Nathan Benelyahou’s NJB Management Pays $43M for UWS Multifamily Properties

There’s no time like the present to be a multifamily buyer in New York, according to 33-year-old broker turned real estate investor Nathan Benelyahou. 

Benelyahou’s property management firm, NJB Management, just picked up an interconnected pair of rent-stabilized Upper West Side apartment buildings for $42.8 million, according to city property records made public Tuesday.

That’s about a 35 percent discount from the $66 million Dalan Management CEO Andrew Wrublin paid for the buildings at 226 West 97th Street and 2568 Broadway in June 2018, property records show. Wrublin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Dalan carried out a series of capital improvements that allowed the firm to deregulate the majority of the buildings’ 65 units ahead of the state’s 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, according to Benelyahou and city building permits. 

About two dozen units remain rent-stabilized or rent-controlled.

The properties, which span two tax lots but share a lobby and a bank of three elevators, fetched about eight times their rent roll in the deal with NJB, according to Benelyahou. 

“It’s a turn-key asset,” Benelyahou said. “I’m making money on day one, and that’s a credit to Dalan. They did a magnificent job renovating and dividing units. They handed me a really nice building.” 

Even so, rent-stabilized landlords have dealt with a significant loss of value on their buildings since the 2019 changes to rent-stabilization laws, with one broker previously telling Commercial Observer it cut valuations for those properties 30 to 50 percent.

“A lot of landlords are struggling right now,” Benelyahou said. “Upper Manhattan is in shambles. It’s scary what has happened to valuations in Harlem and Washington Heights.”

But Benelyahou chalked the lower valuation of the Upper West Side properties up to interest rates. 

JLL (JLL)’s Hall Oster brokered the deal and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

NJB financed the purchase with a $30.3 million commercial mortgage-backed securities loan through Bank of America, which Benelyahou said he plans to refinance as soon as interest rates drop back to around 5 percent.

“We’re in it for the long run,” Benelyahou said. “We’re content with the purchase and plan to keep these buildings.”

NJB has snapped up a few other multifamily properties in recent years, including 2794 Broadway just a few blocks away, which the firm bought for $9.5 million last year. 

The majority of the firm’s portfolio is in northern Manhattan, where NJB owns several hundred units, Benelyahou said.

Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.