The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Lennar Corp. will sell its Rialto Investment and Asset Management to the private equity firm Stone Point Capital for $340 million. Miami-based Lennar announced the news on Monday in a release and said the sale is expected to close Nov. 30. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the homebuilder was in talks to sell its Rialto division to Greenwich, Connecticut-based Stone Point Capital. Lennar created Rialto after the recession to purchase distressed […]

AvalonBay Communities has convinced Target to anchor the retail at its new mixed-use tower in Columbus Circle. The retailer signed a lease for 35,000 square feet at the base of AvalonBay’s 1865 Broadway, according to a statement. JLL’s Patrick Smith, Matt Ogle, Corey Zolcinski and Erin Grace represented AvalonBay. Ripco Real Estate’s Richard Skulnik represented Target. The 172-unit residential building has 67,000 square feet of retail space spanning four levels. JLL is the exclusive leasing […]

Vornado Realty Trust is looking at $1 billion in profits from the sale of ultra-luxury units at 220 Central Park South — which is 83 percent sold, the company disclosed Monday. In a quarterly filing, the real estate investment trust ended its three-year silence on sales at the Billionaires’ Row project, where it turns out roughly 98 of 118 units are in contract. Closings are scheduled through 2020, Vornado reported. Excluding Vornado’s land cost of […]

Avison Young, flush with a $250 million capital injection, continues to poach talent from its New York City rivals. The Canadian firm hired office-leasing brokers Keith Caggiano and Roshan Shah from CBRE to help fill its growing ranks, Crain’s reported. Caggiano and Shah recently represented Apollo Global Management in its 200,000-square-foot renewal at the high-priced 9 West 57th Street. The pair their decision to jump ship for Avison was due, in part, to the $250 […]

Lease an airplane, buy a condominium? At a time when many residential brokerages are shuttering storefronts, Engel & Völkers is planning to open a retail shop in prime Midtown that will incorporate real estate sales with its yacht and aircraft leasing operation. The firm inked a lease last week for 1,300 square feet at 430 Park Avenue, according to Stuart Siegel, president and CEO of Engel & Völkers New York Real Estate. Germany-based Engel & […]

The Dermot Company has purchased a 126-unit multifamily building in Windsor Terrace for about $75 million, according to property records and sources familiar with the deal. The building is known at the Kestrel and is located at 33 Caton Place. Dermot is funding the deal with a $45 million loan from MetLife. Apartments range from studios to three-bedrooms and average about 844 square feet, and amenities include a fitness center, pet spa and roof deck. […]

It is one of the great what-might-bes of Los Angeles real estate. A 157-acre mountaintop property once envisioned as a mansion-in-the-sky for the Shah of Iran’s family remains unbuilt and unbought. After an earth-moving project three decades ago created 15 acres of flat land, a procession of global billionaires, Hollywood royalty and actual royalty have made the half-mile drive uphill to take in the panoramic ocean and city views. Nothing has come of those efforts. […]

VEREIT continues to settle legal claims in relation to a 2014 accounting scandal under former chief executive Nicholas Schorsch. The firm, previously known as American Realty Capital, spent $42.5 million in a fresh round of payouts to settle four class-action lawsuits, bringing its total to $217.5 million since last June. The four cases, which were pending in the Southern District of New York, were filed by funds with ties to investment firms such as Cohen […]

In the latest win for the developers of 111 West 57th Street, a federal court judge on Friday tossed AmBase Corporation’s lawsuit that accused JDS Development and Property Markets Group of conspiring to squeeze the Connecticut-based company out of its stake in the supertall. U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres dismissed AmBase’s complaint, which alleged that the developers arranged “an elaborate and long-running fraudulent scheme” to cheat the holding company out of what ultimately amounted […]

StreetEasy general manager Susan Daimler has been tapped for a national role running Zillow Group’s Premier Agent program — the lucrative advertising feature that last year roiled New York brokers, resulting in a probe by state regulators. The Seattle-based listings giant said Monday that Daimler had been named to a “key strategic role” as senior vice president of Premier Agent, a newly-created role that reflects the program’s vital role at Zillow. Last year, Premier Agent […]

Each week, The Real Deal and CityRealty look back at Manhattan’s priciest apartment sales.

