Commercial Real Estate: Capitalizing on ‘the golden age of multifamily’ | Jax Daily Record | Jacksonville Daily Record

After the best year of their careers, Newmark Knight Frank brokers gave Erik Bjornson and Tyler Nilsson the good fortune to work in the Florida multi-family market.

The two closed 25 sales worth nearly $ 600 million in 2020. The sale of the Menlo apartments, valued at $ 73.5 million, was the eighth highest commercial property sale in 2020.

“It’s kind of like the golden age of multiple families,” said Bjornson.

“Because interest rates are low and returns are not really getting on other investments, including the stock market, people track the return on hard assets in real estate, and especially in apartment buildings,” he said.

Björnson and Nilsson cover the area from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach and across the Florida Panhandle.

About 90% of their transactions take place in Jacksonville.

Björnson is focused on selling investments while Nilsson is selling land for multi-family projects. Both areas of the Jacksonville multi-family market are strong and are expected to remain so.

They said population and employment growth and the affordable cost of living are critical to keeping the multi-family market in northeast Florida healthy.

Now that Jacksonville is in the top 50 statistical metropolitan areas, larger institutional investors are starting to take notice.

“With this tailwind into the pandemic, the Jacksonville market has really asserted itself on the multi-family side with good occupancy rates, strong rents and still strong population growth,” said Björnson.

He said the foundations for existing apartment buildings in Jacksonville are strong, “and some of the strongest foundations you will see anywhere in the country.”

For the sale of land and the development of apartment buildings, according to Nilsson, there has been an influx of new developers interested in the market in recent years.

“We have no shortage of groups in Jacksonville looking to develop multi-families in some way,” said Nilsson.

Newmark has Florida offices in Jacksonville, Boca Raton, Orlando, and Tampa. In each of these offices, brokers often work together on deals to create cohesion and allow the offices to share information, according to Björnson.

Bjornson said a Newmark presence in each of Florida’s major cities helped generate the highest market share in multi-family investment sales in the state.

“We are present in every single Florida market and have a good team in all of those Florida markets,” said Nilsson.

“Because of this information sharing and cohesion, it’s easier for us to get a timely execution for our customers,” he said.

“And ultimately in a way that gives the best result for them.”