The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Milstein lends $130M on Seaport site it long owned

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 03:38 PM PDT

Milstein Properties is having separation anxiety in South Street Seaport. The company changed its role at 250 Water Street, a one-acre parking lot and development site that it owned for nearly four decades. The company, which sold the site earlier this month, has gone from owner to lender, originating a $129.7 million loan for Howard Hughes Corporation’s acquisition of the property, according to documents filed with the city on Friday. The property was sold free of debt, […]

The Hamptons hideaways of the rich and famous

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 03:00 PM PDT

Several homes with celebrity cachet — current and historical — have hit the market this summer. But a famous seller does not mean these properties are immune to price drops. Several homes have had to slash their asking prices on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, some A-listers are trying their luck on the rental market, offering up their homes for just a month or the whole season. Here’s a look at what some newsmakers are […]

EB-5 investment firm fires back at former business partner over profits spat

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 02:35 PM PDT

A Downtown Los Angeles EB-5 investment firm has fired back at allegations from a former business partner that it cut him out of business profits involving a project at the Ace Hotel in New York. Young Hun Kim and 8th Bridge Capital are counter-suing Moses Choi of the Southeast Regional Center in Atlanta for $6 million, calling him a “habitual fraudster.” They filed a countersuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In December, Choi […]

Chanel buys its Midtown headquarters

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 02:26 PM PDT

Chanel has purchased its headquarters in Midtown East for $81.5 million. The famed Parisian fashion company bought the 17-story building at 15 East 57th Street from Metropolitan Real Estate, part of the Carlyle Group, according to property records. Chanel initially signed a lease at the building in 1993 and filed plans for a $3.8 million renovation in 2016 that included expanding the retail space from the first and second floors to the first through seventh […]

Ares flips Harlem portfolio for nearly double what it paid

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 02:08 PM PDT

Ares Management flipped a five-building Harlem portfolio for nearly double what it paid for in 2012. The company sold the package at 54-62 West 125th Street for $26.5 million, according to documents filed with the city Friday. The purchase price is much higher than the $14.5 million that the company previously paid. The properties are five four-story buildings that sit between Lenox Avenue and Fifth Avenue, near the northwestern edge of Marcus Garvey Park. The […]

The Real Deal’s digital subscription packages

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 01:50 PM PDT

For the past 15 years — beginning in New York and expanding to Miami, L.A. and recently Chicago — we have published the independent, in-depth and award-winning reporting and analysis that millions of real estate, finance and legal professionals, among others, rely on in print and daily on the web. Now, we are asking our readers to join us in the next phase of TRD as digital subscribers. Readers who consume more than 15 articles […]

Kushners, Trumps end hotel collaboration

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 01:35 PM PDT

The Trumps and the Kushners are no longer in the hotel business together. The New York Times reports that management agreements with the Trump Organization at two Kushner Companies-owned hotels in New Jersey — one on the Jersey Shore and the other in Livingston — were recently terminated. The decision to break off the deal on the Jersey Shore initially came from the Kushner side, the Times reported, after the proposed arrangement attracted public scrutiny […]

Back to School: NYU buys Greenwich Village resi building from Vornado for $45M

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 01:08 PM PDT

Vornado Realty Trust has sold a 27-unit residential building in Greenwich Village to New York University for $45 million, according to property records. The building is located at 27 Washington Square North and stands seven stories tall. Vornado purchased it from Duell Management in 2015 for $20 million. Representatives from Vornado and NYU did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It was not immediately clear what the university plans to do with the new […]

A “cocktail party of mastodons, pineapples and swizzlesticks”: Hudson Yards architects talk about how projects interact

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 12:36 PM PDT

Hudson Yards might be a “cocktail party” of buildings designed to co-mingle, but it didn’t result from numerous meetings between the architects. The designers behind the megadevelopment met on the 24th floor of 10 Hudson Yards on Friday — the second time the group has convened in the project’s decade-plus history. Seven architects from the firms that designed most of the first phase of the 28-acre project spoke on a panel at an event hosted […]

WATCH: LA’s resi experts discuss the future of the city’s housing market

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 12:05 PM PDT

 How does aspirational pricing affect the L.A.’s housing market? “Pricing artificially high gets attention, but it really hurts the fairly priced developments, Douglas Elliman’s Ernie Carswell during The Real Deal’s first-ever DTLA Spotlight event earlier this month. “What I would like to see is more reality in the pricing.” Carswell was joined by Josh Flagg, (Rodeo Realty) Nick Segal (Pacific Union), Beth Styne (Coldwell Banker), James Harris (The Agency) and Alexei Barrionuevo (The Real Deal) to discuss the […]

The top NYC real estate events next week

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 11:35 AM PDT

There will be a couple of new real estate events next week in New York City. On June 26, Bisnow is hosting its NY CRE Tech Summit from 7:30 a.m. to noon at 866 United Nations Plaza. Attend and learn about how the commercial real estate world is adapting to growing technological advancements within the space. K.P. Reddy of BuiltTech Labs and the Combine, Sarah Bonder of ManageGo, Paul Snow of Factom, Guy Vardi of […]

