Gregory Todd

Greg Todd moved to Brooklyn in 1976 and it was love at first sight. Whether it was the grandeur of Prospect Park, the sweep of Grand Army Plaza, the mysterious mummies in the Brooklyn Museum or the glorious daffodils in the Botanic Garden, he'll never know but love it was. He quickly plunged into the life of Park Slope, which then was still a relatively unknown neighborhood. He bought a house in the South Slope before it was fashionable to do so, and joined the Park Slope Food Coop and the Park Slope United Methodist Church all within a few years. Not content with his life in magazine publishing, Greg drew on his MBA from the University of Michigan, to launch a career in real estate in 1987. He became the first employee of a new nonprofit developer, BEC New Communities. When the real estate recession hit in 1988, Greg invented the Equity Lease as a means of closing sales on 81 new, affordable condominiums in Crown Heights. With the Equity Lease, buyers who agreed to sign a purchase agreement and place a down payment in escrow received the right to rent a condo for one year prior to purchasing. Each month half of the rent was placed in escrow for closing costs. This innovation kicked sales into high gear and by 1995 most of the condos were sold without significant price reductions. Greg continued his career with BEC by marketing 170 affordable condos in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and East New York, and developing 42 affordable townhouses in Clinton Hill and Crown Heights. By the end of 2002, BEC and other non-profits had been so successful in reviving distressed areas of Brooklyn that their major partner, the City of New York, had no more vacant buildings left to develop. In 2003 Greg joined The Corcoran Group, in Fort Greene, to continue his work in Brooklyn real estate. It was about that time he also moved his family from Park Slope to Crown Heights, to a much larger townhouse, to accommodate the space needs of his teenage sons and his wife's passion for gardening. The house he bought was on the same street as his first condo project! Since joining Corcoran, Greg has continued pursuing his passion for condominiums and townhouses, selling out a five-unit condominium in Fort Greene and selling several townhouses in Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Park Slope. More recently Greg completed a 72 hour permaculture design course in conjunction with the marketing of the green Nzinga Townhouses. Permaculture is a series of design precepts that minimize the environmental impact of developments while increasing their overall efficiency. If you’d like to know more about how permaculture can make your project more “green”, give Greg a call. He is one of only a few real estate professionals knowledgeable about this new emerging design trend. Take advantage of Greg's knowledge of development in Brownstone Brooklyn and savvy marketing skills. Whether you want to market a new condo project, invest in brownstone neighborhoods, or simply buy a first home, give Greg a call today.