David Lichtenstein

David Lichtenstein is an American billionaire, entrepreneur, and real estate investor.

Lichtenstein was born in 1960 into a Jewish family in New York City.

His parents taught in public schools in Brooklyn.

Lichtenstein grew up in the working class neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn and graduated from James Madison High School (Brooklyn).

He did not attend college.

Lichtenstein developed an avid interest in property during his twenties and launched his real estate career.

At the time, he was living in a two-family home in New Jersey.

In 1986, Lichtenstein used $89,000 in credit card debt to buy a multi-family home in New Jersey.

Over a three-year period, Lichtenstein reinvested capital from his properties to fund the down payments on more properties.

He then leveraged the new properties with loans, allowing him to continue to add to his portfolio.

He is the founder and CEO of The Lightstone Group, which he founded in 1988.

During the early years of the Lightstone Group, Lichtenstein focused on investing in multifamily properties.

Following the success of his small real estate business, Lichtenstein founded The Lightstone Group in 1988.

He is the CEO of the company.

The company was founded in Lakewood, New Jersey, and grew quickly during the early years of the company's history.

During the first few years of Lightstone's activity, Lichtenstein focused on acquiring multifamily properties in the New Jersey area.

He rapidly grew his portfolio in the 1990s, before diversifying his portfolio and moving into retail.

In the 1990s, Lichtenstein grew The Lightstone Group's portfolio to over 20,000 apartments in 28 states.

The company was recognized as one of the top 30 apartment owners across the United States around the same time.

From 1997 onwards, there was a housing price boom in the United States, which lasted for nearly a decade.

The boom was good for the existing portfolio Lichtenstein had amassed, but it made it more difficult to find affordable properties to purchase.

The housing bubble that began in 1997 led Lichtenstein to look elsewhere at other real estate opportunities, which included property outside the United States for the first time.

In 2000, Lightstone began to invest in retail strips, and subsequently into investing in malls.

His first major purchase in retail came in 2002, when he acquired a Prime Retail-run mall for $36.5 million.

The outlet mall was based in Puerto Rico and was one of many Prime Retail developments that required redevelopment at the time of purchase.

Lichtenstein stated in an interview that outlet malls at the time had become an "out-of-favor stock in an out-of-favor industry".

In 2003, Lichtenstein acquired Prime Retail for $638 million.

After seeing the potential of the single mall in Puerto Rico, Lichtenstein made his first major deal in the real estate market in 2003.

He purchased the entire Prime Retail portfolio for $638 million.

The portfolio consisted of 37 properties spread across a number of states in the US, in locations such as Pleasant Prairie, Wis., Odessa, Mo, and Gaffney, S.C. The acquisition made Lightstone the second-largest owner of outlet malls in the country after Chelsea Premium Outlets, owned by Simon Property Group Inc., the nation's largest mall owner.

Lichtenstein announced in 2006 that he would be launching a real estate investing trust (REIT), which allowed Lightstone to raise capital from outside investors.

The REIT, named Lightstone Value Plus, had a fund value of $300 million and aimed to invest in a mix of office, retail and other commercial properties.

According to The New York Times, many developers at the time were focusing on "trophy buildings" in major United States cities.

His strategy differed from that of many major investors at the time, as he stated, "do you want to go to a fishing hole where there's a lot of other people fishing, or do you want to be where you're the only guy with a hook in the water? We would concentrate on any place where the big boys aren't."

During the same year, Lichtenstein returned to investing in housing with a number of large investments in affordable housing.

He purchased 5,000 units across 19 multifamily rental properties in Detroit.

Since 2007, Lichtenstein has been responsible for some of the largest acquisitions and sales in the retail and hospitality sectors.

In 2007, The Lightstone Group acquired Extended Stay Hotels for $8.1 billion.

Lightstone sold Prime Retail in 2010 for $2.3 billion, earning a large profit from the sale of the outlet mall group.

Lichtenstein was appointed to the NYC Economic Development Corporation's board of directors in 2015 by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.