The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Tumult at Keller Williams: Interim head out, Midtown office hemorrhages agents, talk of cutting office space

Posted: 22 May 2018 03:57 PM PDT

Keller Williams NYC is going through a major shakeup, with resignations in quick succession of two leaders of its Midtown office and plans to significantly downsize its footprint amid a bruising few months marked by manager layoffs and agent defections. Josiah Hyatt, who had been the interim “team leader” for the Midtown-based franchise since April, left the the firm Friday to start his own brokerage, sources said. He had been leading the office since Lezley […]

Partying and excess remain fixtures of ICSC, even as some companies opt for modest events

Posted: 22 May 2018 03:34 PM PDT

Looking out from a booth in the Wynn nightclub Intrigue, it was difficult to ignore a man on stilts dressed as a tree bounding between the aisles. From up there, the view certainly spelled excess: women dancing on podiums and a crowd of real estate folk bumping and bopping to a top 40 playlist. The party at the nightclub Sunday night set the tone of what was to come on the inevitable party circuit that […]

Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany snag Brooklyn Heights townhouse

Posted: 22 May 2018 02:17 PM PDT

Actors Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany have traded in their Manhattan co-op for a Brooklyn Heights townhouse with views of the Statue of Liberty. The couple purchased the 8,000-square-foot Brooklyn townhome from Timothy and Stephanie Ingrassia for roughly $15.5 million, marking what’s said to be one the most expensive deals in the borough, the Wall Street Journal reported. Timothy Ingrassia, the co-chairman of global mergers & acquisitions at Goldman Sachs, and his wife purchased the […]

ICSC 2018 attendees are feeling better this year: PHOTOS

Posted: 22 May 2018 01:35 PM PDT

Buoyed by an increase in retailer confidence and lowered rents, attendees of the annual ICSC RECon packed the hallways of the Las Vegas Convention Center on Monday. The morning started a little slow at the first day on the floor, as many of the 30,000-plus agents, brokers, developers and retailers entered the Las Vegas Convention Center with coffee in hand and bleary-eyed, the result of the previous night’s carousing. The line at the sole Starbucks […]

Westbrook close to buying the W Union Sq. hotel for $168M

Posted: 22 May 2018 01:10 PM PDT

Westbrook Partners is close to signing a hard contract to acquire the W Union Square hotel for $168 million, sources told The Real Deal. The Midtown-based real estate investment firm is expected to sign a contract for the 20-story, 270-key hotel at 201 Park Avenue South in the next week or two, sources said. Host Hotels & Resorts, a Maryland-based real estate investment trust, put the hotel on the market in 2016. The Beaux-Arts hotel […]

Hamptons Cheat Sheet: Price for Montauk’s Ocean Surf Resort drops to $22M … & more

Posted: 22 May 2018 12:35 PM PDT

Price for Montauk’s Ocean Surf Resort drops to $22M After six months on the market, $3 million has been shaved off the ask for Montauk’s Ocean Surf Resort, making the asking price $22 million. The 9,400-square-foot hotel has 26 guest rooms, 160 feet of ocean frontage and a pool. Jose Dos Santos of Brown Harris Stevens is handling the listing, which teases that the building could be expanded or converted to co-op units. [Curbed] Empty […]

Toll Brothers sees record contract value in Q2. But costs are soaring

Posted: 22 May 2018 12:05 PM PDT

Toll Brothers saw its best quarter ever for contract value — but the luxury homebuilder’s profits missed expectations, in part due to higher labor and material costs. Net income for the quarter was $111.8 million, or 72 cents a share, the company said in a statement Tuesday. That’s down from $124.6 million a year ago. “All product types and regions are expected to show margin growth” in the next two quarters, CFO Martin Connor said […]

Subscribe to TRD’s China Watch newsletter

Posted: 22 May 2018 11:35 AM PDT

As you’ve learned from The Real Deal’s reporting, Chinese players have been pulling out of the U.S. property market amid a government crackdown on capital flight. The news and views on what’s happening change constantly, so TRD launched a weekly newsletter to keep you in the loop. Delivered every Tuesday morning, China Watch captures all the news on Chinese investments — and divestments — across the U.S. Subscribe today.

Daughters of late Madoff associate sell UWS co-op for $13M

Posted: 22 May 2018 10:56 AM PDT

The daughters of late Bernie Madoff associate Steven Mendelow sold their Central Park West co-op for $13 million. Cara and Pamela Mendelow sold the apartment at the Brentmore at 88 Central Park West to a buyer hidden by a trust, property records filed with the city Tuesday show. Neither party could be immediately reached for comment. Property records show that the sisters’ father transferred control of the unit to them in 2006. Famous owners in […]

Starwood scores $163M loan for 1 Hotel Central Park

Posted: 22 May 2018 10:35 AM PDT

Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital has landed a $162.5 million loan from Singapore-based United Overseas Bank for its hotel at 1414 Sixth Avenue, according to property records. The hotel, known as 1 Hotel Central Park and located right by Central Park South, stands 18 stories tall and contains 229 rooms, and United Overseas Bank provided Starwood with $37.5 million in new financing for the project. Starwood purchased the Midtown building in 2011 for $72 million with […]

