The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Retail rents are sliding south across the city, bar one exception: Times Square. Almost all of Manhattan’s main shopping corridors each took a steep retail rent decline in the second quarter of 2018, when compared to year-on-year averages, according to a Cushman & Wakefield report cited by Commercial Observer. Cushman found the most prominent retail spots took the hardest hits, including Upper Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, Soho and Herald Square. Times Square, however, recorded an […]

UPDATED, Jul. 12, 7:06 p.m.: A construction worker died Thursday after being struck in the head by a piece of scaffolding in Upper Manhattan. The victim was on a worksite at International House, located at 524 Riverside Drive, according to the New York Post. He was hit in the head around 2:15 p.m. and rushed to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The building houses Columbia University students but is run […]

Home sales of $1 million or more are on the rise in the U.S. A new report from Realtor.com found that homes selling for $1 million or more were up 25 percent in April year over year. That represented the largest jump in four years. The study tracked 91 counties around the country, and identified the luxury segment in each market, considered the top 5 percent of home sales. While the number of million-dollar listings […]

On your mark, get set … expand! The New York Road Runners, a nonprofit that manages the New York City Marathon, is growing its headquarters by Central Park to about 48,000 square feet, according to Crain’s. This is a 20 percent increase from its current size of about 40,000 square feet. The group will use the extra space in its building at 156 West 56th Street to give its employees more room, host conferences and […]

Bank of the Ozarks stock fell Thursday morning after the Arkansas bank suggested during a conference call that its real estate lending growth could slow down, following its release of strong earnings late Wednesday. The Little Rock-based bank’s CEO, George Gleason, said during the call that pricing is getting more competitive for real estate lending and the flow of quality deals has slowed. The remarks are significant for the larger real estate lending landscape since […]

REIT CEOs make much more than their employees, a new report finds The CEOs of the top 100 real estate investment trusts make 77 times more than a median employee on average, according to a report released by FPL Associates first published in the Wall Street Journal. And in general, REIT CEOs make 57 times more than their median employees on average, the report said. FPL senior managing director Jeremy Banoff, however, noted that the […]

UPDATED, July 12, 3:15 p.m.: An affiliate of billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s Icahn Enterprises snagged a penthouse at Museum Tower for $9.3 million, according to property records filed with the city Thursday. The seller is the estate of Jerry Perenchio, the former chairman and CEO of Univision who died last year. The condominium unit at 15 West 53rd Street was previously listed for $10.95 million. Spanning roughly 5,000 square feet, the duplex includes two terraces […]

A brokerage that specializes in air rights deals claims Brookfield Properties cheated it out of a $375,000 commission for a sale in Hudson Yards. City Center Real Estate found a buyer for Brookfield’s air rights at 401 West 31st Street but didn’t receive any payment for its services, according to a lawsuit filed in New York state Supreme Court. The brokerage alleges that it found Sherwood Equities, which agreed to purchase the air rights for […]

His friends were telling reporters just last month that federal investigations were “bankrupting” him, but legal fees haven’t held Michael Cohen back from buying a $6.7 million luxury condominium in Manhattan. The Wall Street Journal reported that Cohen in April closed on a unit at Witkoff Group, Fisher Brothers and New Valley’s 111 Murray Street skyscraper in Tribeca. President Trump’s campaign had been covering Cohen’s legal fees regarding the Russia collusion investigation, but the former […]

Joseph Brunner and Abe Mandel’s Bruman Realty have sold an industrial building in Clinton Hill for $20.6 million. The property is a two-story industrial building located at 8-10 Grand Avenue, and the company sold it to Workable City Development, according to property records. Workable secured a $12.7 million loan for the purchase from Signature Bank. Bruman had acquired the building in 2014 for $14.8 million. Representatives for Bruman Realty and Workable City Development did not […]

The Real Deal is pleased to announce that we will be hosting this year’s golf outing at The Muttontown Club in East Norwich, New York. Muttontown is a beautiful private country club available exclusively to members and their guests and offers the perfect setting for meeting and mingling with NYC’s real estate elites. The day will include breakfast, a shotgun start and cocktails and meals, including a semi-formal dinner. For the first time ever, a […]

