The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

The Durst Organization landed a nine-figure refinancing for its completed building at 10 Halletts Point, but the future of the rest of the gigantic project remains murky. The Commercial Observer reported Durst landed a $127.5 million, five-year loan from Signature Bank at the multifamily complex in Astoria, Queens. Signature managing group director Joseph Fingerman led the transaction for the bank, according to the Observer. Meridian Capital Group’s Ronnie Levine helped arrange the financing. The 405-unit

A former New York City official who left a big impression on its built environment died Thursday at his home in Brooklyn. Donald Elliott, who chaired the City Planning Commission almost 50 years ago, was 89, the New York Times reported. Elliott started out as an urban renewal administrator on the Upper West Side in the 1960s. He aided the winning 1965 mayoral campaign of John Lindsay and oversaw housing programs for the mayor. Elliott

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development is finally moving ahead with its third development in the Diamond District. The developer filed permits last week for an 1,100-foot supertall at 570 Fifth Avenue, according to Yimby. The project would join the firm’s other jewels in the block-long neighborhood: the International Gem Tower and a planned 534-key hotel along West 48th Street. Barnett’s filings offer two visions for the project, which would span a 13-lot assemblage on Fifth Avenue

The Canadians are coming. Toronto’s Prism Multifamily Group said this month that it bought a large multifamily complex in East Austin, marking its first foray into the Texas capital, according to the Austin Business Journal. Prism bought Spectra Parks Apartments from Austin’s Endeavor Properties. Walker and Dunlop’s Mark Grace and Alison Williams were lead brokers on the deal. While the price wasn’t disclosed, Prism got a $57.83 million bridge loan for the deal from New

The U.S. housing market tapped on the brakes in recent months after reaching scorching highs. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index reported a 19.1 annual gain in home prices in October, down from 19.7 percent the previous month. It was the second consecutive month of declining price gains. But the 19.1 percent gain is still the fourth-highest reading in the 34 years covered by S&P Dow Jones Indices. Phoenix, Tampa, and Miami had the highest year-over-year

Real estate investment trusts are coming off one their biggest years in decades, but 2022 might not have a repeat performance in store for the sector. The FTSE NAREIT Equity REITs index was up 36 percent this year through Dec. 23, per data from real estate analytics firm Green Street reported by The Wall Street Journal. Those figures mark 10 percentage points greater than the gains made by the S&P 500 during 2021. In terms

New Jersey is known for many things. Tony Soprano. Bruce Springsteen. Political graft. And now, industrial real estate dealmaking. In the past week, two of the largest institutional industrial buyers closed on two sites in the Garden State, paying a combined $72.2 million. Bunny Escava and Isaac Setton at Kassin Sabbagh Realty brokered both transactions. CenterPoint Properties bought a 14-acre industrial site that includes a 198,000-square-foot warehouse on Wheeling Road in Dayton, according to a

Shoppers in the Big Apple shouldn’t expect to do any in-store browsing at the tech giant of the same name as the retail chain responds to a surge in new coronavirus cases. Apple closed all 12 of its New York City retail locations to indoor shopping on Monday, Reuters reported. The company didn’t say when the stores are expected to reopen, but customers can still visit locations to pick up online orders. The company previously

Manhattan’s office market had a breakthrough in November, but details of the peak in activity come as New York City weathers a surge in coronavirus cases and concerns over a new variant. Leasing activity in Manhattan last month surpassed activity seen in 2018 and 2019, according to a CBRE report measuring the top 12 office markets in the country reported by the Commercial Observer. Finalized lease agreement volume was 2 percent greater than in those

Investor appetite for industrial property is insatiable. The once-drab asset has proven electric since the pandemic accelerated the shift toward online shopping and fast delivery. Institutional investor Blackstone Group, industrial giant Prologis and developer Rockefeller Group each bought warehouse, factory or industrial development parcels in the city last week for more than $20 million. Manhattan accounted for most of the investment sales last week in the $10 million to $40 million range with six deals.

Since the onset of the pandemic, New York’s commercial real estate market has been the subject of doom and gloom prophecies. Employers are yet to order workers back to their physical workspaces en masse, but the market notched steady recovery throughout the year. Most significantly, lenders are still betting on Class A offices — putting a damper on bears’ prognostications. New York’s five largest loans in 2021 totaled $7.2 billion, an impressive pace compared to

New York’s investment sales market in 2021 proved to be a bright spot — if you look beyond the bottom-line numbers. The top 10 deals of the year totaled $4.57 billion, which was actually below the total of $5.53 billion in pandemic-ravaged 2020. Last year’s total, though, included several large deals that actually got started in 2019, before Covid, such as Amazon’s $978 million purchase of the Lord & Taylor building and German insurer Munich

Brooklyn’s luxury condo buyers spent Christmas week stuffing sellers’ stockings — with deposits. Of the 20 luxury contracts signed for Brooklyn homes asking $2 million or more, the bulk of them were for condominium units, according to Compass’ weekly report. Topping the list was a $3.9 million penthouse at 207 North 5th Street. The 2,250-square-foot duplex has four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. For $1,732 per square foot, it also features two private

