By Dan Orlando
Sweden has become the latest Scandinavian country tempted into New York’s real estate market.
Akelius Residential Property AB, which owns apartments in Europe and Canada, has made its first US purchase in Brooklyn.
The company has paid $12.66 million for 1153-1159 President Street in Crown Heights, a 41-unit property built in 1920.
And the company anticipates the deal is the first of many it expects to make in New York.
“We’re really looking in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Harlem and the Bronx,” said Kunal Chothani, Akelius’s regional vice president of the New York City.
“We really like Brooklyn, we’re in major markets around the world so our focus has always been to go into the largest markets and Brooklyn has a lot of population growth,” he added.
Chothani said that the company is very interested in the New York multi-family market specifically. “Our key focus is access to public transportation,” he added.
Akelius was represented in its purchase by Rosewood Realty Group president, Aaron Jungreis in the deal.
“The property is a half a block from the subway,” added Chothani, noting that Akelius is a “long term holder” who plans to renovate the property and “let the building naturally take its course.”
Jordan Milewicz, the company’s manager for the US, added, “We are proud to have been able to acquire this property. The property features interesting architectural details and we believe in Crown Heights as a strong neighborhood with a positive outlook for the future.”
Chothani said that Akelius owns 50,000 apartments in prime metropolitan locations in countries such as Sweden, Germany, the UK, Canada, and France and expects this purchase to be the first of several in the U.S. market.
The firm’s long term plans for their future domestic investments are “up in the air” according to Chothani who said that the foray into the United States involves “taking it one property at a time.”
Sweden is following on the heels of its neighbor Norway, which invested over $880 million in the New York real estate market in 2013.
In 2014, the country’s federally-run Government Pension Fund of Norway purchased $7.6 billion worth of property globally, including a $401.9 million piece of the 40-story 11 Times Square.
Akelius’s operations in the United States will be executed under their subsidiary, Akelius US LLS.
