The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Singapore firm is buying Harry Macklowe’s stake in Midtown tower

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 03:27 PM PST

Harry Macklowe is offloading his stake in a Midtown tower, while he attempts to build another one. The 82-year-old is departing 200 East 59th Street, The Real Deal has learned. His capital partner in the building, Singapore-based Alpha Investment Partners, is buying his stake in the 35-story Upper East Side condominium tower. “In accordance with our business plan, we are now focusing our efforts on other upcoming projects,” a spokesperson for Macklowe Properties said in

Lawsuit: Douglas Elliman broker called me a “mulatto”

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 02:56 PM PST

A Douglas Elliman broker who alleged that a former mentee tried to steal his clients is now being accused by her of discrimination. Jason Walker faces allegations in a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Natasha Page that he “repeatedly made derogatory and offensive comments” to her when they were at another brokerage, CORE. Page charges that Walker called her a lesbian and a “mulatto” and said he didn’t want to hire a Latina assistant because “Latinas

Aby Rosen says Tod Waterman stabbed him in back on Lever House deal

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 02:12 PM PST

Beware of competitors offering to help you out. That is the lesson of a lawsuit filed Tuesday by RFR Realty founders Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs against Philip M. “Tod” Waterman III over the ground lease to the prestigious Lever House building on Park Avenue. RFR Realty entered into a ground lease for the famed property in the late 1990s and has had trouble with it since at least 2015, when the company defaulted on

Commercial rent stabilization bill makes a comeback, retail leasing gets boost from falling rents

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 01:35 PM PST

Every weekday, The Real Deal rounds up New York’s biggest real estate news. We update this page throughout the day, starting at 9 a.m. Please send any tips or deals to tips@therealdeal.com. This page was last updated at 9:10 a.m. Video produced by Sabrina He Mayor de Blasio denies the sale of NYCHA development rights to donors was a “pay-to-play” move. “The first time I heard who got the contract was in the paper,” the mayor said

Vornado’s 220 Central Park South closes $64M condo sale

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 12:30 PM PST

Vornado Realty Trust’s 220 Central Park South has closed another pricey sale. Unit 49A, which has five bedrooms and six bathrooms, sold for $64.1 million, according to property records filed Tuesday. That’s more than $9,700 for each of the unit’s 6,591 square feet. The buyer, an entity named K & J Assets, is linked through mortgage documents to an address at a housing complex in Hong Kong. The documents show it took out a $37.8

Going Once, Going Twice! Portfolio of rent-stabilized properties hits auction block

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 12:15 PM PST

A portfolio that includes a sizable chunk of rent-stabilized apartment units is hitting the auction block. Bids for the 10-property portfolio, which includes one parcel upstate, could serve as a temperature check for investor interest in rent-stabilized product after the state’s sweeping rent law was passed this summer. The six multifamily and mixed-use buildings up for sale include 855 East 217th Street in the Bronx; 553 58th Street, 171 Bay 17th Street and 1314 Sterling

Robert Shapiro is not alone: 5 real estate Ponzi schemes you should know about

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 12:00 PM PST

On October 15, developer Robert Shapiro—who pleaded guilty in August for leading a $1.3 billion real estate Ponzi scheme—received the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Drawn out over two years, the court case laid bare how his now-defunct Sherman Oaks-based investment firm, the Woodbridge Group of Companies, defrauded more than 7,000 investors, among them many elderly retirees and ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. Certain elements of Shapiro’s flagrant self-enrichment scam may be especially

Who’s leasing in Manhattan and which submarkets are performing best?

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 10:47 AM PST

Office leasing in Manhattan • Midtown saw 1,070,000 square feet in office leases inked in September, up 37 percent from August but down 39 percent year-over-year. The availability rate continued to rise, reaching 11.5 percent, while the average asking rent hit a new record high of $89.45. The largest deal in Midtown and citywide went to WeWork, which took 362,197 square feet at 437 Madison Avenue — soon after CEO Adam Neumann stepped down and

Zillow and Opendoor aren’t making much on home-flipping

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 09:35 AM PST

The slew of iBuying companies that have popped up in the last two years aren’t low-balling sellers, but they don’t appear to be making much of a profit, either. Despite the convenience and rising popularity of selling homes online, the iBuying industry — essentially, where a corporation like Zillow uses an algorithm to buy a house, spend a small amount on renovations, and sell it again — is working with microscopic profit margins, if they

Elliman foots bill for agents’ new business tool

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 08:00 AM PST

Douglas Elliman is hoping it’s found a divine trinity in a new tool that combines marketing, business management and a customer relationship management system. The platform, which launches next week, was beta-tested by the firm’s top-selling Eklund-Gomes team and partly developed using the team’s “book of business,” according to team CEO Julia Spillman. It’s called Elliman Studio and was developed by Gabriels Technology Solutions. “It wasn’t something that was off-the-shelf,” said Scott Durkin, Elliman’s president

Sales rise as Keller Williams pours money into tech

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 07:00 AM PST

Sales at Keller Williams rose 5.6 percent during the third quarter, even as the Austin-based franchise faced increasing competition from rivals. The company said the dollar value of closed deals in the U.S. and Canada was $101.7 billion during the quarter, up 1.2 percent year-over-year. The value of contracts signed during the quarter rose 9.3 percent year-over-year to $105.1 billion. But amid competition for agents from tech-focused firms, including eXp Realty, Keller Williams’ headcount has

Control freaks: Institutional players take over landlords’ war on rent caps

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 04:30 AM PST

When Steve Kessner began buying East Harlem rental buildings in the 1980s, like most landlords of rent-stabilized apartments, he played the long game. Keeping maintenance and renovation costs to a minimum, Kessner made modest but steady returns on his 47 properties, many of them run-down and rat-infested, and one of which he bought for just $5. But when New York state lawmakers added ways to boost rents on stabilized housing in the 1990s and 2000s,

Black developers say partnerships aren’t always equal

Posted: 12 Nov 2019 04:00 AM PST

Developers of color say the problem of larger builders using them as tokens has not been solved — even on private projects, where no government mandate for minority participation is involved. Minority and female-led contractors say that more established developers commonly enlist firms like theirs as “marketing representatives” in gentrifying areas and give them a miniscule slice of the profits. When Kenneth Morrison was just starting out as a developer at his Harlem-based firm Lemor