The long-disputed $77 million sale of a prime downtown Austin plot inched forward this month — assuming a district judge’s ruling carries weight. A Travis County judge approved a plan to sell the one-acre plot at 99 Trinity Street to Carr Properties, a private real estate investment firm, according to the Austin Business Journal. The parking lot and one-story warehouse on the site are across the street from the Austin Convention Center and surrounded by

UPDATED Dec. 28, 2021, 12:09 p.m.: WWE says a report that CEO and chairman Vince McMahon has listed his Greenwich, Connecticut, mansion is incorrect. The home at 16 Hurlingham Drive is indeed for sale, asking $32 million, but according to a WWE spokesperson it does not belong to McMahon, whose home is not for sale, contrary to a report by Wrestling News that has since been taken down. Records show the Hurlingham Drive property was

’Tis the season for excess. The Manhattan luxury market embodied that spirit last week, notching its best Christmas week of contract signings since Olshan Realty began tracking them in 2006. Between Dec. 20 and Dec. 26, homebuyers signed 42 contracts for properties asking $4 million or more, smashing the previous Christmas-week record of 17 in 2016. Total sales volume for the week topped $360 million, outpacing another holiday record: Thanksgiving week’s $315 million in luxury

The Haight-Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco may be the only place on the planet where someone named Sunshine Powers, who calls herself the “Queen of Haight Street and all that sparkles,” could be the savvy owner of a flourishing business, as well as the president of the local merchants’ association.  Every day, she and her staff stand behind a velvet rope at the entrance to her artisanal tie-dye shop Love on Haight, waving and calling

Keeping up with celebrity billionaire Elon Musk isn’t easy – especially when it comes to real estate. While the Tesla and SpaceX founder has said publicly that he lives in a modest rental in Boca Chica, Texas, a recent Wall Street Journal article begs to differ. The newspaper says Musk has been living in the luxurious lake home of billionaire friend and PayPal cofounder Ken Howery in Austin. Located in the exclusive Watersedge community on

New York City hotels have long been haunted by steep property taxes, but yet another increase has made the expense difficult to sustain for the industry. Property taxes mounted to 30 percent of revenue in 2020, a hulking increase from 9.4 percent in 2019, according to a report from the Hotel Association of New York City. The group detailed the average property tax expense’s growth in the last decade from roughly 7 percent of total

Onyx Equities is set to usher in two very different rental projects in Ridgewood, New Jersey, in early 2022. Luxury rental project NOMA and supportive housing residence Ridgewood Commons are set to open early in the coming year, according to NorthJersey.com. Leasing at NOMA will begin in January with move-ins projected for February, while Ridgewood Commons will open in January. Both projects were approved under Ordinance 3066, which was adopted in 2007 and repealed in

Despite concerns over supply chain issues, inflation and the omicron variant’s spread, one report says retailers had a holly jolly Christmas,. Boosts among in-store and online shoppers pushed sales nearly 11 percent above pre-pandemic levels and marked an 8.5 percent increase year-over-year, according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse report. The analysis defines the holiday shopping season as Nov. 1 through Dec. 24 and excludes automotives from sales figures. While the year-over-year gains are likely a welcome development,

Joel Kohn’s Jay Group secured $83 million in construction financing to advance its progress on one of the tallest residential buildings planned for Hamilton Heights. Meridian Capital Group arranged the debt for 620 W 153rd Street, where the developer filed plans last year for a 28-story, 238-unit building in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood. The Commercial Observer first reported the funding, which comes as a three-year floating-rate debt with a senior loan from Bank Hapoalim and

The 10 largest Manhattan real estate loans recorded in November totaled $1.8 billion — just shy of the $2.1 billion recorded in October and last November’s top ten loans. Vornado Realty Trust and the Trump Organization’s $950 million refinance of 1290 Sixth Avenue topped the list. Condo inventory and retail loans in the Financial District and Midtown, respectively, were next, for much lesser amounts. Tishman Speyer secured another $100 million in loans for its Spiral

The following is a preview of one of the hundreds of data sets that will be available on TRD Pro — the one-stop real estate terminal that provides all the data and market information you need. The perpetual battle for market share among Manhattan’s top brokerages extends across the East River to Brooklyn — where a different firm tops the rankings. As buyers reinvigorated the city’s housing market, demand for single-family homes in Brooklyn sent

The Covid-induced flight to the suburbs isn’t a uniquely American move. The Financial Times is reporting Londoners are heading out of their Jolly Olde Town in droves, sparked by the need for bigger spaces and more room to breathe. Residents of Great Britan’s capital city spent more than $735 billion buying property in its suburbs, backing up evidence of a flight from the city that could drastically impact London’s population and real estate market. Those

They’re writing the book on how to ignite bidding wars. The New York Times is reporting real estate agents are using novels, biographies, and how-tos as ammunition for price battles between pandemic buyers seeking homes with quiet places where one can relax and take in a good read. “Even when I stage a house, I put books in them,” Morgan Munsey, who sells for Compass in Brooklyn and Manhattan, told the newspaper, noting that he

A law protecting renters that is making the rounds in hot real estate markets upstate was voted down in Hudson, New York, this week, according to the Albany Times Union. So-called good cause eviction laws require the automatic renewal of residential leases for tenants whose accounts with their landlords are in good standing. Landlords who have kept rent increases under a certain threshold, such as 5 percent, would still be allowed to evict tenants, but