I don’t just “talk about real estate”…I do it! In a career that spans 5 decades in real estate, I’ve designed, built, renovated, financed, and successfully marketed, leased and sold all types residential, commercial, retail and industrial real estate. Most of the projects were even successful. And I didn’t just develop real estate with other peoples money…I put my money where my mouth is, and invested in every project.
Here’s some of what I developed:
- Custom and spec homes
- Large scale single family and multi-family developments
- Retirements and active adult communities
- In-fill multi-family projects
- Mixed-use waterfront communities…retail and residential
- Office buildings
- Large box retail centers and mid sized strip malls, including movie theaters
- And warehouses
And I loved every second of it (well…almost) especially when I was challenged with complex projects…which was just about every project that I worked on since 1984, when I moved to northern New Jersey. These projects pushed me to find creative ways to finance, design, build, and market, so they would sell and lease.
I always sold and leased my projects and homes for higher prices than the brokers thought we could get, because we learned how to tap into the mindset of buyers. With a keen eye for understanding what buyers were looking for, and anticipating future trends, Steven provided designs that weren’t typical of other builders. His philosophy was “if you do what everyone else does, then you have to compete on price. But if your designs are different and sexy, you can create a niche market, where you don’t have to compete.
This is the same philosophy, energy and passion that I bring to Rating Real Estate
Every day brings another opportunity to market what I have to sell, and that’s what I do. Every day of the week we market homes to sell them at higher prices.
I learned from building all of these projects and learning to be a marketing fanatic that you may have the most beautiful, well priced and incredibly built home…but no one knows that!
Steven’s great at telling the story of your home, and showing people why they should want to live there.
There’s no one better at it.
From concept, to site selection, design, financing , building, managing…and especially to marketing…I have worked on just about every imaginable type of real estate:
Residential: first time buyers homes and condo’s, townhomes, rental apartments, 55 and over housing, large scale developments up to 1,200 homes and small infill projects of 6 units, waterfront communities, single family spec homes, and the most ultra luxury homes and details imaginable.
My last major project was developing Tamcrest Estates in Alpine and Cresskill, NJ (with Starwood/Heller Enterprises). Tamcrest Estates became the most expensive residential enclave in the northeast, with homes ranging in price from $4-50 million.
Tamcrest Estates: Alpine & Cresskill, New Jersey
When we (Starwood/Heller Enterprises) started developing Tamcrest Estates, in Alpine and Cresskill NJ) our vision was for it to become an attractive addition to the local landscape. And did it ever! And it didn’t happen by accident.
Tamcrest Estates became the most expensive and exclusive residential enclave in the Northeast, and has set the standard in design, quality, luxury and price…and has become the standard to which all homes in the area are compared. Even though prices have decreased somewhat since 2008, every home is still valued from $3.5M – $45M…and that’s in a bad market! Not bad for a project that every realtor said would never price this high.
I was lucky to be responsible for selling the project…and I also designed and built the first two homes to get the community started.
It was a challenge that we met and surpassed at every level.
Click to see some of my custom work close up
Mixed-Use Residential, Retail, Commercial and Industrial Projects:
Edgewater, NJ
- City Place: Mixed-use residential, retail and hotel: CAN DO Fitness, Anthropologie, The Gap, Panera Bread, Flemmings Steak House, Baumgarts, Victoria’s Secret, Homewood Suites Hilton…and more
- Edgewater Multiplex Cinemas: We had an incredible grand opening for this ideally located theater project. Our two special guests included Sumner Redstone (CEO of Viacom, and who leased the theater from us) and John Cameron (famed creator of the Titanic and Avatar movies). Two really cool guys
- Edgewater Plaza: Target, Staples, Outback, Pathmark, Bed Bath and Beyond, Models, Starbucks, Old Navy, TJ Max and more.
- Edgewater Town Center: Mixed-use waterfront project: residential and retail. Includes Whole Foods, Duane Reed , Sleepy’s, Mens Warehouse and more
East Hanover, NJ
- East Hanover Plaza: Costco, Sports Authority and more… and dining. Included demo of 150,000sf industrial building, DEP remediation, State roadway additions ie. jug handles and lane enhancements
- Sony Movie Theaters: parking garage and retail stores. Included 13 acres of wetlands remediation, and constructing two highway jug handles, widening Rt 10 and adding traffic signals
- Office building: 150,000 sf built to suit state-of-the-art pharmaceutical offices and labs
- Warehouse building: 55,000sf with offices
- Warehouse building: 85,000sf with offices
Eating Real Estate 