The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

eXp Realty’s remote-work model may have spared it some of the transition pains encountered by traditional brokerages in the age of social distancing, but the virtual brokerage is hardly immune to the other effects of the economic downturn. The Washington-based firm announced Wednesday it had reduced headcount by about 15 percent across the company, among a swathe of cost-cutting measures it was taking in response to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. “Staff departures

More than 2,000 people — and hundreds of U.S. real estate titans — cracked Forbes’ latest list of the world’s billionaires. But in the last 12 days, 226 people saw their net worth fall below the $1 billion mark amid the global economic meltdown. And while few will shed any tears for them, total of 267 people who made the list last year didn’t make the cut this year, including former WeWork CEO Adam Neumann.

WeWork has hired JLL and Newmark Knight Frank to help it negotiate rent relief or convert lease deals into profit-sharing agreements. The co-working firm has stopped paying rent at some of its locations in the U.S. for April as it aims to renegotiate its leases, according to the Wall Street Journal. Multiple other businesses in the country, including Equinox, have also not been paying their April rent. WeWork had been aiming to lower rent costs

Lightstone’s David Lichtenstein would like to make one thing clear: Not all property classes are in immediate peril. “Read my lips: You are not going to see distress in multifamily,” he said during a TRD Talks Live panel discussion on Tuesday. “Everybody listening who thinks ‘this is my opportunity to sharpen my claws. I’m a hedge fund, and I’m going to find a lot of great deals in New York,’ let me disabuse you of

Financing from Wells Fargo for a Rockrose Development project in Queens was the largest outer-borough loan last month by a huge margin. The bank lent Rockrose $350 million for its Eagle Lofts development in Long Island City, taking first place on the list by a margin of more than $270 million. The No. 2 loan in March was roughly $77 million from Morgan Stanley to eight Finkelstein Timberger East Real Estate multifamily properties in the

Most people around the globe have wondered what long-term impacts the coronavirus pandemic could have on their jobs, the economy, and culture. The verdict is very much out on all those fronts, but some in the real estate industry are already planning for a big change with regard to workplace design and practices, according to the New York Times. On the bright side, that might mean larger and more permanent workspaces for employees. Office workers

Among the many businesses not paying rent is Equinox, despite Related Companies’ CEO saying this week that commercial tenants must pay if they can afford it. Related’s principals are Equinox owners. The gym chain has not paid rent for the month of April at multiple New York City locations, The Real Deal has learned from documents and three sources with direct knowledge. Equinox’s failure to pay raises questions about its financial health and it comes

RedSky Capital’s entire Miami Design District portfolio, encompassing 14 buildings with 125,000 square feet of space, is hitting the market as the troubled Brooklyn-based development group seeks to sell much of its real estate. Cushman & Wakefield is listing the 2.5-acre site as a potential redevelopment opportunity for a mixed-use project totaling over 628,000 square feet. The property is in a designated Opportunity Zone, which allows developers and investors the ability to gain significant tax

SL Green Realty has landed a $220 million refinancing from Wells Fargo for the office building at 10 East 53rd Street, according to the deal’s brokers. The five-year, interest-only loan replaces $180 million in financing that Wells Fargo provided on the 37-story, 385,000-square-foot property in 2017. Walker & Dunlop’s Aaron Appel, Keith Kurland, Jonathan Schwartz and Adam Schwartz arranged the debt. In a statement, Appel described the property as “an exceptional investment opportunity with predictable

Most types of construction in New York have been halted for more than a week, an unprecedented statewide shutdown that presents a slew of financial and logistical challenges for builders. The potential consequences are manifold as development timelines are stretched indefinitely and workers on projects allowed to continue risk exposure to the coronavirus. While the long-term effects of the suspension remain to be seen, experts say projects will likely take a financial hit when it

The coronavirus pandemic continued to batter the U.S. hotel market in the first week of April. The national hotel occupancy rate plunged to 21.6 percent for the week ending April 4, a nearly 69 percent drop from the same time last year, according to data from hotel research firm STR. The rate for the last week of March was 22.6 percent. For the top 25 markets in the U.S., the drop was more staggering: Occupancy

The ruling to shorten 200 Amsterdam may not ultimately force SJP Properties to deconstruct nearly half of the nearly complete building, but it has already ended the use of gerrymandered zoning lots to boost building heights. In 2017, SJP Properties and Mitsui Fudosan America secured approval to erect a 668-foot condominium building at 200 Amsterdam Avenue based on a convoluted zoning lot 10 times the size of the building’s actual footprint. Locals swiftly mobilized against

The 10 largest Manhattan loans recorded in March totaled $2.5 billion, almost 50 percent above February’s total. Developer Michael Shvo closed on two loans that made the list, including the largest one — a refinancing for the Coca Cola building. 1) Shvoca Cola – $545 million A partnership led by Michael Shvo secured a $545 million loan from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America to refinance the Coca-Cola building. Shvo’s group — which includes Turkish

Only 69 percent of tenants paid rent in the first five days of April — a 12-point drop from the same period last month. From March 1-5, some 81 percent of tenants paid at least some rent, and the figure was 82 percent in the initial days of April a year ago over the 13.4 million rental apartments tracked by several data firms, the National Multifamily Housing Council reported. The council, despite the 15 percent

As tenants struggle to pay rent, homeowners are struggling to make mortgage payments. The rates of mortgages in forbearance surged April 1 to 2.66 percent from 0.25 percent at the start of March, according to Bloomberg. It comes as Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist expects that up to 30 percent of homeowners may stop making mortgage payments. The federal government has instructed lenders handling mortgages backed by the government to give borrowers up to six months

The terms of Airbnb’s billion-dollar fundraise have come out and it’s not pretty. The home-sharing company agreed to pay its new investors, private-equity firms Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners, an interest rate of more than 10 percent, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal also included warrants that investors can convert to receive stock and valued Airbnb at $18 billion — a stark drop for the company last valued at $31 billion after a

Soon after Gov. Andrew Cuomo put New York’s strict social distancing rules in place, industrial broker Thomas Donovan’s phone stopped ringing. It was a sudden shift in what had been one of real estate’s hottest sectors. But in recent days, Donovan said, folks have begun sniffing around again for space. “We have seen people that we’re speaking to say, ‘This is [a property] that’s going to be for me. Once this initial wave of social

Simon Property Group’s $3.6 billion purchase of rival mall owner Taubman Centers in February may seem like just another example of the retail sector’s recent travails. But the takeover actually began four years ago. Taubman had successfully fended off Simon’s advances since 2002, when it resisted  the nation’s largest mall owner’s first hostile takeover bid, thanks to a governance structure designed to keep the REIT firmly in the control of the founding family, despite the

When Marty Burger addressed 130 real estate players at a ski retreat in early March, he said the event might be the last “before the coronavirus passes.” At the time, the Silverstein Properties CEO didn’t realize the magnitude of his words. He and at least 15 other attendees contracted coronavirus on the annual trip, he told The Real Deal in an interview on Tuesday. And 30 to 40 others experienced symptoms. Burger, who has been