Bistricer was born in Brussels, Belgium to an Orthodox Jewish family, the son of Moric and Elsa Bistricer. His mother was a prisoner at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany during World World War II while his father hid from the Nazis in Budapest.
His firm focuses on the conversion of non-residential buildings to residential uses. In 1951, his family immigrated to New York City when Bistricer was two. Bistricer joined the family business in the 1970s.
In the 1980s, the Bistricer family was heavily involved in the conversion of rental buildings in New York City into cooperatives.
In 1994, they were charged with not disclosing sufficient information to the buyers of the units and in 1998, they were banned from selling co-ops and condos. In 2001, the restriction on the family business was partially lifted and in 2009, it was fully lifted.
In 1987, in his first large transaction, Bistricer partnered with real estate investor Jacob Schwimmer and purchased a two tower, 480 apartment complex at 101 Wadsworth Avenue in Washington Heights for $11 million. Also in 1987, Bistricer purchased 30% of the Chicago-based electrical wire manufacturer, Coleman Cable (which went public in 2007).
In 2002, he expanded into Brooklyn purchasing two Downtown Brooklyn office buildings for $40 million.
And in 2005, he purchased the 27-story New York Telephone Company building in Downtown Brooklyn and converted the building into the 219-unit BellTel Lofts condominiums, one of the first large residential projects in Downtown Brooklyn. In 2006, he founded Clipper Equity. In 2005, he purchased the rent-regulated 59 building Vanderveer Estates Apartments in East Flatbush for $138.2 million with the intent to renovate them and then on-sell them to tenants with higher incomes.
At the time of the purchase, the complex had over 10,000 housing code violations and earned Bistricer a listing on the list of Worst Landlords put out by the then New York Public Advocate, Bill de Blasio.
By 2013, Bistricer has reduced the code violations at the complex, since renamed Flatbush Gardens, to less than 1,500 after spending $16 million in additional renovations. In 2007, his bid to purchase for $1.3 billion the rent regulated Starrett City complex in East New York failed, partly the result of bad publicity surrounding the Tishman Speyer Properties purchase of Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village.
In 2011, partnering with Joseph Chetrit, he purchased the Chelsea Hotel for $80 million. They sold their interest in 2013.
They intend to convert the building into condominiums.
In 2013, Bistricer began the restoration and reconversion to a hotel of the former Hotel Bossert in Downtown Brooklyn and the conversion of the Cabrini Medical Center in Manhattan into housing. Bistricer has a conservative investment methodology and typically minimizes the use of debt with no more than 70 percent debt to equity. In 2012, Bistricer donated $70,000 to various nonprofit groups including Yeshiva Simchas Chaim in Sheepshead Bay.
