing complex.
More digital securities exchanges are opening up for trading
The last month has seen a variety of announcements from digital securities exchanges opening up for trading. Overstock.com’s, tZERO, one of the most anticipated exchanges on the market began trading in late January. Also in January, Broker-dealer and ATS SharesPost executed its first secondary transaction in Blockchain Capital’s BCAP digital securities. SharesPost now allows accredited investors to trade digital securities and custody them on their marketplace.
Meanwhile, Nasdaq continues to show their interest in the emerging ecosystem through leading a $20M investment into Symbiont. Symbiont has already been working with Nasdaq to develop a platform dedicated to regulated digital securities — further emphasizing Nasdaq’s increasing involvement in the space.
There are an increasing number of discussions around the impact of digital securities in the market and everyone, from the regulators to major financial institutions, is taking notice.
What to expect next
We have been speaking and attending a number of events across the Real Estate and Blockchain space. On Monday, February 4th, we attended a Digital Securities Offering event hosted by our advisor Jonny Fry. On February 5th, Lior Abehassera, our Head of Investor Relations, joined a panel in London to speak on Asset Management and Tokenization on the Blockchain.
We will have numerous big announcements in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned. For any questions or comments please join our Telegram group or email contact@leaseumpartners.com
Disclaimer:
This article is given for information purposes only and no part of it is legally binding or enforceable, nor is it meant to be. Whilst we believe that the information provided in this article is reliable, its accuracy is not guaranteed and no warranty is given or implied. Certain statements contained in this article constitute forward-looking information involving known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual events to differ materially from the estimates implied or expressed in such forward-looking statements. More information about the ICO is available at https://www.leaseumpartners.com
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