The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

 SL Green Realty is unloading its stake in Midtown’s Tower 46. The real estate investment trust is in contract to sell its 25 percent interest in the commercial condominium units at 55 West 46th Street to a Brookfield Asset Management real estate fund for a gross valuation of $275 million, or $793 per square foot, the REIT announced Tuesday. The transaction is expected to close this quarter. In 2014 SL Green acquired the office condo

 Manhattan’s luxury market has another strong week under its belt. Last week, there were 38 contracts for properties asking $4 million or more — the best week since August 2016 when 43 contracts were inked, according to Olshan Realty’s latest market report. Of the 38 homes that went into contract last week, the vast majority were condos in addition to seven co-ops and three townhouses. Last week’s contract activity is a continuation of the upward

A commercial leasing startup is turning to its user base — brokers — to raise $2 million in seed funding. InTheMarket, or ITM, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Republic to get buy-in, literally and figuratively, for a new software platform. Brokers and landlords who invest $1,000 or more can also serve on the company’s advisory council. ITM was founded by CEO Steven Renbaum, who did stints at Newmark Knight Frank and Summit Real Estate

Steven Goodstein, who built part of Battery Park City in the 1980s and was part of a dynastic New York real estate family, died Saturday. He was 81. The developer died at his home in Delray Beach, Florida, a representative for his family firm, the Goodstein Organization, told The Real Deal. The cause of death was pneumonia. Goodstein’s father Jack Goodstein, a Polish immigrant who settled in the Bronx, founded a company in the 1950s

 The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it would extend the nationwide foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance through June. The move would prevent home foreclosures and allow for delayed mortgage payments. It would also offer six months of additional mortgage forbearance for those who enroll on or before June 30, Politico reported. Some 2.7 million homeowners with government-backed mortgages are enrolled in the mortgage forbearance program, which remains available to another 11 million owners. The actions

New York City restaurants received a small gift from Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Valentine’s Day after a terrible year for the industry. The number of seated diners on Sunday was only 56 percent lower than it was the same Sunday a year ago — the smallest decline since restrictions began last March, according to OpenTable, which tracks 54,000 restaurants, Bloomberg reported. However, most of the bump came from Valentine’s Day reservations and walk-ins. Last year,

After a series of setbacks, developers planning four towers in Two Bridges have survived two more legal challenges. A state appeals court on Tuesday unanimously overturned two decisions, clearing the way for the projects to move forward. The panel of judges found that the lower court judge should have deferred to the Department of City Planning’s “reasonable interpretation” that the city’s zoning resolution didn’t require further justification for its approval of the towers. Neighborhood groups

Compass is acquiring Bold New York, a 10-year-old brokerage with a robust portfolio of rental developments, The Real Deal has learned. The deal, announced by Bold at a town hall meeting Tuesday, will boost the venture-backed firm’s new development marketing division. Bold CEO Jordan Sachs could not immediately be reached for comment. With 120 agents, Bold punches above its weight with exclusives that include Metro Loft Management’s 20 Broad (533 units) and JDS Development Group’s

The vaccine rollout is boosting CVS’s bottom line. The pharmacy company said it projects a strong 2021 and expects to administer more than 3 million vaccines in about 40,000 long-term facilities, according to Bloomberg. CVS said it plans to bring in $400 million to $500 million this year from Covid-related business. The pharmacy retailer said Covid testing contributed about $400 million in revenue in the fourth quarter. In mid December CVS started immunizing nursing home

Lumber prices are rising to record prices, signaling that 2021 could be another strong year for homebuilding. Lumber prices generally drop during the winter months. But this season they have risen to historic highs for species, products and grades, according to Random Lengths, a pricing service, the Wall Street Journal reported. Oriented strand boards — commonly used for walls — and southern yellow pine — often used for fences and decks — are at their

 Ulster County is looking to develop a chunk of a megacampus where IBM once employed more than 7,000 people. County officials announced Wednesday they would accept expressions of interest for two properties that make up a portion of former IBM research and development facilities. The properties, now known as Enterprise West, include a 400,000-square-foot building with a 1,700-spot parking lot. The properties used to house Bank of America’s New York tax processing center. IBM manufactured

Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson, whose expansion efforts helped make it the world’s largest hotel chain, died on Monday at 62. He had been battling pancreatic cancer, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Sorenson, who in 2012 became the third chief executive in company history and the first outside the founding family, led the acquisition of Starwood Hotels and Resorts in a $13 billion deal in 2016. Sorenson also expanded Marriott’s presence under

It was one of John Catsimatidis’ better lines: Jesus Christ himself could not win the New York City mayor’s race as a Republican, he said last month. But Catsimatidis might try it anyway, he said Saturday. The billionaire grocer, oil refiner and developer said he would not change his party affiliation to run in the Democratic primary June 22. The deadline to switch was Feb. 14, and was later changed to today by Gov. Andrew

You can now count Scott Rechler among the real estate players who are embracing SPACs. RXR Realty, which controls 26 million square feet of office space in New York City, is raising $250 million for a blank-check company to take a proptech firm public, it said in a regulatory filing Friday. The special-purpose acquisition company, dubbed RXR Acquisition Corp., will target companies with a clear path to profitability and the potential to be a “category

Zillow’s stock rocket If you bought Zillow stock last year, you’re in the money. Shares of the listing giant shot up nearly 20 percent last week, breaking $200 per share on Feb. 11, a day after Zillow reported better-than-projected earnings for 2020. To put that in perspective, the stock is now up 280 percent from last year at this time, when it was trading around $50 per share. (And yes, that’s before it plunged to

CoStar isn’t going quietly into the night. The spurned data giant — which earlier this month made a failed bid to buy CoreLogic — is back with a competing proposal to buy the company for nearly $7 billion. The bid is 20 percent higher than a previously-accepted offer by Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners, which struck a deal to buy CoreLogic for $80 per share, or $6 billion. CoStar’s new offer amounts to $95.76

Last year may have been “garbage” for New York City’s residential market, but there was one bright spot: townhouses. That’s according to the year-end townhouse report from Serhant, which tracked sales in 2020. It showed the median sale price rising to $3.6 million — up 16 percent from 2019. The median price per square foot was also up, to $1,249. And total sales volume for the year was up 27 percent, hitting $875 million. “The

Lending in the outer boroughs remained sluggish in the first month of 2021, with the 10 largest loans issued outside of Manhattan totaling $1.38 billion. That’s slightly better than December, when the total was $1.17 billion, but significantly less than November when the total was nearly $2 billion. The largest loan, which was issued in Brooklyn, was the only nine-figure deal for the month. Out of the 10 largest loans, six involved properties in Brooklyn.