Joel Wiener

One of the city’s top 10 rental apartment owners, Wiener’s been sued for overcharges and shoddy repairs, and denounced by politicians for making housing too expensive for the working class. None of it, though, has slowed his rise. From a disclosed net worth of $124 million in 2001, the 68-year-old Wiener today has a fortune of $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s benefited from soaring property values as gentrification spreads to one city neighborhood after another. His Pinnacle Group manages about $2 billion worth of property -- some 10,000 units, almost all rent-regulated, in every New York borough save Staten Island. The firm has also made millions converting about 25 buildings to condominiums. Wiener grew up in Brooklyn where he worked as a lawyer before joining the family’s real estate business. In the 1990s, he set out on his own and focused Pinnacle’s business model on buying rent-regulated, run-down properties that house many tenants behind on their rent. He then often extensively renovates the buildings, which allows him to raise rents legally to cover some of the expense. Wiener’s holdings swelled to more than 20,000 units in the early 2000’s after he obtained financing from Praedium Group, a $10 billion real estate investment firm. He has since pared those assets, buying out Praedium and other partners in many of his remaining buildings. He bulked up his financial heft after selling bonds in Israel through his Zarasai Group Ltd., a company named after the village in Lithuania from where Wiener’s family emigrated to the U. S. before World War II.