The owners of the Major League Soccer franchise New York City Football Club had hoped to build a stadium for the team in the South Bronx back in 2013, but negotiations with the city fell apart. Five years later, they may be getting another bite at the apple. The stadium would be part of a project from Maddd Equities and Joy Construction by East 153rd Street and River Avenue, according to the New York Times. […]

The Related Companies won $2 million in damages in a dispute with its former business partner and glass curtain wall supplier. A federal judge in Manhattan sided with Related on certain points in the developer’s lawsuit against former business partner Carleton Ruthling, finding he improperly used funds from their joint venture, Tesla Walls. The court ruled that Ruthling used Tesla funds to pay his wife a salary for a no-show job and to cover the […]

It takes a lot to stay on top, as any broker anywhere will tell you. And New Jersey — perhaps in particular — has its own set of challenges, as any local broker will surely say. This year, President Trump’s much-squawked-about tax law is top of mind for everyone in the Garden State. Although the full ramifications of the reforms have yet to be seen, the caps on deductions for mortgage interest and state and […]

Rezoning of the Garment District is on track to be approved by the end of the year. The city’s plan to allow more commercial space has a smooth path toward being greenlit, Crain’s reported. The plan would remove an old rule that has required certain building owners in the area to dedicate half their floor area for manufacturing. The community board held its first hearing on the issue last month — and will hold on […]

New York City made payments to almost 200 contractors last year who owed thousands in taxes. A new audit by City Comptroller Scott Stringer found the contractors owed a total of $5.7 million in unpaid taxes in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported. Stringer blamed the Department of Finance for failing to collect the taxes. Most of the businesses had payment vouchers held under a restraint process, the report said — but the finance department […]

The new federal tax law is scaring home buyers away from Westchester. Sales in the county, which has the highest property-tax burden in the country, tumbled 18 percent in the second quarter versus a year earlier. That’s the most since 2011, Bloomberg reported. Buyers are concerned they won’t be able to write off their steep property taxes. The new rules set a $10,000 limit on deductions for state and local taxes — below the $17,179 […]

Almost a decade after home foreclosures skyrocketed during the financial crisis, they are starting to rise again in some of the country’s hottest real estate markets. And loosening lending standards may among the reason, according to one expert. Twenty two states posted increases in new foreclosure filings in the first six months of 2018, compared to the same period last year, according to a new report by Attom Data Solutions. Overall, from January to June, foreclosure […]

Homeowners have more equity than ever before — but are still hesitant to borrow against it. As home prices have appreciated, Americans have more than $5.8 trillion in equity, double the level in 2011, Bloomberg reported. But they aren’t tapping into it due in part to rising interest rates and reluctance stemming from the mortgage crisis. “There’s a long-memory issue,” Dan Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, told Bloomberg. “People got caught with home equity […]

Prices keep sliding in the Manhattan rental market as concessions remain rampant. The net effective median rental price of $3,314 in June was down 2.8 percent year-over-year, according to Douglas Elliman’s latest market report. That’s the sixth year-over-year decline in seven months. Median face rents also fell 2.9 percent over last year to $3,400. “It’s definitely been consistent over the past couple of months,” said Hal Gavzie, executive manager of leasing at Elliman. “It’s all […]

As migrant children lay separated from their parents in detention centers in south Texas, the Senate Judiciary Committee met in Washington in mid-June to discuss the EB-5 visa program, which gives foreign investors a path to U.S. citizenship if they commit at least $500,000 to job-creating enterprises. The Trump administration has tried to reshape America’s immigration system through executive orders and increased prosecutions, but Congress has temporarily renewed EB-5, once again, with the White House […]

Concession threat level: high, but declining. The amount of new leases with concessions in Brooklyn and Northwest Queens ticked down again in June, indicating that the higher summer demand for New York real estate might be temporarily lessening their stranglehold on the market. The share of new leases with concessions in Brooklyn was 40.4 percent in June, down from 42.8 percent in May, according to the latest report from Douglas Elliman. In Queens, it was […]