GAME OF DRONES

y travis taylor
Experience Pulls
Ahead of Competition
Arthur Solomon
knows real estate
investment.
As president, chairman
and CEO of DSF Group,
Solomon has spent the
past 14 years developing or acquiring
an impressive $3 billion in real estate
assets.
“The last 14 years, we have kept
growing the business successfully,”
said Solomon, who founded the
company with his son and two other
partners. “We are now in our fourth
real-estate fund. Each one has been
larger than the preceding one.”
Focused on the Washington D.C.,
New York and Boston metro areas, the
DSF Group – founded in 2000 – has established
itself as a leader in real estate
investment. In 2011, the National Association
of Home Builders voted the
company the best multi-family developer
in the United States.
It should come as no surprise that the
DSF Group excels. Solomon himself
has the kind of experience that most
investors can only dream about. Before
founding the company, he spent time
as a senior partner at the investment
house Lazard Frere. He was also the
CFO of Fannie Mae and president and
CEO of the Berkshire Group.
In addition to experience, another
key ingredient of DSF Group’s success
is their ability to stay on track, to focus
and to keep things simple. As a private
real estate investment firm, their focus
has been trained on commercial investment,
specifically on urban, multi-rental
properties.
“We either develop them from the
ground up or we buy existing ones
and add value,” Solomon said. “We’re
a value-added investor.”
Every aspect of the investment is
overseen by DSF Group – from site selection
and design, to engineering and
obtaining permits. A single construction
company handles all of the building
needs for DSF.
The company focus remains on acquisition,
finance and marketing. “We
do the asset management,” said Solomon.
“We oversee the property managers.
And we are very involved in the
marketing, both traditional marketing
sources as a well as the use of very active
and creative social media.” With
the business planted in multi-family
and apartments, the recession and its
aftermath left Solomon and company
relatively unscathed, despite other
sections of the real estate world being
trounced.
During the worst of the recession,
multi-family units had access to better
financing through the government in
the form of Fannie Mae. Multi-family
units were not as affected by the economy
as much, since they depended
more on household formation.
In contrast, the office sector needed
white-collar job growth, retail needed
consumer buying and hotels needed
travel.
The future continues to look bright
for DSF Group. “We’re already seeing
a slow recovery in real estate,” Solomon
said. “It is already taking place.”
With one of the best track records in
the country, DSF Group will continue
to focus on what they do best.
With the business planted in
multi-family and apartments, the recession
and its aftermath left Solomon
and company relatively unscathed,
despite other sections of the real estate
world being trounced.
Awarded Multifamily
Development Firm of
the Year by National
Association of Home
Builders.
www.thedsfgroup.com
THE SUIT MAGAZINE p.47