The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

The owner of a former 100-key hotel is handing over another key — to the building itself. Merchants Hospitality sold the building at 11-01 43rd Avenue in Long Island City to a creditor, Taconic Capital, for roughly $38.4 million. Crain’s first reported the sale. Merchants paid $32.25 million for the property in 2018. Taconic refinanced $30 million of debt on the building in 2019, adding an $8 million loan on top of that amount. Neither

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck have been renting a bayfront mansion in Miami Beach that’s asking $130,000 a month. The celebs — who broke off their engagement way back in 2004 — are staying at 2700 North Bay Road, according to the New York Post, which first identified the property. Lopez was the one who rented the mansion, the report noted. Jewelry designer Paul Morelli bought the 10,114-square-foot property in April for $17.5 million. According

Flex-office operator Industrious acquired the listings platform and branding rights of Breather, the Canadian rent-by-the-day company that folded its flexible-office business last year. Industrious announced Friday that it bought Beather’s intellectual property, technology and data assets. It has a listings platform that includes some 700 on-demand workspaces. The purchase price was $3 million, according to Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Industrious CEO Jamie Hodari told The Real Deal that Breather’s listings platform is a

Zac Efron is officially out of Los Feliz, with apparent plans to head Down Under. The actor sold his 5,644-square-foot home for $5.3 million, according to Dirt. It was well over $1 million more than he paid for it in 2013. Efron listed the property at 2173 W. Live Oak Drive in December for $5.9 million. In March, he shaved $300,000 off the price. The one-acre hillside property has five bedrooms and five bathrooms. It

It’s official: The Gateway tunnel is back on track. On Friday, federal officials completed their environmental review of the $11.6 billion rail tunnel, giving the project the green light, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move comes after years of delays from the Trump administration. The plan calls for building a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River, which would connect New Jersey’s Bergen Palisades to New York’s Penn Station. The approval could potentially

Federal prosecutors are now investigating real estate attorney Mitchell Kossoff, who went AWOL in April with millions of his clients’ dollars missing. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York is investigating the missing lawyer, Law360 reported. Kossoff’s criminal defense attorney, Walter Mack, alluded to the investigation during a bankruptcy hearing for his law practice Thursday. During a hearing regarding an emergency order to protect documents related to the firm, Mack said

The City Council voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to pass a bill that would raise the value of rental vouchers available to homeless New Yorkers. The decision puts Mayor Bill de Blasio in the hot seat to approve a proposal that has garnered the support of landlords and tenants alike. The bill, sponsored by Council member Stephen Levin, would bring the subsidies afforded by the city’s Family Homelessness & Eviction Prevention Supplement (or FHEPS) voucher up

Former Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki and ex-New York Knick David Lee upgraded to a penthouse at Palazzo Del Sol, after selling a different unit in the luxury complex, The Real Deal has learned. The couple paid $18.7 million for unit 7001. The seller was PDS Development, which developed the 10-story Fisher Island building, Miami-Dade County property records show. The unit has four bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms. It is 6,644 square feet with 5,171 square

The southern end of Central Park is home to a set of ultra-luxury, supertall skyscrapers. And soon, thanks to a legal ruling, those buildings along Billionaires’ Row will have a men’s homeless shelter as a neighbor. On Thursday, the state’s highest court tossed out a lawsuit alleging that the proposed shelter site, the shuttered Park Savoy Hotel at 158 West 58th Street, was unfit for housing, Bloomberg News reported. Neighborhood residents under the umbrella of

As the dust settles on the pandemic’s devastation of retail, smaller business owners are seizing on the market’s weakness. Stacey Fraser, the owner of childrens’ clothing store Pink Chicken, shuttered her four stores last spring, but managed to stay afloat thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program loan, the New York Times reported. By fall, dead storefronts lined Bleecker Street, but spelled potential for the entrepreneur. She snapped up two commercial spaces along the Greenwich Village

Talk about bad marketing. Queens voters were served with fake eviction notices in a campaign mailing Thursday by borough president candidate Elizabeth Crowley, Patch reported. The mailers, which show a pink eviction letter taped to an apartment door, take a swing at Borough President Donovan Richards, who is running for re-election. “Donovan Richards takes money from developers and landlords who are trying to evict tenants struggling to pay rent during the pandemic,” the notice reads.

One man’s dream of a Fifth Avenue tower for Russian oligarchs has died. Boris Kuzinez has sold his 60,000-square-foot office building at 260 Fifth Avenue for $52.5 million, according to property records. The Manhattan building was one of three assembled by the Israeli-Russian billionaire who struggled to find a lender for his resi tower. Therein lies the rug. The buyer is Texas-based rug manufacturer Amir Loloi, who scooped up the NoMad office building for $6.5

In January, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed to ban fossil fuel hookups in new buildings by 2030. Now, the City Council is trying to bump up that deadline. The council on Thursday introduced a bill that would effectively bar the use of natural gas in any new building or property that undergoes a major renovation. The measure, sponsored by Brooklyn Council member Alicka Ampry-Samuel, would kick in two years after it passes, several years ahead

A startup that lets mom-and-pop landlords get paid in full even if tenants fall behind on rent is expanding its property management services amid pandemic-fueled demand. Venture capital-backed NestEgg, whose app is available in Chicago and Dallas, launched a low-cost offering that takes over a landlord’s day-to-day responsibilities. Its six-person team in each city will run the service, called “Freedom,” fielding tenant questions, making sure units are up to code and serving as a help

When it comes to trophy homes, Hamptonites tend not to trust anyone’s taste but their own. There is always a market for spec homes, custom builds and extensive renovations. In addition, New Yorkers have been fleeing the pandemic, and lockdown-weary residents are eager to enhance their abodes with home gyms and wine cellars. As a result, there’s a booming market for the new. “New construction is selling at a 25 percent premium to 18 months

With less than a month until the Democratic primary, former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia has moved up to third place in the polls. Once a long shot, she has become a legitimate contender. But what would a Garcia mayoralty mean for the industry? Garcia came to The Real Deal’s offices and, with cameras rolling, answered questions about her positions on key real estate issues. The longtime Park Slope resident and public official was once interim