Decade Answers: Jeffrey Gault

Jeffrey Gault is principal at East Coast Realty Associates, Scarsdale, N.Y. What was one of your corporate or career highlights of the decade? After 20 years of purchasing Bronx and Washington Heights property, on September 7, 2001 we purchased our first building in prime Manhattan, on 91st and First. This purchase led the way to our firm to shift focus and start buying properties in Manhattan and the suburbs of New York State and New Jersey. What are your predictions for commercial real estate in the new decade? The next few years the real estate industry will continue to be plagued by previously inflated prices and banks unwilling to finance assets at previous levels. Since there are many investors waiting on the sidelines, I believe that once the foreclosures end and the market stabilizes, the banks will step up to the plate and there will be a rapid turn around in the real estate market. Investors with cash should be looking now.