Toys “R” Us is dead. Here’s who will feast on the retailer’s remains

Posted: 22 May 2018 09:50 AM PDT

Retail real estate these days can seem like a choose-your-own-adventure of sorts, with a variety of plausible story lines for all the players involved. Pivot to be experiential? Yes. Rebrand? Yup. Relaunch online? Affirmative. Chapter 11? Check. This last ending — filing for bankruptcy — is among the most prevalent plot lines, affecting not just retailers but landlords, brokers and lenders. And it is certainly the most visible on the retail landscape today. During a […]

State wrongly hid identities of landlords accused of cheating rent-stabilization rules: tenant advocates

Posted: 22 May 2018 09:00 AM PDT

Tenants are calling on the state to unveil the identities of various landlords accused of unlawfully deregulating rent-stabilized apartments. A petition filed this month claims the New York State Division of Homes and Community Renewal is wrongly hiding the identities of landlords who allegedly deregulated rent-stabilized apartments while receiving tax benefits from the J-51 abatement program, according to the New York Daily News. Under the program, landlords must keep all units rent-stabilized. The state sent […]

Zumper’s resi brokerage is staffing up in NYC

Posted: 22 May 2018 08:30 AM PDT

When Zumper launched its own rental brokerage with three agents last summer, Manhattan’s traditional brokerages were up in arms. Since then, the StreetEasy competitor has more than doubled its number of exclusive rental listings and embarked on an agent recruiting spree. As of May 15, Zumper had 26 licensed agents in New York, according to New York Department of State data compiled by The Real Deal. Zumper’s hiring efforts appear to have ramped up between […]

Upper East Side nursing home lands $127M in financing

Posted: 22 May 2018 08:05 AM PDT

An Upper East Side nursing home has landed a $127 million loan from KeyBank. The money for the Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, located at 211 East 79th Street, will pay off a previous acquisition bridge loan from KeyBank and finance more than $7 million in improvements at the facility, according to KeyBank. The financing team was made up of KeyBank’s John Randolph, Henry Alonso and Brandon Taseff. KeyBank also financed the $105.5 […]

John Legend, Chrissy Teigen scoop up Nolita penthouse for $9M

Posted: 22 May 2018 07:00 AM PDT

It looks like John Legend and Chrissy Teigen missed their old building in Nolita. The two just purchased a penthouse at 374 Broome Street for $9 million, according to property records filed with the city Monday. The pair previously lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the building, but sold the unit in 2016 for $3.9 million. The New York Post reported last year that after buying Rihanna’s former mansion in Beverly Hills, the power couple […]

It took this brokerage one day of trading to cross a $1B market cap

Posted: 22 May 2018 06:45 AM PDT

EXp Realty’s entry into Nasdaq was a billion-dollar day. The cloud-based brokerage founded in 2009 crossed $1 billion in market cap on Monday, the same day it started trading on Nasdaq, according to Inman. Its market cap at the end of the day was at $1.044 billion, making it already more valuable than national franchise brokerage Re/Max, which has a market cap of $944 million. However, it still has far to go to catch up […]

Cadre seeks at least $100M from SoftBank

Posted: 22 May 2018 06:00 AM PDT

Real estate crowdfunding platform Cadre is seeking at least $100 million from a fund started by the SoftBank Group. Representatives for the SoftBank Vision Fund met with a top executive from Cadre recently, Bloomberg reported. The fund gets nearly half of its $100 billion from the Saudi Arabian government and at least $15 billion from the United Arab Emirates. According to Cadre representatives, co-founder Jared Kushner doesn’t have an active role at the company, but […]

WATCH: Can the traditional brokerage model survive ​growing threats from VC-backed firms, lead gen?

Posted: 22 May 2018 05:30 AM PDT

 Though Andrew Heiberger ​says traditional real estate firms are being disrupted, it’s business as usual for some of the city’s top brokerage heads. “I disagree that traditional brokerage is not a sustainable business model,” CORE’s CEO Shaun Osher said during The Real Deal‘s 11th annual New York Showcase and Forum, adding that the most recent quarter was the firm’s strongest in over a decade. “If that were true, none of us would be sitting […]

How to conduct a new development “takeover”

Posted: 22 May 2018 05:00 AM PDT

UPDATED, May 22, 1:20 p.m.: Your new development has been on market for almost two years, and barely half of the stock has sold. Maybe it’s time to bring on a new sales team, or maybe your broker wants out. Regardless, you’re going to need a new approach — one that sells. So, what strategies do brokers employ when they “take over” a new development? Recently, Douglas Elliman’s Kirk Rundhaug, discussed the marketing plan he pieced […]

NYC’s top interior construction goliaths

Posted: 22 May 2018 04:30 AM PDT

One57, the first of the glassy giants to rise on 57th Street, wasn’t Lendlease’s key to Billionaire’s Row — it was a 60-story residential project on West 42nd Street. Roughly a decade ago, Extell Development tapped the Australian construction company to build the Orion, a 551-unit condominium building. That gig led to additional jobs for Gary Barnett as he grew his luxury empire. And in a matter of a few years, Lendlease became one of […]

The Long View: Why real estate tech won’t kill the middleman

Posted: 22 May 2018 04:00 AM PDT

Revolutions tend to promise one thing and deliver another. Think of the Jacobins paving the way for Napoleon, the Soviets toppling one autocracy only to ultimately replace it with another, or anti-corruption crusader Hugo Chavez building an empire of graft in Venezuela. Turns out this maxim also applies to real estate technology. Not too long ago, it seemed like the real estate business was about to enter a new era. To some observers, websites like […]