The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Developers Steve Roth and Richard LeFrak no longer sit on an important Washington board for their friend President Trump. But their spouses will soon. Trump intends to name Daryl Roth and Karen LeFrak to the board of trustees at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Variety reported on Wednesday. Daryl Roth and Karen LeFrak both come from the arts world. Roth is a well-known Broadway producer, who has won 10 Tony Awards, […]

Lightstone landed a $155 million refinancing package for its 349-key Moxy Chelsea hotel. LoanCore Capital and KSL Capital Partners provided the debt for the 35-story hotel at 105 West 28th Street, Lightstone announced Wednesday. The hotel opened in February and is the second of five Moxy hotels Lightstone is developing for New York City. LoanCore and KSL did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Commercial Observer first reported on the refinancing. The financing […]

Real Trends’ website was hacked just hours after the firm released its latest brokerage rankings. President Steve Murray announced in an email that “someone who didn’t want you to have access to our REAL Trends 500 report hired a hacker to attack the REAL Trends 500 website.” The company will rebuild the site over the next few days, Inman reported. Real Trends is working to find the source of the attack, but Murray said the […]

Fortune Media has found a new home after being sold off by its parent company, Meredith Corporation. The company behind Fortune magazine signed a 10-year lease for slightly more than 40,000 square feet at Vornado Realty Trust’s 40 Fulton Street, according to Commercial Observer. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The company will move from its current location at 225 Liberty Street in the Financial District. Time signed a deal in 2014 to relocate […]

President Trump is expected to sign a memo on Wednesday calling for an end to the federal conservatorship of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage guarantors, Housing Wire reported. In 2008, the two government-sponsored enterprises were brought into conservatorship during the financial crisis by the Obama administration, their profits eventually siphoned off by the U.S. Treasury, effectively limiting the number of mortgages they can guarantee in a given year. Trump officials have previously gestured […]

Mortgage lenders are racing to close on home loans within a few weeks and if they fail to deliver, some borrowers can expect a cash payment. Chase Home Lending recently announced it will pay borrowers $1,000 if it doesn’t close on a mortgage in 21 days, while Brooklyn-based Eave will offer up to $100,000 if it fails to deliver, according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes amid recent drops in mortgage rates, which have […]

About a year before the 2005 groundbreaking for Trump International Hotel & Tower, Trump Organization executive Charles Reiss met the late Chicago real estate broker Bruce Kaplan and his colleague, Leslie Karr. The Trump family, Reiss said, wanted advice on how to market the retail space that would face the Chicago River at the tower’s base. “The way it’s designed now, it’s never going to lease up,” Karr recalls telling Reiss. The roughly 70,000-square-foot deck’s […]

Lennar Corp. reported a boost in net income, revenue and new home deliveries in the first quarter, as the housing market improves, Executive Chairman Stuart Miller said during an earnings call on Wednesday. The drop in mortgage interest rates and slowed growth of home prices benefitted Lennar and the new home market overall, Miller said. While the market “paused in the back half of 2018,” it corrected itself in the first quarter and is “now […]

HomeServices of America’s push to expand has paid off. Warren Buffett’s firm has toppled Realogy’s NRT as the largest residential brokerage in the country, according to a new ranking from Real Trends. Its rise to the top of the list comes as HomeServices has been growing its footprint through acquisitions and shaken up its leadership. The Minneapolis-based company, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, closed 346,629 transactions in 2018, according to Real Trends. The brokerage has 44,363 […]

The We Company saw its bond prices dip on Tuesday, following reports that the company’s losses had doubled in 2018 to $1.93 billion. The value of the company’s bonds fell to 91 cents on the dollar, down from 92.6 cents the day before, the Financial Times reported. This pushed the yield on the bonds up to 9.8 per cent, according to bond trading platform MarketAxess. The New York-based co-working firm, formerly known as WeWork, sold […]

Southampton property with 3-hole golf course lists for $15.9M A 12-acre property laid out in the shape of an “L” on Shinnecock Bay has hit the market with a $15.9 million price tag, Behind the Hedges reported. The property at 520 Montauk Highway has been divided up into seven parcels, all of which are on one of the highest points in Southampton, according to its listing held by the Corcoran Group’s Tim Davis. The property’s […]

Homeowners throughout the country are looking to refinance their mortgages thanks to lower borrowing costs, contributing to a sharp government bond rally. The recent bump in refinancings means investors who own the debt might soon see their loans paid back in full. So now, some large money managers are buying Treasuries and interest rate swaps in an effort to offset lost income from mortgages, the Financial Times reported. Applications to refinance home loans increased by […]

UPDATED, Aug. 3, 2:35 p.m.:  The breakup of Linda and Harry Macklowe after 58 years of marriage became quick tabloid fodder. With a vast real estate empire and a billion-dollar art collection to divide, one of the more salacious details to emerge from their split was that Harry’s then-girlfriend (and now fiancée) was living at 737 Park Avenue — his condo conversion several years in the making that’s only now nearing the finish line. Whether […]

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Another Fifth Avenue fashion titan has announced it will shutter its flagship on the famed shopping strip, serving a reminder of the decline of brick-and-mortar retail. Tommy Hilfiger will close its 22,000-square-foot store at 681 Fifth Avenue, according to Women’s Wear Daily. The company will also reportedly close its store on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach at the end of April. In a statement to WWD, Hilfiger’s chief executive of global, Daniel Grieder, said the […]

Square, the fast-pay company, is eyeing a 70,000-square-foot space at 130 Prince Street in Soho. Led by Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey, Square will take office space at the redeveloped building previously leased by beauty giant MAC, according to the New York Post. The location is just a block from Square’s current offices at 375 West Broadway, close to Broome Street. Invesco Real Estate acquired the 88,000-square-foot building in 2012 for $140 million, and it […]

Brookfield Place is to receive its second new occupant in two weeks, after a private markets firm signed a 33,000-square-foot sublease at the center. OTC Markets Group, which serves as a marketplace for stock options in private markets, will take a section of the 12th floor at 300 Vessey Street, from tenant Virtu Financial which has multiple floors in the building, according to Commercial Observer. The sublease, a 10-year term, will increase OTC’s office space […]

In Asbury Park, New Jersey, the oceanside town known for Bruce Springsteen and good surf, a developer is betting he can sell $6 million condominiums in a place that still has a high poverty rate and low median house price. Jay Sugarman, who leads the New York-based real estate investment trust iStar, has bought 35 acres of land in the town, and is planning a $1 billion redevelopment there, with up to 20 new projects […]

Two years ago, Natalie Nichols was getting unsolicited cash offers north of $1.7 million to buy her waterfront home in Miami Beach’s Sunset Islands neighborhood. She stood to make at least $500,000 on any potential deal. However, the Miami Beach resident and real estate investor wasn’t interested in selling the two-story residence, which features four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a pool with a bay view and a boat dock, she told The Real Deal. “I was […]

Cocktail hour at the “Liar’s Ball” — the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual gala — is all about being seen. Brokers and developers float to and from the open bar, pose for pictures with their peers and public officials, and often sneak out before the main event. At this year’s banquet, though, there were two glaring absences: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. One week before the largest real estate event […]

Four years ago, New York developers were on the verge of losing a privilege they had come to expect as a right: getting a steep discount on property taxes. The state’s “421a” tax exemption, which allowed condominium and rental builders to pay minuscule taxes for two decades as long as they invested in some affordable housing, was set to expire, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature did not provide a tremendous amount of […]