About

AAO Property Group is a boutique strategic advisory firm, specializing in providing solutions in the industries of commercial real estate, small businesses, and financial institutions. The principals of AAO Property Group bring over 50 years of market experience and the ability to tap into a vast cadre of resources around the country in real estate, finance, small business, governmental relations and a variety of other services through its existing network. We are extremely selective in who we take on as a client and follow the principle “quality over quantity” by choosing to provide focused, quality services to only a handful of select clients at one time.

Ryan Johnson, Partner

Ryan Johnson, has over 16 years of experience across the Real Estate, Community Development, and Entrepreneurship industries. In addition to being a founder of AAO, Ryan currently serves as a Managing Director of Real Estate for New Jersey Community Capital (NJCC), the largest community development financial institution in New Jersey. Ryan oversees NJCC’s real estate arm, CAPC. CAPC is a fully vertical affordable housing developer and owner/operator that works in the rental and for sale space. Before joining CAPC he was the Portfolio Manager of 2.5 million sf of retail space (valued at $1 billion) for Madison International Realty, a global private equity real estate firm focused on providing liquidity to investors and owners of Class A Properties in the US, UK, and Western Europe.

Prior to Madison International Ryan had stints at Brixmor, MetLife, and CIT where he worked on both the equity and debt sides of the real estate business and acquired, financed, or managed institutional quality commercial real estate valued in the billions. Ryan honed his community development skills while working with the Corey Booker Administration at Brick City Development Corporation, the economic development organization for the City of Newark. There he sourced and managed a portfolio of real estate and small business loans and provided numerous hours of technical assistance to the residents of the City.

Mr. Johnson earned a BS in Commerce with a Concentration in Finance from the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce. He has been involved in various real estate industry organizations including ULI, NAREIT, ICSC, CURE, and REAP NYC.

Garfield Johnson, Partner

Garfield Johnson, was born and grew up in Newark, NJ. He received a BS Degree in Business Administration with a major in finance from Seton Hall University’s W.Paul Stillman School of Business. Upon graduation Garfield was hired as a Commercial Bank Examiner for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York where he learned and excelled in business banking, mortgage banking, consumer banking, credit, compliance etc. He also obtained an MBA in finance with a focus on real estate and investment management from Fordham University’s Gabelli Graduate Business School. Garfield has more than thirty-five years of experience in credit, risk, finance, banking, management etc. He has held senior level positions at JP MORGAN Chase, Bank of America and MBIA Inc. At MBIA he played an important role in the creation and development of a new line of business around corporate credits and financial institutions that generated insurance in force in the billions and premiums written in the tens of millions. At JPMCB Garfield helped build risk management and counter-party risk management functions in the United States and internationally. At Bank of America Garfield had global risk responsibility for a portfolio of financial institutions and governmental agencies clients engaged in bilateral and or syndicated loan, money market, derivative, currency transactions up to and including hundreds of billions of dollars. For the past four years Garfield has worked for the Newark Board of Education Employees Credit Union as the loan officer where he helped management and the Board stop the business from hemorrhaging, stabilizing lending and rebuilding the lending business in addition to honing his skills around consumer finance.