The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

East Hampton estate sells above $52.5M ask in 1 month

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 04:14 PM PDT

Too low? An East Hampton estate is in contract and expected to be purchased for above its $52.5 million asking price. The mansion is located at 442 Further Lane, the same street that houses the likes of Barry Rosenstein, Jerry Seinfeld and Lorne Michaels. The property was on the market for less than a month before entering into contract, according to the New York Post. The 6,100-square-foot home was designed by Francis Fleetwood, who designed

The big inflation hedge that wasn’t

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 03:00 PM PDT

Real estate is a good hedge against inflation. So now that rising prices are dominating the economic discussion, one would expect a surge in real estate investment. But in the Covid era, that has yet to materialize. “I don’t think we’ve seen a rush into real estate yet because of fears of inflation,” said Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner. The stop-and-go tempo of reopenings and new restrictions is casting doubt on the recovery of hotels

Dallas and NY metro areas lead US in projected apartment deliveries

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 02:30 PM PDT

For the fourth year in a row, the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area leads the pack in projected number of apartment units coming online nationwide. The New York metro area finished second. That’s according to a new report from RentCafe, which estimates that 334,000 apartment units will be delivered in the U.S. in 2021. The report tallied the 20 metro markets with the highest number of projected deliveries. While the figure is only 9,000 units below

Controversial project replacing Brooklyn McDonald’s poised for approval

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 02:29 PM PDT

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba: She’s lovin’ it. City Councilmember Laurie Cumbo has struck a deal with developers to rezone a Prospect Heights McDonald’s, paving the way for a sizable apartment building in a spot long-coveted for its redevelopment potential. On Friday morning, the Council’s zoning subcommittee unanimously approved an amended rezoning proposal for 840 Atlantic Avenue, at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue, setting up passage by the full Council Monday. The neighborhood’s community board had approved a lower-density

Taylor Swift archenemy Scooter Braun pays $65M for Brentwood mansion

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 02:00 PM PDT

Record executive and media investor Scooter Braun paid $65 million for a Brentwood newly built mansion, making it the priciest on-market sale in the neighborhood this year. Braun bought the 19,000-square-foot home at 2188 Mandeville Canyon Road from Larry and Kathleen Paul, according to Dirt. They had commissioned architect Noah Walker to design it, the report noted. The mansion is modernist in style and has six bedrooms and 12 bathrooms, according to a listing from

Top retail broker Amira Yunis dead at 51

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 01:00 PM PDT

Amira Yunis, the former model who turned to real estate and became one of the city’s top-performing retail brokers over her two-decade career, has died after an eight-year battle with cancer. She was 51. Born in a small town in Minnesota, Yunis worked as a model and a waitress in a Queens sports bar as a single mother before breaking into the male-dominated field of retail brokerage, joining Newmark in 2000. In 2006, she won

Lacey Tisch nabs Steve Mnuchin’s co-op after one last price chop

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 12:11 PM PDT

After a series of cuts shaved $10 million off the asking price of Steve Mnuchin’s Lenox Hill co-op, a well-heeled buyer knocked the price down one last time. Lacey Tisch, daughter of Loews Corporation co-chair Andrew Tisch, bought the ex-treasury secretary’s pad at 740 Park Avenue for $22.5 million, property records show. When the property went into contract in May, it was asking $26 million. The purchase marks the end of an era for the

Wells Fargo hit with $250M fine, new restrictions over mortgage lending practices

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 11:00 AM PDT

Wells Fargo can’t seem to escape its troubles with regulators. A federal oversight body hit the banking giant with a $250 million penalty this week for unsafe practices regarding its mortgage lending loss mitigation program. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Treasury Department bureau, said Thursday that the bank has failed to comply with a 2018 consent order mandating, among other things, that it identify and reimburse customers charged improper fees by

Judge rules tester in Newsday’s racial steering probe was “not credible”

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 10:30 AM PDT

Two Long Island-based real estate agents accused of racial discrimination are back to business as usual. After a 2019 Newsday exposé revealed systemic racial steering on Long Island — in which real estate agents directed homebuyers to specific localities based on their race — 67 agents and executives were subpoenaed as part of a state probe into the matter that ultimately resulted in new legislation. The New York Department of State, which monitors real estate

