Brooklyn real estate investment sales surpass 2019 levels despite pandemic: TerraCRG report

According to TerraCRG Chief Executive Ofer Cohen, the final quarter of 2021 is a good indicator of what this year should look like.

“The remainder of 2022 will be very similar to the final quarter of 2021 in terms of velocity and volume,” Cohen said.

Brooklyn has seen several large institutional sales over the past year, and the top 10 deals in the borough accounted for more than 25% of total dollar volume. There were seven deals for more than $100 million each.

The biggest deal of the year was the sale of The Denizen in Bushwick for $506 million. Atlas Capital bought it from Yoel Goldman in the fourth quarter. The second largest deal was the $220 million sale of 85 Jay St. in Dumbo, and the third largest was the $128 million sale of 12 Metrotech Center in downtown Brooklyn.

The Downtown Brooklyn area, which includes Boerum Hill and Gowanus, saw the largest dollar volume at $1.7 billion, while north-central Brooklyn, which includes Bushwick and Crown Heights, saw the most transactions: 220.

Mixed-use properties were the most popular by deal volume and dollar volume, with 458 transactions totaling about $1.8 billion, according to the report. Multifamily homes ranked second in both categories with 287 deals valued at about $1.4 billion.

Part of the reason activity in 2021 exceeded 2019 levels was that 2019 wasn’t a particularly busy year for real estate. Activity in the Brooklyn market peaked in the mid-2010s before declining between 2016 and 2019, and a tough new rental law the state legislature passed in 2019 limited interest in the multifamily trade, Cohen said.

“It’s been an active year,” he said of 2019, “but I would describe it as kind of a hangover year.”