Editor’s note: This article was originally prepared for our content partner, GlobeSt.com.
PHILADELPHIA, PA—Multifamily properties are seeing robust activity around the country, but not everyone is focused on top quality luxury rental properties. Philadelphia based LEM Capital specializes in multifamily properties where a value-add strategy can be successful.
“What we’ve been studying for the past seven years is the demand and supply numbers for class B housing,” says Jay Eisner, a partner and co-founder of LEM Capital. Four million millennials will turn 22 every year between now and 2025, and the overhang of $1.4 trillion of student debt will keep millennials in apartments longer, he says.
At the other end, baby boomers are “the largest segment of apartment growth over the last ten years,” he says. “We continue to see growing demand for multifamily.”
You can watch the complete video interview with Jay Eisner in the player below.
The reason LEM focused on class B multifamily is that almost all new supply in the market is class-A “luxury style” housing.
“To justify the cost of new construction you really need to be able to achieve a rent of $2 a square foot or more,” he says. “The average rent in class B is closer to $1.25 a square foot, so there is a large spread between the cost to build class A and the cost to rent class A, and it’s almost impossible to build to a class B rent.”
LEM, like other class B investors, focuses on properties seen as “value-add” opportunities.
“People are very willing to pay for good quality apartments,” he says. “We’re buying properties that are 10-30 years old and generally spending between $10 and $15,000 a unit, opening up the apartment so they have a more contemporary design.”
LEM also creates newer amenities in older properties, including modern fitness centers, he says, or opening up a clubhouse, new furniture schemes, updates to pools and outdoor recreation and grill areas.
“We’re able to increase rents, because people want that kind of lifestyle,” he says. “Clearly it’s not going to be the same as a newly constructed property, but we want to give them a class A feel at a price that’s much more affordable.”
LEM is mainly focused on markets in the Southeast and Southwest, and the Denver market. The firm has interest in Sacramento, Seattle, Minneapolis, and Chicago, but deal flows are lower, Eisner says.
“They’re all places that are projected to have good population and job growth,” he says. “We look for cities where there are very diverse job drivers, good highway access, good school systems, good retail, just generally good places for people to live.”
LEM’s tenants earn between $35,000-$70,000 a year, a typical range for what Eisner calls the “blue- to grey-collar workforce.”
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Steve Lubetkin is the news director for StateBroadcastNews.com. Steve’s journalism background includes print and broadcast reporting for NJ news organizations. He refocused on multimedia journalism and podcast production after a long career in corporate branded journalism and public relations.
He has won numerous awards for his audio and video news reporting from the Garden State Journalists Association, and he has also been recognized for video by the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. He has produced a wide range of audio and video podcasts in his other role as managing partner of State Broadcast News’s parent, The Lubetkin Media Companies.
Steve is co-author, with Toronto-based podcasting pioneer Donna Papacosta, of the book, The Business of Podcasting: How to Take Your Podcasting Passion from the Personal to the Professional.
In March 2021, he was elected to the board of directors of the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, and in July 2021 he was named secretary of the chapter. In August 2021, he was honored by SPJ with one of the organization’s 2021 Howard S. Dubin Outstanding Pro Member Awards, given to regular members of an SPJ chapter who go above and beyond in serving their chapter.
Steve has been the computer columnist for the Jewish Community Voice of Southern New Jersey, since 1996.
Steve also has reported on-camera and produces virtual conferences for NJSpotlightNews.org, a public policy news coverage website focused on New Jersey government and industry; and for clients of StateBroadcastNews.com, a division of The Lubetkin Media Companies LLC.
From May-November 2019, he produced and reported a weekly podcast, The CRE News Hour, a news and features program focusing on the commercial real estate industry.
From 2014 to 2019 he was New Jersey and Philadelphia editor for GlobeSt.com and filled in covering Chicago/Midwest and Atlanta.
Steve has also served (from August 2017 to March 2018) as national broadcast news correspondent for CEOReport.com, a news website focused on practical advice for senior executives in small- and medium-sized companies.
Earlier in his career, Steve reported on rock music at the Jersey Shore for the Asbury Park Press, and was a broadcast news anchor and production engineer for WJLK-AM & FM, then owned by the Press. He also worked as a general assignment reporter for the Red Bank Register, Shrewsbury, NJ.
You can email Steve at steve@statebroadcastnews.com.
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