Got a spare $20 million or so for a New York real estate deal?

On a shelf above Norman Sturner’s desk, burnished brass letters spell out the word “D-E-A-L” over his head like a thought bubble in a cartoon.

Dealmaking is much on Mr. Sturner’s mind these days. He is trying to land investors for a $100 million equity fund to buy New York City office buildings for Murray Hill Properties, a commercial landlord and real estate broker there.

He is making this move, an unorthodox one for an entrepreneurial property owner, because Murray Hill was left without a reliable source of money when Credit Suisse First Boston cut back on its real estate investments this year.

Mr. Sturner prefers to raise a private equity fund rather than form a publicly traded real estate investment trust.

“A fund offers all the benefits of money at our disposal without the scrutiny of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Stock Exchange,” says Mr. Sturner, a Murray Hill principal. The 29-year-old firm owns 1.3 million square feet of office space and a 47-unit residential condo.

He wants a pool of capital at the ready, “so I don’t have to run around with a beggar’s cup when I want to buy a building,” he adds.

It won’t be easy for Mr. Sturner to raise his opportunity fund, as this investment pool is called, because many high-flying Wall Street firms are in the same game.

“There are a lot of funds trying to raise money right now,” says Mark S. Edelstein, who heads the national real estate finance practice at law firm Morrison & Foerster.

Institutional investors may be skeptical of Murray Hill because they prefer funds to be run by money managers with track records. Some might be turned off because the offering isn’t being handled by a big-name investment bank. Murray Hill’s adviser is real estate firm Kennedy-Wilson International, which suggested the fund idea to Mr. Sturner.

However, if Murray Hill does succeed in raising money, it won’t be the first time it has tapped into the real estate trend du jour.

Mr. Sturner and Murray Hill co-founder Neil Siderow did a booming real estate syndication business from 1972 to 1985. When the tax reform of 1986 killed that line of work, their firm spent several years managing foreclosed properties for lenders. In the mid-1990s, when Wall Street started placing bets on New York’s recovering real estate market, Murray Hill hooked up with Credit Suisse First Boston.

From 1994 through 1998, the investment bank served as Murray Hill’s equity partner in the purchase of 1.6 million square feet of Manhattan office space, supplying 90% of the money for the all-cash deals. The Murray Hill-CSFB duo was particularly adept at picking up hot downtown properties, such as 22 Cortlandt St., which they resold for a 61.7% return on investment.

Now, by trying to raise an opportunity fund, Mr. Sturner is getting into the investment that has replaced the Reit as America’s favorite real estate play. He is going after a very small piece of a huge pie; such funds have attracted $29 billion in capital this year.

$20 million minimum

Mr. Sturner is looking for three investors to fork over $30 million apiece, but will accept minimum investments of $20 million. Murray Hill plans to put up $10 million.

There are various funding sources that might be receptive to the offering.

Some big university endowments, particularly Yale’s and Harvard’s, are willing to go with real estate entrepreneurs who don’t have experience in managing funds, says Leanne Lachman, a principal at Lend Lease Real Estate Investments.

Murray Hill could also find a market among rich Americans and European individual and institutional investors looking for an entr‚e to New York.

To leverage the fund, Mr. Sturner plans to borrow another $150 million so he would have $250 million to go shopping with. He intends to buy, fix up and resell 10 office buildings within five years. He is aiming for a return on equity of more than 20%, a target Murray Hill exceeded in recent sales. He would confine his acquisitions to Manhattan, where his firm’s expertise lies.

“This will be a test case of how hot the New York real estate market is,” says Steve Brown, a buy-side analyst at Cohen & Steers Capital Management Inc., a real estate investment manager.

Having a fund would help Murray Hill find favor with sellers, who want evidence that buyers have the wherewithal to close deals quickly.

“That’s the whole ball of wax in this market — certainty,” says John D. Lyons, an executive managing director of real estate investment bank Granite Partners Inc.

Murray Hill has already benefited from Mr. Sturner’s marketing of its fund offering. After he made his pitch to ING Realty Partners, the investment firm agreed to bankroll the purchase of 370 Lexington Ave. and 270 Madison Ave.

The fixer-uppers Murray Hill focuses on are getting more expensive and harder to come by in the booming Manhattan office market. But some experts believe there’s still money to be made.

“A year and a half ago, people could have said there were no buying opportunities left in Manhattan, but then the far western neighborhoods opened up,” says Paul Stern, a managing director of real estate investment bank Sonnenblick-Goldman Co. “At any given moment, you think you are overpaying for New York property — but New York always rewards people who buy right.”