‘We’re trying to stay in our apartments’
Investment fi rm rapidly buying up Park Slope property, jacking up rents
BY BEN VERDE
A private investment fi rm
has been rapidly buying up
real estate around Park Slope
and jacking up rents — leaving
dozens of cash-strapped
tenants scrambling to fi nd a
solution.
“They are going after
young families. They are going
after people who already
have a lot of stress on them,”
said Ahn-Thu Nguyen, a tenant
of 70 Prospect Park West.
The private-equity backed
real estate fi rm Greenbrook
Partners snapped up Nguyen’s
building earlier this year, adding
it to their growing catalog
of roughly 80 other buildings
in the surrounding area, and
have been informing tenants
that they will not be renewing
their leases.
The situation has become
so widespread that the residents
of Greenbook’s various
properties are banding together,
re-forming tenant associations
in some buildings,
to make contact with tenants
and work to keep people in
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their homes.
“We’re just families trying
to stay in our apartments,”
said Tyler Penn, another
renter at 70 Prospect Park
West. “That’s what this is all
about.”
According to its website,
the Manhattan-based company
specializes in “undercapitalized
assets located in
growth-oriented and transitional
submarkets of New
York City” and “creates value
through rigorous property
management, asset management,
repositioning, and redevelopment.”
Among the buildings which
the fi rm has purchased during
the pandemic include two adjoining
properties at the corner
of Fourth Avenue and 11th
Street, along with 225 13th St.,
157 Fifth Ave., and 38 Prospect
Park Southwest.
Many of those buildings
have already been vacated of
their former market rate tenants,
and the landlord is in
the process of renovating the
The former storefront of D’Mai Urban Spa, which was evicted by Greenbook. Photo by Ben Verde
Continued on page 16
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