On a bustling block in the Rego Park neighborhood of Queens, above a pharmacy and a bagel shop, sits the unmarked office of My Ideal Property. The long blocks outside are punctuated with Russian Cyrillic signs. Rego Park and nearby Forest Hills are home to a tight-knit community of Bukharians, first- and second-generation Jewish immigrants from Central Asia who migrated to the area after the Soviet Union collapsed.
The men, who called Serhant in 2015 with a deal, grew up in this diaspora. One of them, Isaac Aronov, graduated from Forest Hills High school in 2004. Public records show he landed a job as a mortgage broker at an office in Rego Park. It was the heyday of the boom. Housing prices were higher than they’d ever been. But the frothy market he entered was already heading toward disaster.
After the crash, Aronov, like Wall Street, was nimble enough to recognize that there was opportunity in distress. In 2008, he started My Ideal Property with some friends from the neighborhood. They were young, ambitious, and willing to work hard. With what one former partner described on his website as “zero experience or financial support,” they began buying homes in some stage of foreclosure.
They gravitated toward the majority black and Latino neighborhoods that were hubs of subprime lending before the crash, and later accounted for over three-quarters of New York City’s foreclosure filings. Taking out short-term, high-interest private loans from wealthy backers in Manhattan and Long Island, they bought fast.
It was a lucrative time to be buying, and investors across the city were busy. A recent analysis by the nonprofit Center for NYC Neighborhoods found that, between 2014 and 2016, more than 5,800 homes were “flipped,” or bought and sold within a year. Half of them were in some stage of foreclosure. Within this rush, the men behind My Ideal Property carved out a significant niche. By 2016, the company had done more than $250 million in deals and employed over 100 people, according one founder's website.
But that aggressive move into troubled neighborhoods has come at a cost for their inhabitants.
16 comments:
wow I can't believe I like something written by Buzzfeed(ironically enough it's their target audience hipsters that are supporting the questionable practices listed in the article)
Good for them. We need more such entrepreneurial people in NYC who take risks during market lows to make new opportunities.
oh that's so terrible that the neighborhood isn't a slum anymore. where will the drug dealers and pimps be able to take food stamps and welfare money off unwed mothers?
I am surprised that Isaac Aronov wasn't indicted for something. I guess it's only a matter of time. I knew him at school and he was always a nasty arrogant little shit of non-existent integrity or morals.
Bed-stuy and Bushwick are still slums, just bleached and sanitized versions of slums. The drug dealers are still around too, don't kid yourselves citizens.
The street crime of those towns have been replaced with the legal crimes of predatory equity and persistent harassment tactics.
My ideal property engages in shock doctrine style acquisitions. Their achievements are nothing to be admired. What makes this more heinous is that these houses were poached as part of a promotion and storyline for a reality T.V. show.
""Isaac Aronov wasn't indicted for something""
Never happen, the law will never touch Jews unless its a murder charge or class A or B felony. Especially "poor and impoverished refugees bettering themselves"
We have a 1/2 dozen rapes on record going back over 15 years in NYC alone involving Harvey Weinstein to prove this. 100s involving TV and film executives --The cops & DAs did nothing and are STILL doing nothing.
Weinstein does his 3 hour "treatment" class then goes out and plays golf, expensive restaurants in Arizona. --He's out in public yet Ca or NY cops wont touch or extradite him, not even try. Corruption & payola rotten to the core !!
Same shit with these Bukrah hustlers breaking countless laws and shitting over everybody and everything.
I just hope they stay in Forest Hills and Jamaica where nobody really gives a shit.
The drug dealers of Bed-stuy and Bushwick would skin and kill these Russians alive (in that order) id they pulled this steal & colonize shit in their neighborhood.
--and the Bukharin's & Chinese know it.
Weird, the drug dealers don't mind Indians but absolutely hate Bukharin's.
Perhaps somebody knows ?
It's boggling how 99% of buzzfeed is utter garbage, but the long-form articles are good reading. BTW anybody up on local events knows a few drug-labs were busted in the last year...in ritzy high rises in LIC and in REGO PARK by SAUNDERS. LOL...white people just get away with pushing longer, that's all, because they hide it better.
Always someone looking to make a quick high-risk buck. I'm sure forest hills will see many more move in. Funny how everyone's too afraid to complain about that, except in the most circuitous of ways (oh no, their buildings are ugly!) Their buildings ARE ugly. But their greedy natures are uglier.
"In March, Yariv Katz, the lawyer who encouraged her to sign away her house, was among 11 people indicted for allegedly trying to defraud people out of their homes. Indicted with him was a second attorney, Michael Herskowitz, whose name also appears on Riera’s paperwork."
Sweet music, one way or another - they'll face the consequences of their actions.
Speaking of tower crime, there were busts of upscale tenants and of owners in towers in Manhattan and Brooklyn illegally renting their rooms through Airbnb.
That longform article probably would have been on that 99% garbage site Gothamist if it was still around, but they also have excellent long forms on gentrification and the affordable housing scam being conspired by the city and the developers aka the Gentrification Industrial Complex
It starts with the illegal "Cash for Homes" placards that appears on lampposts in minority neighborhoods. The city can't seem to crack down on these advertisers.
>the law will never touch Jews
>Harvey Weinstein
Are you so out of touch with reality you think he got away with his crap because of his religion? He got away with it because he was a Hollywood bigwig, and making him happy could make someone a star. Street level Jews get no such protections.
That's like assuming Roy Moore got away with what he did because was an Evangelical, not because he was a well-connected judge.
Outer borough NYC real estate is a bubble that is eventually going to pop. The outer boroughs like Brooklyn and Queens would be among the most expensive cities in America if they were classified as separate cities. Honestly what do you get for all this money? The vast majority of people are here are assholes, most don't have a sliver of basic human decency. Of course there are a small number that are nice, but they are a tiny minority.
Also if anyone is buying in Rego Park these days, they must be out of their minds, it was mostly a lower middle class area for many years, now its "gentrifying" and I have seen some condos list there for as much as $1 million. Why pour all that money into an area that will turn to crap in a few years?
What you failed to mention that he was part of the Agppie Scandal, a financial scam. He was one of their top sellers in Rego Park. And once again, he escaped justice by leaving the company a few months before the main man was arrested. This particular scam was nothing but a ponsi effort on Long Island, New York. Aronov just enjoys trying to take money from others and gets away with it. There is even a rumor that one degree he achieved, His BA, was undertaken in Queens College by somebody else! And his taxes, will the IRS would have a lot of fun with those!
These guys are a bunch of scammers
They take advantage of the minorites and set up shop in areas they wouldnt live and walkthrough with there families google it people they all got picked up, not so successful now my bukharian,russian, isreali breathren!
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