The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

60 Guilders, RCG Longvi team up to buy UES dorm for $200M-plus

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 03:07 PM PST

UPDATED, Feb. 22, 2018, 8:10 p.m.: Sixty Guilders and RCG Longview teamed up to buy a student-housing building on the Upper East Side from Joseph Chetrit for more than $200 million. The partners paid $212.5 million to buy the 506-unit building at 1760 Third Avenue, the brokers who negotiated the sale on behalf of the Chetrit Group told The Real Deal. The new owners will be able to “add materially to the property’s value with […]

Sotheby’s announces $55M redesign of UES HQ

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 03:00 PM PST

You’ll soon be able to walk through two acres of gallery space at Sotheby’s famous auction house. The fine art auctioneers are upgrading and expanding their headquarters at 1334 York Avenue at a cost of $55 million. They will increase their gallery and commercial space to 90,000 square feet from 67,000, with a total of 40 separate exhibition spaces. The redesign will be led by Shohei Shigematsu of the Rem Koolhaas-founded firm OMA, according to […]

Brookfield lands $217M financing for another Greenpoint Landing resi tower

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 02:30 PM PST

Brookfield Property Partners has secured financing for its next residential tower at its Greenpoint Landing megaproject with Park Tower Group. A group of four international lenders led by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) are providing roughly $217 million in financing to Brookfield for construction on 41 Blue Slip (a.k.a. “Two Blue Slip”), Commercial Observer reported. The 30-story rental tower will stand right next to Brookfield’s One […]

Another 220 CPS unit sells, this time for $23M

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 02:15 PM PST

Closings keep coming at Vornado Realty Trust’s 220 Central Park South — and there are still no discounts in sight. Unit 39A sold for $22.8 million, according to records filed with the city’s Department of Finance. The anonymous buyer is listed as NYK, LLC. The condo spans 3,114 square feet, according to the offering plan. It was priced at $22.4 million, and eventually sold for $7,324 per square foot. The purchase was financed with an […]

“I fear they have become the culture”: Richard Meier’s accusers say firm is whitewashing his misdeeds despite the #MeToo movement

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 01:40 PM PST

On a recent trip to Germany, Stella Lee met a fan of Richard Meier, the prolific architect who has faced several sexual misconduct accusations over the last year. The person was upset — not by the nature of the allegations — but by the fact that it had tarnished the designer’s reputation. “There remain many who continue to admire his work, and I can appreciate that because the work itself is high quality and played […]

Co-working firm Jay Suites launches conference-room platform

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 01:00 PM PST

Flexible office space firm Jay Suites is venturing into the conference-room leasing business. The New York-based firm, which has 700,000 square feet of office leased in the city catering to mid-size enterprise clients, has opened a 20,000 square foot space at 515 Madison Avenue and a 22,000 square foot space at 15 West 38th Street. The spaces, named Jay Conferences, will be filled with conference rooms and equipment for hire, starting at $99 a day […]

Venezuela opposition leader spurs renewed interest among SoFla real estate investors amid turmoil

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 12:30 PM PST

UPDATED, Feb. 21, 4:10 p.m.: As Venezuela descended into economic turmoil in recent years, real estate values plummeted and investors looked elsewhere, including to South Florida. Eventually, that too dried up, as the government’s grip tightened and the country grew more isolated. Now, as Venezuela’s opposition leader vies for control amid a humanitarian crisis, some of those investors are turning their attention back to the country, sensing or hoping for a light at the end […]

Mark your calendars: These are NYC’s top real estate events next week

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 12:00 PM PST

Here are another couple of real estate events worth attending! From Feb. 25 to Feb. 26, IMN is hosting its 2nd Annual New Hotel Construction & Development event at Marriott New York Downtown, 85 West Street at Albany Street. This event will offer networking opportunities and feature panel discussions on topics ranging from Opportunity Zones to the impact the current economic state has on the hotel space. Speakers include Jerome Cataldo, president and CEO of […]

Ponte Equities bought 15 condos at Related’s 70 Vestry Street. But what will the firm do with them?

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 11:30 AM PST

Related Company’s 70 Vestry Street luxury condominium just scored another high-profile sale. But this time the buyer is the site’s former landowner and one of Related’s partners. The developer of the Tribeca luxury property has sold 15 residential units to Ponte Equities for about $36.7 million, which prices out to roughly $2.45 million per unit, according to a public document recorded this week with the city’s finance department. The units are spread out on floors […]

Wall Street really likes Zillow’s new CEO

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 10:45 AM PST

Zillow Group CEO Rich Barton is back in the driver’s seat, and Wall Street likes what it’s seeing. Shares of the Seattle-based listing giant rose to $42.67 as of noon on Friday, up 22.5 percent from Thursday’s closing price of $34.83 per share. Investors traded 11.3 million shares, compared to 2.7 million shares yesterday. The pop came a day after Zillow not only announced a C-suite swap, but said it is doubling down on its […]

Will digital currency open the door to more black market buyers?