Microsoft, AmEx push back office returns

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 10:00 AM PDT

Two more major companies are delaying returns to the office amid the surging delta variant, the latest blow to the office market. Microsoft planned to fully reopen its offices on Oct. 4, but has been forced to backtrack from that goal. The company isn’t setting a new return date, according to Bloomberg, but is planning on giving a 30-day notice before reopening so employees can prepare. An internal survey reported by the outlet said the

Tenant activists fight each other over vouchers

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 09:39 AM PDT

Tenant organizer Cea Weaver waded into housing policy talk on Twitter and found herself in deep water with the president of a NYCHA tenant association over rental vouchers. Weaver, campaign coordinator at Housing Justice For All, started things off Saturday afternoon by tweeting a thought about rental vouchers within a larger thread on what issues her organization prioritizes. “It’s not really the vouchers’ fault that they subsidize real estate,” Weaver wrote. “They could be a

Facebook still looking for space in NYC

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 07:30 AM PDT

Commercial brokers in New York City, get those friend requests out to Facebook’s real estate division. Mark Zuckerberg’s company already has several office locations in Manhattan. But Bloomberg reports that the company is looking for even more space in the city, including possibly adding about 300,000 square feet at its Broadway and Astor Place location. A representative for the company told Bloomberg that Facebook is looking to “support the future needs of our workforce.” The

Rents rise in all big US cities, a pandemic first

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 07:00 AM PDT

It’s been a long time coming, but rents were finally on the rise in every major city last month — the first time that’s been the case since the pandemic hit. In all 30 of the top American metro areas, apartment rents were up year-over-year in August, according to a Yardi report. Bloomberg reports that the average rent in multifamily buildings rose by $25 last month, increasing the national average rent to $1,539, a 10.3

Nile Niami’s Bel Air behemoth enters receivership

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 06:00 AM PDT

Nile Niami’s “The One” is in court-appointed receivership after the spec developer defaulted on more than $165 million in debt he borrowed to build the Bel Air behemoth. Niami borrowed most of the money from Don Hankey’s Hankey Capital to develop the 105,000-square-foot property; he also used three other lenders. CNBC first reported the property entered receivership, citing Los Angeles County Superior Court documents. The court named Ted Lanes of Lanes Management as receiver. He

These were the most active architects in NYC’s spring awakening

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:30 AM PDT

The sky was the limit for Nima Badaly early last year. The owner of Badaly Architects claimed developers, eager to invest, were requesting zoning analysis on a daily basis. But Badaly’s business was turned upside down, along with the rest of the real estate industry, when Covid slammed the city shut in March 2020. While developers had been knocking down the architect’s door only weeks earlier, Badaly said his average rate of zoning analysis work

Office developer is buyer of Vornado’s Soho buildings

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:29 AM PDT

Two of the money-losing retail properties Vornado Realty Trust just sold are destined to become offices. The buildings at 155 Spring Street and 478-482 Broadway have been scooped up by office developer KPG Funds, The Real Deal has learned. Earlier this week, Vornado announced it was selling the properties along with three other Madison Avenue buildings at a $7 million loss. The buyer of the Madison Avenue properties was revealed by Commercial Observer to be

Jack Terzi, China Sonangol back in court over 23 Wall Street

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 05:00 AM PDT

Jack Terzi’s quest to occupy a Gilded Age Wall Street building is fit for a Hollywood movie, with its latest act playing out in New York Supreme Court. Terzi attempted to buy 23 Wall Street — the former longtime headquarters of JPMorgan and the scene of the Gotham City Stock Exchange in the 2012 film “The Dark Knight Rises” — for $140 million in 2016. His company even put down $17 million in escrow. But

From the rubble: How NYC real estate lived 9/11

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 04:30 AM PDT

The following is an excerpt from The Real Deal’s upcoming book on New York’s new era of skyline shapers, the men and women who were at the center of the city’s rise from the depths of 9/11 to its position today as the world’s financial and cultural center and playground for the global superrich. It includes previously untold perspectives from the city’s biggest moguls on how they built, seized and lost their fortunes — and

SJP claims final victory in 200 Amsterdam fight

Posted: 10 Sep 2021 04:00 AM PDT

A three-year fight over the Upper West Side’s controversial 200 Amsterdam condominium tower has come to an end as New York’s highest court rejected an effort by opponents to overturn a ruling that allowed the 52-story tower to stand. The Appellate Division decision “definitively ends the unwarranted legal challenges” and confirms that permits had been properly issued, said SJP Properties CEO Steven J. Pozycki, developer of the tower. The first resident will move in within