Vanbarton is trying to boot commercial tenants from 990 Sixth. And the lawsuits are piling up

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 11:12 AM PDT

Vanbarton Group was sued for the third time in the past two months for allegedly pushing out office tenants at 990 Sixth Avenue. The property, called the Vogue, is a 25-story rental building with 320 apartments and four floors of offices. According to the latest suit, filed by personal injury law firm Schulman, Blitz & Williamson, Vanbarton has been negotiating buyouts with commercial tenants since January, shortly after acquiring the property in a $320 million […]

National Cheat Sheet: Cushman & Wakefield files for IPO … & more

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 10:05 AM PDT

Cushman & Wakefield officially files for an initial public offering Last month, sources told The Real Deal that Cushman & Wakefield planned to file for an initial public offering, and this week, the global commercial brokerage made it official by filing its paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cushman didn’t say how many shares it plans to offer — or at what price. In December, the brokerage’s competitor, Newmark Knight Frank, had its own $615 […]

City records agency inks huge lease in Industry City

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 09:04 AM PDT

A city records agency is taking a big chunk of space at Building 20 in Industry City. The Department of Records and Information Services has signed a 20-year lease at the complex for nearly 133,000 square feet, and Gumption Coffee has signed a 12-year lease for 6,000 square feet, according to the Commercial Observer. DORIS is already located in Industry City but will move from Building 19 at 148 39th Street to Building 20 at […]

As redevelopment becomes all the rage in downtown Miami, nightclubs are turning into collateral damage

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 07:30 AM PDT

For more than 15 years, in the wee hours before sunrise on Sundays, the thumping bass emanating from the speakers inside the cavernous Club Space lured hundreds of electronic dance music aficionados onto Northeast 11th Street in downtown Miami. It’s a scene that real estate developers, brokers and other city boosters have used to promote Miami as a vibrant, 24-hour city to help sell condo units in the urban core. But in the past year, […]

Paying the right commission is ultimately up to you

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 07:00 AM PDT

So you think things don’t get rough in real estate and feathers don’t fly when agents’ commission money is at stake? Ha. Listen to what Joshua Hunt, founder and CEO of discount-fee realty brokerage Trelora recently said here at a meeting of the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department. Trelora, which is based in Denver, charges home sellers a flat $2,500 to list their home and allows them to pay agents another $2,500 for bringing […]

Home inventory in Manhattan is increasing. Too bad buyers aren’t following suit.

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 06:50 AM PDT

Homes in Manhattan keep hitting the market, but buyers just aren’t that interested. A StreetEasy report found that the number of homes for sale in the borough increased by 17 percent in May compared to May 2017, which was the largest increase since 2010. The borough had 9,720 properties listed at the end of last month. The biggest increase was on the Upper East Side, which saw a 20 percent increase in listings, according to […]

Chinese builders are getting perilously close to defaulting on bonds

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 06:00 AM PDT

Chinese developers are working hard to strengthen their land holdings, but the industry’s creditworthiness is paying the price. The average probability that builders will renege on their obligations in the next year is 0.87 percent, according to the Bloomberg Default risk model. This is three times as high as in the technology industry, and roughly 75 percent of developers saw their default risk climb in the past year. Chinese companies have focused on acquiring debt […]

Tenants in Jamaica building sue landlord over harassment

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 05:30 AM PDT

Tenants at 87-40 165th Street in Jamaica are dealing with vermin infestations, broken plumbing systems and harassment from their landlord, they claim in a new lawsuit. The Legal Aid Society filed the lawsuit in Queens Housing Court against landlord Hillside House, according to the New York Daily News. Alleged problems at the building also include broken elevators and heating systems. Last year, the building was listed as having more violations with the Department of Housing Preservation and […]

Real estate pros say HPD’s predatory landlord “watch list” is flawed

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 05:00 AM PDT

The city expects to add 150 properties each year to a list designed to warn tenants of potential predatory landlords. But some industry professionals think the city’s methodology for the “watch list” is flawed. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development recently proposed guidelines for what buildings will appear on its “Speculation Watch List.” HPD seeks to include rent-regulated multifamily buildings that sell below the median cap rate of the property’s borough, saying such deals […]

Here are Manhattan’s top 40 resi agents

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 04:30 AM PDT

New York’s residential market was something of a puzzle in 2017 — with exuberant buyers dropping eight-figure sums at 432 Park Avenue one minute, and price-conscious shoppers sitting on the sidelines the next. But inevitably, brokers who found ways to fit buyers and sellers together got deals done and rose to the top of the heap on The Real Deal’s annual ranking of residential agents. But this year’s top agents didn’t just eke out sales […]

Cadre eyes Google, Facebook employees in bid for customers

Posted: 22 Jun 2018 04:00 AM PDT

Fresh off a partnership deal with Goldman Sachs, the Kushner-backed real estate investment startup Cadre could soon turn to Google and Facebook employees in its hunt for customers. “There’s also a really exciting opportunity in the technology space itself with companies like Google and Facebook,” Cadre’s CEO Ryan Williams said at CB Insights’ Future of Fintech conference Thursday. “We think there could be an opportunity marketing private products to their employees.” Williams added that he […]