The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Diamond ring designer to buy Times Square building for $92M

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 03:00 PM PDT

The Hematian family is purchasing a Midtown-office building from Isaac Chetrit for $92 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. The Hematians, who are behind the diamond ring designer company Effy Jewelry, and its investors are in hard contract for the property at 145 West 45th Street, sources said. If it trades at that price, it will have gone for over $1,000 a foot. Avi Ben-Ishay of Norman Bobrow brokered the deal. He and […]

Lawsuit against landlord Steve Croman receives class action status

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 02:15 PM PDT

More than 100 current and former tenants of an East Harlem building can join a civil lawsuit that accuses landlord Steve Croman of illegally deregulating apartments. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Franc Perry granted the tenants of 326-340 East 100th Street class action status in a lawsuit brought against Croman by the watchdog group Housing Rights Initiative, the New York Daily News reported. That means Croman can now be sued by each tenant who was affected […]

David and Victoria Beckham check out condo at Zaha Hadid-designed tower in Miami

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 12:45 PM PDT

Now that David Beckham’s Major League Soccer team has found a permanent home in Miami, it makes sense that the soccer star is on the hunt for his own abode. David and Victoria Beckham reportedly checked out a unit at One Thousand Museum this weekend, according to the U.K. publication the Sun. The Beckhams are spending the week in Miami on vacation, and were spotted hanging out with friends Eva Longoria and Marc Anthony. Beckham […]

TRD’s daily digest: Everything NYC real estate needs to know today

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 12:00 PM PDT

Thank you for reading The Real Deal. We’re always trying to give you everything you need to know about the world of real estate in New York. Today, we’re launching TRD‘s Daily Digest, a new feature that puts all the news you love in one place. Please let us know what you think. We update this page at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., and 3 p.m. ET. Please send any tips or deals to tips@therealdeal.com This […]

Banks’ mortgage-servicing lines post losses amid falling rates

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 11:30 AM PDT

Falling interest rates are generally seen as a boon to banks’ mortgage business as borrowers increasingly take out new loans to buy homes or refinance. But lower interest rates hurt some of the country’s biggest mortgage banks, which reported the size of their mortgage-servicing businesses declined in the second quarter. Banks that have reported their second-quarter earnings disclosed that the value of the servicing rights fell between 7 percent and 10 percent, the Wall Street […]

Here are Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s real estate holdings

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 10:45 AM PDT

It’s not surprising that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has a vast real estate portfolio. The New York native and Yale graduate was born into a wealthy family and enhanced his fortune working at Goldman Sachs and OneWest, also getting into the financing of Hollywood films like “Avatar.” When he took his position in President Donald Trump’s cabinet, Mnuchin divested some of his interests, but the 56-year-old still owns at least half a dozen properties worth […]

Brooklyn Barons: The top 10 residential brokers in Brooklyn

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 10:00 AM PDT

This month, The Real Deal ranked the top 10 residential brokers in Brooklyn. Check out the chart below: Source: TRD analysis of closed sales on LavaMaps, StreetEasy and from firms. Includes Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn residential sales (apartments and townhouses with no commercial/retail component) that were closed in 2018. Only sell-side deals counted. Townhouses include single-family houses or properties marketed as such. For deals with more than one listing agent/team at the same firm, the dollar value of […]

Almost 40% of homes in the US are mortgage-free

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 09:30 AM PDT

About 37 percent of households in the U.S. are living without mortgages. The share of homeowners paying off their mortgages has increased by 5.5 percentage points over the past decade, according to Bloomberg, citing data from Zillow. This is in part due to an aging population of homeowners, as younger Americans tend to wait longer to buy property thanks to factors like student debt and increasing living costs. The trend could reverse as younger people […]

Investor linked to detained Chinese oil tycoon snaps up 10 condos at Ben Shaoul’s Gramercy Park tower

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 08:16 AM PDT

An investor with ties to a now-jailed oil magnate and some of New York’s priciest pads appears to have sealed the deal on an equity trade in Ben Shaoul’s condo conversion in Gramercy Park with 10 condos. In late June, as a surge of closings ripped through the city ahead of a new set of taxes on residential real estate going into effect, 10 sponsor units traded at Shaoul’s Magnum Real Estate-developed building 385 First […]

Chelsea residents paid Gary Barnett $11M to protect their views from a planned tower

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 07:30 AM PDT

Residents of a 12-story building in Chelsea were willing to spend $11 million just to protect their views. The residents banded together in 2016 upon learning that developer Gary Barnett was planning to build a condo at Seventh Avenue and 17th Street standing 145 feet tall, according to the New York Times. Within a week, a group of residents at the nearby building sat down with him and offered to buy the air rights to […]

These are some of the most notable resi sales in NYC this week

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 06:46 AM PDT

Closings in late June — in what appears to have been efforts to beat out the new mansion and transfer taxes on luxury residential buys — continue to trickle in to New York City’s public records databases. Some eye-catching deals that popped up last week include another closing at Zeckendorf Development’s 520 Park Avenue and, after 11 years on the market, the sale of a gymnasium-turned-apartment at the former police building in Little Italy. Though […]

Buoyed by the boroughs

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 04:30 AM PDT

While many of the top agents on this ranking have stuck to the rarefied world of Manhattan real estate, others (particularly the largest of the teams) have aggressively ventured into the boroughs. The Eklund | Gomes Team and the Serhant Team are, for example, both pushing deeper into Brooklyn in particular. In February, Eklund | Gomes tapped a new team leader in Brooklyn, Jessica Peters, who will focus on new development. The duo’s 10-person Brooklyn […]

What if WeWork defaults? Sales pitch at 110 Wall mulled scenario before a change-of-heart by Rudin

Posted: 22 Jul 2019 04:00 AM PDT

In the sales pitch for 110 Wall Street, brokers for Rudin Management gave voice to landlords’ worst-case scenario involving WeWork: default. An offering memo circulated in recent months by brokerage Eastdil Secured cited the possibility that the co-working giant — Rudin’s sole tenant at the 27-story Financial District office building — would live up to critics’ expectations and fail to pay its rent if the economy turns. “Given the single-tenant nature of 110 Wall Street, […]