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 10:00 AM PST

Matthew Hansen’s dream house used to be a monastery. The hedge funder bought a Hell’s Kitchen townhouse from the Archdiocese of New York for $3 million in 2011. He gut-renovated the six-story property, which had housed the Christian Brothers for more than 50 years, into a single-family mansion with a restored 1910 facade and an expansive, six-bedroom interior. Then Hansen put the mansion, which sits at 416 West 51st Street, back on the market for […]

Elon Musk turns to Morgan Stanley to finance 5 California mansions

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 09:30 AM PST

Billionaire futurist Elon Musk has taken out $61 million in mortgages on five California mansions. Morgan Stanley provided the debt on the properties, which amount to $180,000 in monthly payments for Musk, according to Bloomberg. The Tesla, Boring Company, and SpaceX founder took out loans on four of his homes in Bel Air, and one in the San Francisco Bay area city of Hillsborough, Bloomberg reported. All of the loans represent new debt except one. […]

Can Greenwich get its groove back?

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 09:00 AM PST

The Greenwich real estate market — home to some of the most expensive residential real estate in the country — is emitting some seriously mixed signals. While the luxury residential sector in the tony Connecticut town has spent most of the post-2008 recession years in the real estate doldrums, 2018 brought some improvement. According to data from Houlihan Lawrence, the Greenwich market saw a 25 percent jump in sales of $10 million-plus homes between 2017 […]

Critics say BQX streetcar plan will struggle to gain traction after Amazon exit

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 08:31 AM PST

Amazon’s decision to bring part of its HQ2 to Queens helped breathe new life into the city’s long-stalled Brooklyn-Queens Connector (BQX) streetcar plan. Now that Amazon has canceled those plans, BQX could really be on its last legs, according to local critics. “It’s one less arrow in the mayor’s quiver,” Ben Fried, a spokesperson for commuter advocacy group TransitCenter, told the Brooklyn Eagle. “But the fact is, with or without Amazon, this project was losing […]

Kushner Cos. picks up $1.1B suburban multifamily portfolio

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 07:40 AM PST

Kushner Companies has made its largest acquisition since it paid a record $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue more than a decade ago. Kushner Cos. paid $1.1 billion to buy a portfolio of 6,000 rental apartments in Maryland and Virginia from the private-equity firm Lone Star Funds, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal comes less than a year after Brookfield Asset Management bailed Kushner out of its troubled investment at 666 Fifth Avenue, purchasing […]

Who provides the more accurate home valuation: Zillow or Redfin?

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 07:00 AM PST

When you type in a home’s street address to obtain an online valuation from the two biggest players in the field — Zillow’s Zestimate or Redfin’s Estimate tools — how good is what you get? Both are used by millions of home shoppers, owners, realty agents, anyone curious about what a house in their neighborhood might be worth. Both also have been criticized for estimates that are off the mark; some homeowners have actually sued […]

Yet another UWS condo board is removing Trump’s name from building facade

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 06:30 AM PST

Once emblazoned in capital letters on apartment buildings across the city, President Trump’s name is rapidly disappearing from the New York landscape. Residents of 120 Riverside Boulevard are the latest condo owners to demand that Trump’s name be removed. They voted by a 55 percent majority to remove the “TRUMP PLACE” lettering on their building’s facade, the Washington Post reported. This comes only months after residents at nearby 200 Riverside Boulevard made the same decision. […]

Ahead of restructuring, Re/Max’s revenue ticked up in Q4

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 06:00 AM PST

Re/Max’s yearly and quarterly revenues are up, despite a “correcting market,” the company disclosed in an earnings report Thursday. Revenue at Re/Max rose 4.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2018, hitting $50.8 million, according to reporting by Inman. This was higher than the previous consensus estimate of $50.27 million. Net fourth quarter income was $6.3 million. “We are pleased with our fourth quarter performance as our differentiated business model continued to demonstrate its strength […]

Black Creek considers selling warehouse REIT worth $3.5B

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 05:31 AM PST

It could be good news for the tight industrial property market. Real estate investment firm Black Creek Group is considering selling an industrial property REIT that could fetch up to $3.5 billion, including debt. Industrial Property Trust is an untraded REIT with 240 properties, with a total of around 37.6 million square feet, according to Bloomberg. The properties – 96 percent of which are leased – are a mix of bulk warehouse use and “last […]

Developers are poised to pump the brakes as LIC’s “Amazon effect” vanishes

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 05:15 AM PST

When Amazon announced plans to bring 25,000 jobs to a new campus in Long Island City, real estate players jumped on the transformative potential of the move. The e-commerce behemoth inspired visions of a more cohesive neighborhood that would lure more businesses and developers. Retail would flourish, as shops and restaurants filled the area, and other tenants would chase office space near the campus. Those hopes were soon dashed as Amazon nixed its Queens plan […]

National Cheat Sheet: Payless files for bankruptcy, 1M accounts hacked on StreetEasy … & more

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 04:30 AM PST

Payless will shutter thousands of stores amid second bankruptcy filing Payless ShoeSource has filed for bankruptcy and plans close all of its remaining 2,500 stores, Reuters reported. The Kansas-based chain, which first filed for bankruptcy back in 2017, wasn’t able to find a buyer; it now plans to hold liquidation sales at all of its outposts. Payless has already closed hundreds of stores, including the approximately 700 stores that shuttered after its first bankruptcy. Chief […]

Locking and loading listings: These resi firms racked up the highest dollar volume in 2018

Posted: 22 Feb 2019 04:00 AM PST

“I had so many difficult conversations with sellers in 2018 that I literally had to go to a voice doctor,” said Compass broker Brian Lewis, adding: “It was a tough year of real estate.” The voice doctor suggested Lewis use a humidifier and drink less caffeine to keep his vocal cords from drying out as he worked on getting sellers to the right price. Drawing on his years as an actor, Lewis now does vocal warm-ups […]