Buying Apartment Buildings in New York and Beyond in a Strategic Bet

When Luis Rinaldini, co-founder of Groton Merchant Bankers, wanted to add New York apartment buildings to the firm’s investment portfolio in 2010, he took a chance on two young college graduates to make it happen.

It was an unusual and risky bet. After all, Graham Jones and his brother Gregory had no real estate experience and little more than college degrees, unbridled ambition and a lot of chutzpah. It was also a time when the economy had tumbled into the worst recession since the Great Depression. But the two brothers saw a chance to scoop up real estate at bargain prices.

“In the midst of chaos is when you really have the ability to create something,” Gregory said in a recent interview. Mr. Rinaldini agreed to mentor them and eventually invested in their first apartment building.

Since then, the brothers, through their company GRJ L.L.C., have acquired six more buildings at a cost of about $90 million. Their strategy? Purchase dilapidated buildings at a low price, refurbish them and raise the rents, they said. They now own more than 500 apartment units encompassing 422,000 square feet of real estate in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Englishtown, N.J.

ReadMore…http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/business/smallbusiness/buying-apartment-buildings-in-new-york-and-beyond-in-a-strategic-bet.html

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