With over three decades of combined experience and a long track record of collaboration in multifamily real estate investment, Sean Belfi, Craig Boyarsky, and Brendan Glavin have launched Cold Spring Capital. The New York-based private investment and operating firm, which will be headed by Belfi as managing principal, is targeting over $1 billion in acquisitions, primarily middle-market, value-add suburban workforce housing, over the next five years.
Cold Spring Capital’s initial transactions will be capitalized by Twin Spruce Capital, a New York-based investment affiliate, and a closed syndicate of high- and ultra-high-net-worth investors. While the syndicate has deployed capital into preferred equity investments in the multifamily sector, this partnership marks its foray into traditional multifamily equity investments.
According to Eric Horowitz, managing principal of Twin Spruce Capital, his firm spent nearly two years searching for the right team to lead an equity multifamily platform. Horowitz added that, Belfi, Boyarksy, and Glavin, who came from AION Partners, “fit the bill,” having helped build a national multifamily platform, sourcing new deal flow, and managing institutional and private wealth relationships on the East Coast and in the Midwest.
“Our team has spent almost a decade working together in the weeds, cutting our teeth on all aspects of multifamily acquisitions, asset management, capital markets, and dispositions,” said Belfi. “We are ready to hit the ground running in 2026 to source deals and scale operations in what we view as a favorable market environment for conventional, market-rate workforce housing.”
As part of its five-year goal, the new firm aims to acquire 10,000 units through direct acquisitions and joint ventures, with a focus on assets and portfolios of 100 units or more that are 1960s vintage or newer across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest.
“Investors this cycle are demanding their sponsors be thesis-driven as opposed to general investors,” Belfi said. “We must be tactical about where and what opportunities we will pursue and then operate those assets in a disciplined and aggressive manner to deliver value-add returns.”
He noted that the time is right to be an apartment investor, with several tailwinds emerging from the data, including:
- Market stabilization: Improving capital flows and fundamentals following apartment supply runup and interest rate increases;
- Reduced volatility: The firm’s target markets remained resilient during the last cycle, exhibiting stronger occupancy and rent growth;
- Strategic dislocations: Opportunities to acquire assets from operators with impaired capital stacks, mismanaged properties acquired by new market entrants with limited experience in the last cycle, and the loan maturity wave; and
- Vintage opportunities: Value in pre-2000 vintage assets that are trading at wider cap rates due to institutional limited partners avoiding perceived operational risks.
“We believe that there will always be a continued drip of private owners that look to sell for non-market reasons, like estate planning or disposition of non-core assets,” added Belfi. “These types of owners are often motivated by different investment goals and typically operate their assets in ways that are not considered industry standard, which results in an operational arbitrage opportunity. Based on national ownership figures, there are more of these types of private owners in our geographic markets than elsewhere in the country.”