The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

If President Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping needed a light topic of conversation for their Florida rendezvous earlier this month, they could have picked mortgages. Trump knows a thing or two about taking out real estate loans, while Xi’s government controls billions in U.S. housing debt. There was plenty to talk about. China had been selling off U.S. mortgage bonds at a rapid clip as it moved to shore up its currency and was […]

Newly leaked documents show how the hotel industry systematically pushed for anti-Airbnb legislation last year and worked to sway public opinion against the short-term room rental website. In early 2016, trade group American Hotel and Lodging Association launched a “multipronged, national campaign approach at the local, state and federal level,” focusing on major cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles, the New York Times reports. In the Big Apple, the group pushed for harsher […]

From LLNYC: NBC “Nightly News” and “Dateline” anchor Lestor Holt has just listed his apartment at 225 Fifth Avenue for $6.6 million, per StreetEasy records.

Trinity Financial and MBD Community Housing are getting started on a 289-unit affordable housing project in the South Bronx, a permit application filed with the city Monday shows. The 28-story property is set to rise on a city-owned site at 425 Grand Concourse in the Mott Haven neighborhood. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration chose the developers for the development in April 2016. Plans have changed slightly since then, with the new construction filings showing four […]

Less than 100 days in office, President Trump is already building a war chest to defend the White House in 2020 and help fellow Republicans. And a small handful of New York’s real estate players are once again eager to open their checkbooks. Through a trio of related campaign committees, Trump raised more than $17 million between January and the end of March, filings with the Federal Elections Commission show. Trump collected a little more […]

SL Green Realty scored a second retail tenant for its One Vanderbilt, with famed chef Daniel Boulud set to open a restaurant at the proposed Midtown tower. The restaurant will span 11,000 square feet, the New York Post reported, and will be located on the second floor. The ground-floor entrance will feature a 110 foot-ceiling and a branch of Epicerie Bouland, a retail market and cafe with locations at the World Trade Center and near […]

Leon Shaulov, a former senior portfolio manager at the now-defunct Galleon Group, bought a penthouse at 56 Leonard Street with his wife Irina for $26.8 million, property records show. Penthouse 58 at the Alexico Group and Hines-developed building was last asking $34.5 million, according to the listing, meaning the Shaulovs bought the unit for a 22 percent discount. The full-floor unit has five bedrooms and five full bathrooms, according to StreetEasy. It features 14-foot ceilings, a […]

From The Real Deal Los Angeles: Dreamers have long flocked to La La Land seeking wealth, fame and the perfect climate to flaunt them. But never before has Los Angeles real estate so blatantly reflected those stardust fantasies. As the county booms with spec mansion development, builders are going big. The likes of Bruce Makowsky and Nile Niami are asking sky-high prices — $250 million and $500 million, respectively — for over-the-top homes. They leverage perks, […]

An interactive look at where the biggest deals were struck, plus total overall sales and average prices for the week.

A former New York City Department of Buildings official with a checkered past is quietly again dealing with the agency and lobbying city officials for policies that will benefit his businesses. Ron Lattanzio, who was fired by the agency in 1986 for allegedly throwing midnight cocaine parties at his city office, now runs one of biggest consultant businesses in the city, the New York Daily News reported. Two of his companies, Construction & Realty Services […]

Colliers International continued its poaching streak by hiring two Cushman & Wakefield brokers for its growing retail team. Senior directors Michael Stone and David Tricarico jumped ship to Colliers last week, the Commercial Observer reported. They join former Cushman retail dealmakers Brad Mendelson and David Green, who joined the firm last year. Stone and Tricarico will not work on the Mendelson/Green team, but continue to operate their own team. The two brokers began negotiating a […]

Landlord Michael Aryeh sold a rent-stabilized building at 720 West 181st Street for $32 million, less than three years after picking it up for just $16 million. The building’s new owner is a Viaveb LLC, managed by an individual named Daniel Goldberg, according to property records. As of last fall’s property tax bill, the Hudson Heights rental complex held 53 rent stabilized units and received the J-51 tax abatement. Construction permit records show Aryeh commenced […]

