The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

These are some of the most notable resi sales of the week

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 03:00 PM PST

New York City saw some high-profile residential sales this past week. For instance, a marijuana executive and his wife picked up Extell Development’s Carlton House at 19 East 61st Street for $27.5 million — about half of its asking price in 2014. Here are some other transactions to note. Source: A TRD review of public records filed with the New York City Department of Finance from Jan. 25 to Jan. 31. 1.) A penthouse at […]

Mark your calendars: These are NYC’s top real estate events next week

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 02:30 PM PST

February will start strong with this group of real estate events! On Feb. 6, Anchin is hosting its 5th Annual Construction & Development Forum from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m at the New York Academy of Sciences, 250 Greenwich Street. Attend for a chance to network and hear from the tri-state area’s senior development and construction leaders. The keynote speaker will be Steve Witkoff, CEO of Witkoff Group, with other speakers including Ali Chaundry of […]

Simon posts record Q4; CEO “excited” about evolution of mall industry

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 02:15 PM PST

Simon Property Group posted record numbers in the fourth quarter, even as mall landlords nationwide faced challenges including retail chain bankruptcies and the growing shift to e-commerce. In a Friday earnings call, the retail giant’s CEO, David Simon, said he is “excited” about the evolution of the mall industry, despite all its challenges. “There’s always been disruption in our industry,” Simon added. Mall owners have started to redevelop former big boxes into residential developments, sprawling […]

NYC saw 42M sf of new development last year

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 02:00 PM PST

Developers in New York opened 42 million square feet of new construction buildings last year. This marked a 36 percent increase compared to 2017, according to PincusCo. The developers Related Companies, Matrix Development Group and Extell Development accounted for almost a quarter of the total with 10.4 million square feet across 16 buildings in Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island. Most of the new construction—about 28 million square feet—was residential. There were 1,954 projects completed overall […]

International law firm to become 50 Hudson Yards’ second major tenant

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 01:30 PM PST

Law firm Debevoise & Plimpton is close to signing a deal for 450,000 square feet at the 50 Hudson Yards. The firm, currently headquartered at 919 Third Avenue in East Midtown, plans to make the move in 2022 when the skyscraper is complete, Crain’s reported. Debevoise will be the second large tenant to commit to space at the tower, which is being developed by the Related Companies and Oxford Properties Group. In 2017, the investment […]

These were NYC’s top office leases in January

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 01:00 PM PST

No particular sector dominated office leases last month, with large deals being inked by tenants from hedge funds to fertility clinics to mattress startups. All in all, January’s top office leases made up more square footage than December’s. The top 10 office lease deals totaled 1.5 million square feet, greater than December’s top 10 leases, which totaled 1.13 million square feet. 1) NYC Health + Hospitals, 100 Pearl Street, Financial District – 527,000 square feet […]

Elevated risk: Malfunction at NYCHA is putting public housing residents at greater risk of being injured in its elevators

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 12:30 PM PST

On New Year’s Day, Gina Gutloff and her boyfriend were headed out for breakfast when they stepped into the elevator on the 13th floor of their building at 1595 Madison Avenue in East Harlem. As the doors closed, the pair broke into a two-step dance, playfully bopping from side to side, when suddenly, Gutloff recalled, her stomach lurched. The elevator lost power and went dark. “So I started to panic,” the 25-year-old said in an […]

PHOTOS: Highlights from TRD’s inaugural Future City summit in the Bahamas

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 11:45 AM PST

The Real Deal‘s first executive summit took place earlier this week in the Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas. About 200 of the industry’s top brass from around the country flew in to network, discuss and debate some of the biggest issues in the business right now. From making sense of proptech valuations, optimizing the Opportunity Zone program and the future of all facets of the industry, the three-day event was full of some of […]

StreetEasy is pushing manual entry. But the brokerages are resisting

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 11:16 AM PST

Several of the city’s top brokerages are defying StreetEasy’s latest attempt to push manual listing entry on agents, which they believe is a bald-faced attempt to squeeze more money out of brokers. After the portal announced “Agent Spotlight,” its latest advertising program, the Corcoran Group decided that it would not switch to a new listing system developed by StreetEasy and Douglas Elliman, dubbed “Listing Tools,” sources told The Real Deal. Sources also said that Compass […]

A sponsor unit at Extell’s One57 just sold at a 24% discount

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 10:45 AM PST

Discounts continue to dominate the ultra-luxury condo market. A sponsor unit at Extell Development’s One57 tower sold for $22 million, down from its original listing price of $28.9 million. The anonymous purchaser bought unit 60B through an LLC called “Thrive Land NY,” according to property records. The deed was signed by Lei Fu, for the law firm Ju Wang Associates. The firm has offices in Manhattan and Beijing, and their website states they specialize in […]

Related closes $260M Tribeca deal with financing from JPMorgan and LBBW

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 10:16 AM PST

The Related Companies closed on its $260 million purchase of a luxury Tribeca apartment building with financing from JPMorgan’s asset management arm and German lender LBBW. Related Fund Management, the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment platform, finalized its purchase of the 291-unit Truffles Tribeca building from the Jack Parker Corporation, sources told The Real Deal. The purchase price works out to nearly $860,000 per unit. To finance the deal, Related turned to JPMorgan Asset […]

