The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Ebay exec will lead Rupert Murdoch’s real estate charge

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 04:15 PM PST

David Doctorow, a senior executive at eBay, will be the new CEO of Move Inc., the News Corp. subsidiary that operates Realtor.com. Effective Feb. 3, Doctorow will take the helm from and report to Tracey Fellows, who is News. Corp’s president of global digital real estate. “David is a thoughtful, dynamic leader with vast experience in contemporary digital commerce, and thus the ideal individual to take charge at Move,” News Corp. CEO Robert Thomson said

Cuomo delivers 10th State of the State Address

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 03:40 PM PST

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s agenda for the upcoming legislative session includes lifting some licensing restrictions for real estate brokers and renewing the push to legalize marijuana in the state. Cuomo laid out his agenda in his 10th State of the State address Wednesday and his administration’s 300-plus-page State of the State Book. He also acknowledged that his administration faces a $6 billion budget deficit this year, which he largely blamed on rising Medicaid costs. “The local

They’re just like us! “Billionaire” manse buyer takes out $58M mortgage

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 03:00 PM PST

The mystery buyer of Bruce Makowsky’s over-the-top spec mansion “Billionaire” has taken out a $58 million mortgage on the property, city records show. That jumbo loan is equal to about 62 percent of the $94 million purchase price. Coincidentally, the home also sold for about 62 percent less than its original $250 million asking price. The lender on the 10-year mortgage is HSBC, according to property records cited by Bloomberg. At current rates, the buyer’s

Lower-priced home sales drive Lennar’s Q4 revenue

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:30 PM PST

Despite past indicators of a housing market slowdown, Lennar Corp. reported an uptick in fourth-quarter sales, as it pushes to sell lower-priced homes. The Miami-based homebuilder’s new home orders jumped 23 percent, year-over-year, in the latest quarter, to 13,089 homes. Home deliveries rose 16 percent to 16,391 homes. As a result, Lennar reported fourth quarter revenue up 7 percent to $6.9 billion, compared with $6.45 billion in the same period of 2019. Lennar’s revenue jump

Deadline is set for bids on Trump’s DC hotel

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 02:00 PM PST

Potential buyers have until January 23 to bid on the Trump Organization’s controversial Washington, D.C. hotel. The firm marketing the Trump Washington hotel, JLL, is already seeing “robust activity,” the Wall Street Journal reported, and the Trump Organization hopes it can fetch $500 million for the ground lease. That price would represent $2 million per key, which would constitute a record in the nation’s capital. Trump does not actually own the hotel, but leases the

De Blasio to test brokers, owners for housing discrimination

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 01:30 PM PST

Brokers and owners in New York City will be tested by “secret shoppers” as part of a new housing plan aimed at rooting out discriminatory practices and housing inequality. Mayor Bill de Blasio released a draft version of the plan Tuesday. It outlined various strategies to address fair-housing issues in New York City. Among them will be a Fair Housing Litigation Unit to conduct secret testing and bring cases against owners and brokers who discriminate

Keller Williams Midtown claimed it would shutter to avoid $2M in rent: lawsuit

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 01:15 PM PST

Keller Williams Midtown claimed it was broke and on the verge of shutting down altogether to get out of paying more than $2 million in rent, according to a new lawsuit. Dow Jones, which sublet the brokerage office space at 1155 Avenue of the Americas, said the cash-strapped firm defaulted on rental payments starting in the spring of 2018. The two parties ultimately reached a settlement when Keller Williams executives said they planned to wind

Normandy looks to sell 575 Lex for more than $650M

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 12:50 PM PST

Normandy Real Estate Partners, Angelo Gordon & Co. and George Comfort & Sons are putting their Midtown office tower at 575 Lexington Avenue up for sale and hope to get more than $650 million for it. Property tours have already started for the 35-story building building, between East 51st and East 52nd streets, according to the Commercial Observer. Tenants include the New York Sports Club, Weill Cornell Medical College and WeWork. The property is within

Sales plunge in FiDi but surge 32% in Battery Park City

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 12:15 PM PST

Battery Park City has been a bright spot lately in Lower Manhattan’s otherwise down market. The final quarter of 2019 saw 25 deals in the enclave, a 32 percent jump from the same period a year ago, according to a report by Platinum Properties. The final quarter of 2018 had 19 sales. The average sales price, meanwhile, ticked town 8.5 percent to $1.38 million from the same quarter of 2018. But that was 20 percent

Sunflowers and Bees are the latest in smart-home security

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:45 AM PST

The latest in home security looks a lot like your garden. Two new products — sensors dubbed Sunflowers and an aerial drone called The Bee — were launched this week at the CES conference in Las Vegas. They are the brainchild of San Francisco-based Sunflower Labs, which was founded by Alex Pachikov and Christian Eheim in 2016. The company’s new security system includes Sunflowers, which are motion sensors that show cars, animals and people on

California teachers get in on Coney Island’s redevelopment

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 11:00 AM PST

The California teachers’ pension fund is getting in on the Coney Island building boom. LCOR, the development firm majority-owned by the California State Teachers Retirement System, has struck a deal that paves the way for the firm to construct a large apartment building a block from the boardwalk. “We are currently in the initial planning stages and anticipate a mixed-income residential development, with up to 30 percent of the apartments designated as affordable,” LCOR senior

Where are they now? Real estate figures who seem to have vanished

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 10:30 AM PST

Real estate is a famously fickle industry. Today’s good investment can become tomorrow’s cautionary tale in the blink of an eye, and a career in the business is rarely a straightforward climb up the corporate ladder. Kent Swig of Terra Holdings went from real estate royalty to an industry pariah after a series of defaults, development dramas and a very messy divorce in the late 2000s. More recently, Bellmarc Realty co-founder Neil Binder inked a

