The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

TRD INSIGHTS: 8.5% of home loans are in forbearance

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 02:34 PM PDT

Forbearance requests appear to be leveling off, according to weekly figures released by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgages in forbearance made up 8.5 percent of servicers’ portfolios for the week, up from 8.4 percent for the week ending May 24 and from 8.2 percent for the week before. That means roughly 4.2 million homeowners are now in forbearance. The pace of new forbearance requests has declined for the last several weeks, and the last week

WeWork’s head of US real estate is out

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 02:25 PM PDT

One of the last executives to remain from Adam Neumann’s reign of WeWork is exiting the struggling co-working company. After more than a decade at JLL, Aaron Ellison joined WeWork in July 2018 as head of real estate for the U.S. and Canada. At the time, WeWork was one of the fastest growing real estate companies on earth, gobbling up millions of square feet across hundreds of locations in North America (the company lost $1.9

Vornado walks away from Fifth Avenue property

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 02:23 PM PDT

After the bankrupt retailer Topshop shuttered its Fifth Avenue flagship last year, Vornado Realty Trust has walked away from the property. The real estate investment trust turned over control of the property at 608 Fifth Avenue late last month to the Korein family, which owns the ground under the building, sources told The Real Deal. A spokesperson from Vornado did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but company president Michael Franco said on

“5 years ago, people would say, what’s a TikTok?” Bill Rudin on why NYC’s office market may be more resilient than you think

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 12:20 PM PDT

Bill Rudin is betting on the office as a magnet for human connection. “We live in a real world where human interaction is critical,” Rudin, the head of Rudin Management and the chair of the Real Estate Board of New York, said in a conversation with The Real Deal‘s Hiten Samtani. He was responding to the recent announcements by major tech companies including Facebook and Twitter that they would be transitioning to a partially remote

Manhattan luxury market shows tentative signs of activity

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 11:30 AM PDT

In the grip of a long dry spell, the luxury market in Manhattan has seen an ever so slight flurry of activity. Five contracts for properties above $4 million were signed last week — two more than the previous week, according to the latest market report from Olshan Realty. “For a pandemic, we’ll take it,” said Donna Olshan, head of Olshan Realty and author of the report. “Whatever comes in, we’ll take it.” Deals have

“America is in crisis:” Real estate leaders address George Floyd protests

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 10:48 AM PDT

UPDATED June 1, 2020, 3:25 p.m.: On May 25, George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis, died after being pinned down by three police officers — one of whom kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. Footage of the arrest has set off a wave of protests against police brutality and racism, with major cities such as New York and Los Angeles seeing some of the most heated demonstrations. Leaders

NYC will lose 21,000 affordable units to budget cuts: report

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 10:29 AM PDT

City Council members are fighting Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposed cuts to the city’s capital budget, saying it will mean a loss of 21,000 affordable apartments over the next few years. Based on an analysis by the New York Housing Conference, officials estimate that the mayor’s proposed $2.3 billion reduction in the city’s capital budget will delay financing for 5,000 new affordable units and 15,000 affordable and supportive housing units that would have been preserved.

Ex-Trump nominee broke rent stabilization laws at his Brooklyn Heights building: lawsuit

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 09:09 AM PDT

The owner of the Florida Panthers who was President Trump’s former nominee for Secretary of the Army broke New York’s rent stabilization laws at his Brooklyn Heights building, a lawsuit alleges. Tenants in Vincent Viola’s building at 2 Pierrepont Street are suing the ownership entity — 2 Pierrepont Street LLC — for providing them with free-market leases instead of rent-stabilized leases when they moved in. Viola, the billionaire founder of Virtu Financial, bought the 12-story,

Only four Brooklyn lux deals for fifth time in six weeks

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 08:15 AM PDT

Brooklyn’s luxury-home market once again saw four deals last week, marking the fifth time in the past six weeks the sector has seen that many contracts signed. A year ago, a typical week would see 20 pricey Brooklyn homes go into contract. Last week’s deals were split between two townhouses and two condos, according to the latest report from Compass. The report looks at homes in the borough asking $2 million or more based on

Landlord lawsuit: NY eviction ban violates our rights

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 07:35 AM PDT

A group of landlords in Westchester County filed a lawsuit claiming that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s eviction moratorium is unconstitutional. The federal suit by owners of eight apartment buildings in Yonkers, Port Chester and Elmsford says the order halting evictions through Aug. 20 deprived them of their sole source of income, according to Crain’s. They claim the order convinced even tenants who could still pay rent that they didn’t need to do so during the pandemic

Offerpad debuts home-listing service

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 07:00 AM PDT

Offerpad on Monday launched a real estate solutions division that lets clients list their homes for sale with Offerpad employees and use its concierge services to get those homes ready for market, Inman reported. The process begins with a seller providing details on the home and uploading recent pictures of it or scheduling a virtual tour, according to Redfin. Offerpad’s real estate experts and platform then evaluate the property and give the owner a cash

24 Hour Fitness prepares for potential bankruptcy

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 06:15 AM PDT

Gym operator 24 Hour Fitness Worldwide planning for a potential bankruptcy even has it begins reopening its locations. The fitness company, which has more than 430 mid-tier gyms, has been talking with investors about the terms of a loan that would keep the company afloat during a court restructuring process, according to Bloomberg. The possible Chapter 11 filing would cut the company’s borrowings by exchanging debt for equity and putting lenders in control. Investment bankers

Retailers consider store closures as protests sweep the country

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 05:55 AM PDT

Some retailers, hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, are now contending with looting and vandalism in the wake of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd. Major companies like Target, Walmart and Nike, along with small family businesses, have closed hundreds of stores or seen them damaged during the protests, which in some instances have turned violent, according to the Wall Street Journal. Adidas has announced it is temporarily closing all of its stores

New York City’s residential reckoning

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 04:30 AM PDT

Arlene Reed is still reeling from a deal that took months to go into contract. By the end of February, the Warburg Realty broker was helping guide a buyer through an accepted offer on a $3.9 million apartment in a new construction condo project on the Upper East Side. But before the parties inked the contract, New York woke up to the threat of coronavirus. The stock market had taken a nosedive, businesses were shuttering

Howard Lorber’s comp is too damn high: Investors

Posted: 01 Jun 2020 04:00 AM PDT

Shareholders are sending Vector Group’s C-suite a message — and it’s aimed at their wallets. On Thursday, the publicly traded parent of brokerage Douglas Elliman and new development firm New Valley asked its investors to bless the pay packages its top five executives received last year. And for the second year in a row, shareholders balked. A majority at Vector’s annual stockholder meeting rejected executives’ 2019 compensation, including $11.7 million showered on Elliman chairman Howard