Gentrification City: Investors are turning to other corners of NYC to chase returns

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 09:15 AM PST

Once upon a time, developers who were looking to make smart investment plays would throw up a building in Williamsburg, Long Island City or Bushwick and watch the buyers and renters flood in. But those neighborhoods have now largely topped out, sending investors on the hunt for the next corner of New York City that is ripe for opportunity. This month, in an effort to suss out where real estate investors are making their next […]

The Real Deal’s February issue is now available to all subscribers

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 08:30 AM PST

The Real Deal’s second issue of 2019 is live, and digital subscribers to TRD are getting the first look at what’s inside. Subscribers now have access to stories including: A ranking of the city’s top residential brokerages, as well as a look at Manhattan’s top firms by listing dollar volume Which of the city’s top investment sales firms made the biggest gains following an ugly two-year slump The dizzying confusion surrounding the popular Opportunity Zones program A […]

Rockrose paves the way for Hudson Yards rental tower with $20M air rights deal

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 08:00 AM PST

Rockrose Development has secured the final air rights necessary to build the first tower in its 1.6 million-square-foot Hudson Yards master plan. The firm paid $20.5 million for over 139,000 square feet of air rights from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to new report from Pincus Co. The pencils out to $147 per square foot. Developers can purchase additional air rights in Hudson Yards through payments to the city’s Hudson Yards District Improvement Fund or […]

Don Jr.’s mysterious Trump Tower phone call was a conversation with…Howard Lorber?

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 07:30 AM PST

There has been much speculation about who Donald Trump Jr. spoke to in a series of calls around the time of the infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer in 2016. This is the meeting in which Don Jr. thought he would get “dirt” on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Now, new evidence obtained by Senate investigators shows at least one of the calls was a conversation with Howard Lorber, Douglas Elliman chairman and an […]

Shibber Khan is switching gears at his LIC site with plans for one of the city’s largest self-storage facilities

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 07:00 AM PST

Looks like Shibber Khan’s Criterion Group will be keeping its Long Island City development site after all — and it’s planning to build one of the city’s largest self-storage facilities on it. The Queens-based development firm wants to construct a nine-story self-storage and commercial facility at 31-08 Northern Boulevard in Long Island City, according to a new building application pre-filed with the city’s building department. The project will span about 255,000 square feet and stand […]

Your FICO score is not your mortgage destiny

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 06:45 AM PST

The higher your credit score, the lower the interest rate quote you’ll get on your mortgage, right? As a general proposition, sure. But how much of a rate benefit are you really likely to get with your super-high 800-plus FICO score compared with someone with a much lower score? You might be surprised. A new statistical review, conducted for this column by mortgage network Lending Tree — based on more than 1 million actual loan […]

Chetrit Group lands $204M to refinance 49 Chambers Street condo conversion

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 06:12 AM PST

SL Green Realty just couldn’t get enough. The real estate investment trust provided the Chetrit Group with a $204 million loan on a luxury Tribeca condo building, marking its second financing of the development. The new debt retires a $194 million construction financing package SL Green and Acore Capital gave the developer for the construction of the 99-unit project in 2016, according to Commercial Observer. The 15-story building at 49 Chambers Street, built in 1912, […]

Maria Torres-Springer is stepping down as HPD chief

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 05:37 AM PST

She’s the latest in a wave of top officials leaving the de Blasio administration. Maria Torres-Springer is heading for the private sector after two years serving as the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Wall Street Journal reported. In March, Torres-Springer will become vice president of U.S. programs at the Ford Foundation. Her departure follows similar announcements from Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who has also worked on de Blasio’s affordable-housing initiative, […]

RFR hires new acquisitions head

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 05:00 AM PST

Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs have hired a new executive to oversee acquisitions at RFR. Jonathan Lee Cohen, formerly a director at Madison Capital, recently joined RFR to head a newly created acquisitions group at the company, a spokesperson told The Real Deal. Previously, Rosen and Fuchs were in charge of buying at RFR, which oversees some $13 billion of real estate assets across the globe. But the company is now building out a dedicated […]

National Cheat Sheet: Fed holds interest rates steady, Compass halts expansion spree, Newseum sells for $373M … & more

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 04:30 AM PST

Federal Reserve holds interest rates, vows to be ‘patient’ when it makes decisions Ending a string of increases, the Federal Reserve decided not to raise interest rates this week, which means the benchmark rate will for now remain between 2.25 and 2.5 percent. The Fed said in a statement that it would be “patient” when it comes to deciding on rate increases in the future, which could mean that the nation’s central bank will only […]

New REBNY fines are heaviest for bad data

Posted: 01 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST

The Real Estate Board of New York disclosed fines for data-sharing violations last week, and it turns out that the city’s residential agents may face up to $20,000 in penalties. A closer look at REBNY’s new Universal Co-Brokerage Agreement (UCBA) reflects two categories of violations: one related to erroneous data and one for bad business conduct. Data problems carry the heftier fines. For example, agents submitting a listing to the residential listing service (RLS) must […]