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Sales of New York City apartment buildings tumbled to near-decade lows last year, after new rent rules scared investors away from properties with regulated units, Bloomberg reported. The dollar value of purchases across all boroughs fell 40% from the prior year to $6.91 billion, the lowest total since 2011, according to a report by brokerage Ariel Property Advisors. There were 290 multifamily deals -- a 36% decline, and the first year with fewer than 300 transactions in records dating to 2010. "The fact that there's no correlation between the amount you put into a building and the amount of rent you can charge has completely shifted investment interest in rent-stabilized buildings," Shimon Shkury, president of Ariel, said in an interview. A majority of Democratic state senators and assembly members have signed on to a "good cause" eviction bill, and backers seeking to build on that momentum released a poll Monday gauging public support for the concept, The Real Deal reported. The poll, conducted Jan. 13 to 19 by progressive think tank Data for Progress, found 47 percent of respondents would "strongly" and 29 percent "somewhat" support a proposal "to require that landlords have a good reason to evict a tenant," such as "not paying rent." Amazon is upping its presence in Staten Island, The Real Deal reported. The company has leased a warehouse spanning 450,000 square feet next to the 855,000-square-foot distribution center it opened on the West Shore in 2017, according to Crain's. The warehouses are part of the industrial hub by the Bayonne Bridge that Matrix Development Group is building called Matrix Global Logistics Park. The distribution center focuses on storing and sorting goods, while the new warehouse will focus on last-mile deliveries. It should be up and running by the summer. The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark interest rate steady and continued to signal policy would stay on hold for the time being as the U.S. enters a presidential election year, Bloomberg reported. The target range of the federal funds rate of 1.5% to 1.75% is "appropriate to support sustained expansion of economic activity,'' the Federal Open Market Committee said Wednesday, repeating language from the December statement. A recent uptick in activity in the Northern Manhattan area suggests that investors are becoming active again, GlobeSt reported, citing a report from Ariel Property Advisors. "The Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 eliminated or altered many different legal mechanisms to increase rents. We're still seeing how the market will adjust, but it is clear that investors are basing values much more off of in-place cash-flow versus future upside," says Victor Sozio, executive vice president and founding member of Ariel Property Advisors.
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