Jared Kushner is in advanced talks to sell his share in WiredScore, a Soho-based real estate technology startup that rates office buildings based on the speed and reliability of their internet connectivity. Kushner, a senior White House adviser and the president’s son-in-law, has been negotiating to sell his stake to a group that includes Los Angeles-based Fifth Wall Ventures, the Wall Street Journal reported. The sale is part of Kushner’s efforts to divest himself of […]

UPDATED, April 17, 1:35 p.m.:The number of contracts signed on pads asking $4 million and above last week dropped to its lowest weekly total since January. In total, 15 contracts were signed in the over-$4 million market during the period between April 10 through April 16, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly report. Of the contracts, seven were for condominiums (with an average asking price of $5.8 million) and six were for co-ops (average ask: $8 million). […]

Mayor Bill de Blasio raised rents on properties he owns in Park Slope, while at the same time calling for rent freezes for the city’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments. De Blasio and his wife have raised rents in increments of $50 and $75 a year on one unit in a two-family house they own, a City Hall source told Politico. The rent has gone from $2,400 in 2009 to $2,850 last year. They also […]

Douglaston Development is looking to buy more than 150,000 square feet of air rights from the Hudson River Park Trust for a planned 1.1 million-square-foot, mixed-use development south of Hudson Yards. Jeffrey Levine’s development company is looking to rezone properties it owns on the block west of 11th Avenue between West 29th and 30th streets, Politico reported. At the same time, the firm wants to purchase to sets of development rights from Hudson River Park […]

Office landlords looking to stand out from the crowd are speaking the word that, in the world of residential real estate, has no peer: penthouse. Commercial owners across the city are adding glass-ensconced penthouses with outdoor spaces and views in order to make their properties competitive with hip, new workplaces, the Wall Street Journal reported. “I am talking to a lot of landlords who want to add an additional structure on top, because if you […]

The widow of the architect who fell to his death last year at the Chetrit Group’s condo conversion of the Flatotel in Midtown is suing the developer and its contractors, claiming they failed to provide the proper safety equipment. Alexia Travalja filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week after her husband, Bruno Travalja, fell more than 40 stories when he slipped while working at the site at 135 West 52nd Street in September, […]

A federal bankruptcy court judge granted approval Friday for Madison Realty Capital to replace Raphael Toledano as the property manager of 15 troubled East Village rental buildings while both parties work out a deal to transfer ownership. Madison, the lender on the properties and secured creditor, is negotiating a deal to acquire the deeds from Toledano’s Brookhill Properties. Sources close to both firms said they have signed a term sheet outlining a deal in which […]

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday said China is not a currency manipulator, making a trade war less likely. In a report sent to Congress, the department writes “that no major trading partner of the United States met the standards identified in Section 3004 of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 for currency manipulation in the second half of 2016.” President Trump had repeatedly promised to label China a currency manipulator. Real estate […]

From the April issue: It may take a village to raise a building, but it takes only one disgruntled subcontractor to ensnare a project in a legal tug-of-war. For One57, the 75-story luxury condo tower on Billionaires’ Row, fire sprinklers are at the heart of an ongoing dispute with the developer and project’s general contractor. Federated Fire Protection Systems, which does plumbing, heating and air-conditioning installations, claims that it’s owed $2.1 million for, among other […]

UPDATED April 17, 10:48 p.m.: Ongoing litigation at the Sitt brothers’ 2 Herald Square is making it difficult to refinance a $250 million loan on the property that was set to mature on April 11. The 10-year CMBS loan, provided by Wells Fargo to Sitt Asset Management, was extended for six months, sources familiar with the deal told The Real Deal. The loan was sent to special servicing in March due to “imminent maturity default,” according to Trepp, […]

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