Name: Ken Ginsberg
Title: Senior Commercial Broker, Real Living Wareck D’Ostilio
Age: 58
Experience: 33 years
Following stints practicing law and running his own mortgage company, Ken Ginsberg joined Real Living Wareck D’Ostilio as a commercial broker in 2015. Ginsberg was elected chairperson of the New Haven Middlesex Association of Realtors’ Commercial Investment Division, a group of 120 commercial brokers in the New Haven County region, late last year. The organization is looking to upgrade online databases to put more information on commercial leases at agents’ fingertips.
Q: What are your specialties within the commercial market?
A: Pretty much all types, but most of my business has been retail and industrial. I haven’t done very much multifamily recently and I think that’s primarily because there’s not been a lot available. That’s indicative of the market. I’ve got listings from Torrington all the way over to Brooklyn and down to New Haven, but I was born and raised in New Haven County, so that is my home area.
Industrial properties haven’t been built since the 1990s and they’re usually the first to be vacated during a recession and one of the last to be occupied during a recovery. Now that the recession is showing signs of recovery, the occupancies are at very high levels right now. With low interest rates, owner-occupants are buying the properties they once rented. It’s created a very limited supply of investment properties. These are being sold for a fraction of the cost of new construction.
Q: How would you rate the health of the retail market?
A: It’s unstable right now. New Haven is on fire. There are a lot of retailers looking to go into New Haven. There’s a tremendous boom in new construction, with multifamily residences in the center of New Haven. The retailers, the bars and restaurants are realizing there’s a good residential base and realizing there’s strong demand. The Boston Post Road properties, there’s still a few vacancies and retail is still questionable. Most of the spaces are smaller, 2,000 and 3,000 square feet of space.
Q: Have you seen any movement on retail rents?
A: Rents are static right now. I don’t think they’re going up. There’s still more supply than demand, and the big-box users, with the news that Sears is possibly filing for bankruptcy and Macy’s is closing up stores, causes a lot of concern for retailers. A lot of the users are in mixed-use developments. It seems to be what towns are encouraging, being close to railroad stations and building multifamily on the upper floors. That seems to be the growing trend right now.
Q: Which industries are driving the demand for industrial space?
A: I deal mostly in smaller industrial spaces, under 30,000 square feet, and we’re getting industrial owners coming in from New York who are opening up outlets or warehouses in Connecticut. I just leased a 25,000-square-foot warehouse space for a beauty supply company. They feel the Connecticut market is so inexpensive to purchase a building it balances out their transportation costs. It’s enlightening to see New Yorkers are recognizing Connecticut. There have been some record prices in Connecticut for retail and office that have been sold to New York investors.
Q: How long have you been a member of the CID and what are your goals as chairperson?
A: I’ve been a member for about 15 years. We have a very strong group and a very active group. The camaraderie in the group is, in my opinion, unparalleled. We share information and help each other. It is so far from cutthroat; it amazes me all the time when people help each other out. We all get business done with a handshake, treating each other well.
We’ve been talking with Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC) about handling listings and working with MLS to consolidate the input of the data we have to enter. On the MLS side, it’s clearly tailored toward residential. They’ve been very open to our input. We’ve been working with CERC about uploading info as well as getting a public website on properties we advertise. The goal for us is to work with CERC to make sure the general public can use it as a vehicle to find our listings. We’re also looking to establish a lease database. We all have access to sales info from a variety of websites. We’re creating a rental division to share information about closed leases. Except by making a lot of phone calls, there’s no one database that gives us that information.
Ginsburg’s Five Favorite Cruising Destinations:
- Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands
- Block Island
- Newport, Rhode Island
- Palm Beach, Florida
- Montauk, New York
