W
hile Jared Kushner pursued private equity in Miami, his family's real estate business quietly prospered back East, rebuilding a portfolio now worth more than his father-in-law's. In 2018, the Kushners were at a crossroads: facing battles over Chinese and Qatari investments, a stalled luxury apartment project in New Jersey, and a looming debt wall of $1.2 billion on their marquee asset, 666 Fifth Avenue.
Six years later, the family has turned things around. A new 64-story tower in Jersey City topped out this summer, while a Miami development was completed in October. OpenAI leased over half of the office space at the Puck Building in lower Manhattan for $140 per square foot, a massive jump from the previous tenant's rate.
The Kushners' real estate company, Kushner Companies, is now worth an estimated $2.9 billion, nearly triple its value when Trump was elected. The family's overall net worth has risen to $7.1 billion, with Jared owning a nascent private equity firm backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and Josh valued at $3.5 billion through his venture capital firm Thrive Capital.
After Jared left the company in 2017, his father Charles handed the reins to non-family member Laurent Morali and later to his daughter Nicole, who now run the company together as CEO and president. They've focused on unraveling riskiest bets made while Jared was in charge and crystallizing a new strategy, selling big-ticket office properties and assets in New York City.
Kushner Companies has expanded its multifamily apartment portfolio to over 27,000 units across 15 states, with nearly half concentrated in the Baltimore-Washington metro area and the Sun Belt. The company is now more geographically diverse, with less than 10% of its holdings still in New York City.
The family's real estate empire has a long history, dating back to Joseph Kushner's arrival in New York in 1949 as a Holocaust survivor. Charles Kushner took over the business after his father's death and expanded it into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Jared joined the company in 2005 and shifted its focus towards office space, buying 666 Fifth Avenue for $1.8 billion.
However, this bet came at a terrible time, as the financial crisis hit and Manhattan office rents collapsed. The Kushners offset the damage by selling retail space and refinancing the office space. Jared started to hedge his bets, purchasing thousands of older apartments in six Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states between 2011 and 2016.
After Jared's move to D.C., Morali took over as president and started cleaning up the firm's portfolio, unloading weak assets and selling a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue. The company began developing property again in New Jersey and moved down the East Coast, starting with a deal for 6,030 apartments around D.C. and Baltimore.
The Kushners have been betting on the South since 2021, purchasing over 8,000 units across Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. They've also sold their office tower in Chicago at a steep discount and offloaded nearly 6,000 mostly older, low-income apartments in Maryland.
Morali's finance background and dealmaking know-how have led to the company's success, while Nicole has focused on new developments and design. The pair's complementary strategy is working, with the firm focusing on South Florida, where Jared, Josh, and their parents all own homes.
The Kushners' long-awaited megaproject at One Journal Square in Jersey City is finally off the ground, with one of two 64-story glass skyscrapers erected this summer. The project will include 40,000 square feet of retail space and 1,723 luxury apartments, with preleasing starting early next year.
Despite some setbacks, including the sale of their Times Square retail property at foreclosure, the Kushners' real estate empire is poised to keep growing. Rents are still rising in their core markets, and falling interest rates will make it easier to cash in on well-performing properties and cheaper to develop new ones.