RXR Realty scores $53.9M loan for Village Square project in Glen Cove The Uniondale-based developer RXR Realty won financing from from M&T Bank for the developer’s Glen Cove mixed-use development project called Village Square, Long Island Business News reported. The bank provided a $53.9 million construction-to-permanent mortgage loan. When finished, the 2.8-acre Village Square will have 146 rental apartments, 17,500 square feet of retail space. The project is near RXR’s $1 billion Garvies Point development, […]

Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, financing a condominium building was relatively simple. Since then, however, U.S. banks are less willing to lend the large sums required and, as such, the tiers of equity and debt needed to get the job done have become far more intricate. Developers who want to build a luxury condo tower need to pull together a complex array of equity partners and lenders. The Real Deal put together a video that breaks down […]

The Brooklyn luxury market picked up slightly last week by sales volume but dropped slightly by dollar volume. The market saw 17 contracts signed overall, split between 13 houses and four condos. The properties sold for about $46.8 million and went for an average price of roughly $2.75 million, according to the latest report from Stribling & Associates. The firm defines the borough’s luxury market as all homes priced at $2 million or higher. Last […]

Manhattan’s luxury residential market recorded 21 contracts last week at $4 million and up, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly luxury market report. Rose Associates and World Wide Group’s Billionaires’ Row condominium tower at 252 East 57th Street snagged the week’s top contract. The duplex unit 58/59B had an asking price of $13.87 million. That’s a nearly 7 percent discount off the $14.87 million the home was asking when it hit the market in September 2014. […]

A penthouse in Harlem sold for $9.4 million, setting a new record for the most expensive uptown condominium. Developer Artimus Construction closed last week on the 3,734-square-foot apartment at its Circa Central Park at the corner of West 110th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, the Wall Street Journal reported. “Harlem isn’t a value play anymore,” said Corcoran’s Julia Boland, who was not involved in the sale. “People with $9 million to spend have choices, they […]

  When Yale Fox debuted Rentlogic in 2013, the Canadian transplant wanted to give New York City renters a resource so they never had to rent another terrible apartment from another terrible landlord ever again. “Policy and enforcement are the best scalable ways to fix social issues,” Fox said during a local 2015 TedTalk event, “but what do you do when the other player on the field is the landlord lobby and they hold all […]

Queens is set to get its first $1 billion condominium project. Developer Chris Jiashu Xu earlier this month got approval from the state Attorney General’s office to begin sales at his 802-unit Skyline Tower in the Court Square section of Long Island City, Bloomberg News reported. At 964 feet, the glass tower is already to set to be the tallest it Queens, and now it may claim another record: It’s estimated sellout of $1.008 billion […]

Stephen Kotler is Douglas Elliman’s CEO for the Western Region. After growing up in Livingston, New Jersey, Kotler dropped out of Ithaca College to try his hand in the restaurant business before getting into real estate. He did a stint at real estate appraisal firm J.I. Sopher and Company, and then  joined Douglas Elliman in 1991. First working as a rental agent, Kotler eventually began taking on management roles, ultimately serving as Elliman’s chief operating […]

Leading up to September’s primary, the real estate industry flung hundreds of thousands of dollars at two Democratic candidates for New York state attorney general: Sean Patrick Maloney and Letitia James. Developers and landlords eventually funneled the most cash to Maloney — spurred at the 11th hour, some say, by the trajectory of the polls — but James clinched the race with more than 40 percent of the votes. The city’s public advocate, who has […]

 Every year, The Real Deal‘s Amir Korangy brings together some of the industry’s biggest players for a salon featuring the best and brightest minds in architecture and design. David Rockwell, founder and president of Rockwell Group, was this year’s featured guest. The architect, whose firm is partnering with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the Shed and Related Companies’ 15 Hudson Yards, joined Korangy for an in-depth discussion on his career, which includes collaborations with Danny […]