Roofstock, a marketplace for rental homes, raises $50M

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 09:35 AM PST

Roofstock, an online marketplace for buying and selling single-family rental homes, just raised $50 million to go after a bigger piece of the fast-growing market. The round, led by SVB Capital, brings Roofstock’s total equity raised to $133 million, according to TechCrunch. Other participants in the round included Citi Ventures, Fort Ross Ventures and 7 Global Capital, as well as earlier investors Khosla Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Canvas Ventures. Based in

JLL doubles office footprint at 330 Madison Avenue

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 09:00 AM PST

JLL has doubled its New York office footprint at 330 Madison, six months after merging with HFF. The global brokerage will now take 165,000 square feet at the 39-story building from floors two to six, according to the New York Post. Asking rent in the building was close to $70 a square foot. The brokerage represented both its own interest and the landlord. The lease expansion follows JLL’s $1.8 billion merger with brokerage HFF last

Chick-fil-A is arriving at The Hive in Times Square

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 08:30 AM PST

Fast food chain Chick-fil-A is moving into Times Square. The restaurant will take retail space at The Hive, a 140,000-square-foot development at 675 Eighth Avenue, according to the New York Post. The total square-footage of Chich-fil-A’s lease was not reported. The chicken restaurant’s move to the center of the city follows the Downtown opening of its largest-ever store. In 2018, the restaurant began filling orders at a five-story location with a rooftop at Fulton Center

Brooklyn mall’s $487M tops outer-borough loan list

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 07:46 AM PST

December’s largest outer-borough loans serve as an admittedly small rebuttal to the narrative of dying shopping malls. Large loans for two Brooklyn malls made the list: $487 million for Macerich’s Kings Plaza Shopping Center (No. 1) and $80.4 million for Blackstone Group’s Canarsie Plaza (No. 7). Other notable deals included $152 million for the Long Island City life-sciences complex of GFP Real Estate and King Street Properties, and $148 million for a Chetrit Group multifamily

NYCHA employee allegedly shot boss at Bronx housing project

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 07:01 AM PST

A New York City Housing Authority employee allegedly shot a colleague following a disciplinary dispute at a Bronx housing project. Frankie Corchado, a 46-year-old supervisor of housing caretakers at Fort Independence Houses in Knightsbridge Heights, allegedly shot his boss three times in the chest at the building’s office on Monday, according to the New York Post. He allegedly fled the scene in a beige Chevy Tahoe. The victim, Charles Newton, was taken to St. Barnabas

High court hearing rent overcharge cases puts lawyers on the spot

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 06:30 AM PST

With untold millions of dollars at stake for landlords and tenants, the Court of Appeals in Albany grilled attorneys for three hours Tuesday to determine how the 2019 rent law should apply to pending and future rent-overcharge cases. Both sides made impassioned arguments for and against the retroactive application of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act in such cases. The statute, passed in June, bumped up what landlords would have to pay in the

Adam Neumann’s next bet? Mortgage servicing

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 06:00 AM PST

Months after being forced out of WeWork, co-founder Adam Neumann is continuing an investment spree. Through his family office, 166 2nd LLC, the 40-year-old is in talks to take part in a $4 million convertible note in Peach Street Inc., a startup that is focused on mortgage servicing, according to Bloomberg. As part of his departure from WeWork, Neumann was given a $185 million consulting fee from the firm’s largest investor, SoftBank. He has invested

Phoenix Realty, Artimus snag $181M loan for Jamaica resi project

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 05:30 AM PST

Phoenix Realty Group and Artimus Construction landed nearly $181 million in construction financing for a mixed-use, affordable housing development in Jamaica. The financing covers the partners’ 25-story project at 147-07 94th Avenue, according to public records recorded with the city Monday. The city’s Housing Development Corporation provided $124.8 million, of which about $50.2 million stemmed from a participation loan with JP Morgan Chase Bank, according to an HDC spokesperson. The city’s Housing Preservation and Development

RXR’s Long Island City development was the biggest new project filed in December

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 05:00 AM PST

Some of New York’s most prominent developers closed out 2019 by filing plans for big projects in December. Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty took the top spot on December’s list of the largest filings with plans for a mixed-use office building spanning more than 320,000 square feet in Long Island City. And prolific hotel developer Sam Chang took second place with plans for a hotel in Midtown spanning more than 300,000 square feet. Columbia University also

Managing the rent law aftershocks

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 04:30 AM PST

Soon after Albany passed its overhaul of the state’s rent law in June, real estate firms with big rent-stabilized holdings took a major hit. Months earlier, David Bistricer’s real estate investment trust Clipper Equity, which owns more than 3,000 regulated units in the city, had presented an ambitious deregulation plan to investors. The firm was aiming to bring its seven-building Flatbush Gardens — which represented 38 percent of the landlord’s holdings at the time —

Recycled ideas? Penn Station plan similar to JDS 2016 proposal

Posted: 08 Jan 2020 04:00 AM PST

Nearly four years ago, a team led by JDS Development recommended that the state buy properties surrounding Penn Station to make way for a new terminal. On Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo proposed a similar plan. JDS was among a group of developers, including Vornado Realty Trust and Brookfield Properties, who had responded to a 2016 request for expressions of interest (RFEI) for the redevelopment of Penn Station. The developer’s proposal, dubbed Empire Crossing, called on