The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Virtual showings only: State clarifies “essential business” announcement

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 03:50 PM PDT

The state has clarified its position on residential and commercial showings, saying that while they have been classified as “essential business,” they can only be done virtually. The clarification comes after the New York State Association of Realtors emailed members Wednesday night to say that several real estate services, including commercial and residential showings, had been granted “essential business” status by Empire State Development. The agency is tasked with determining which businesses are essential during

Javits facility will also treat coronavirus patients: Cuomo

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 03:45 PM PDT

When New York City suggested two weeks ago that the Javits Convention Center be temporarily converted to a treatment facility, the plan was for the 760,000-square-foot complex to accept only non-coronavirus patients. But as the pandemic continues to flood New York hospitals with hundreds of new patients every day, New York state has received permission for the center to accept Covid-19 patients as well. “As we all know, the growing coronavirus cases are threatening the

Ken Griffin operating trading room at the Four Seasons Palm Beach during hotel closure

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 02:45 PM PDT

UPDATED, April 2, 7:30 p.m.: Billionaire hedge funder Ken Griffin set up a trading room for his Citadel Securities at the Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach, prior to the county’s order closing all hotels in Palm Beach County. Griffin flew in traders and staff from his New York and Chicago offices to work out of the temporary trading floor, as first reported by Bloomberg, days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered that all New Yorkers

SoFla brokerage execs optimistic, say deals are still closing

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 02:44 PM PDT

The real estate industry is bracing for a rough second quarter, but top South Florida brokerage executives are optimistic, and said that residential sales are still closing. Jay Parker, CEO of Douglas Elliman in Florida, Beth Butler, director of new development for Compass’ Southeast region, and Mike Pappas, CEO of The Keyes Company, said during a webinar hosted by The Real Deal on Wednesday that amid the doom and gloom the residential market has not

Thousands of CRE borrowers call on banks for debt relief

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 02:15 PM PDT

The number of commercial real estate borrowers who requested debt relief during the escalation of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. has lurched to 2,600, with borrowers against hotel and retail assets among the most asking for help, one ratings agency found. The borrowers represent some $49.1 billion of mortgage loans, according to new findings from Fitch Ratings, which analyzed debt-relief inquiries logged by Wells Fargo, Midland Loan Services, Keybank National Association and Berkadia Commercial

Court ruling is new twist to Manhattan hotel project drama

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 02:03 PM PDT

A judge has temporarily barred the transit system from halting work at a Manhattan hotel. The decision was a muted victory for the developer, Peter Zen’s FIT Investment Corp., though, given that the state has now shut down most types of construction. But the ruling raises questions about whether projects with “essential” components should also be exempt from the Cuomo administration’s new restrictions on construction. Back in January, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority ordered FIT Investment

Subscribers Only: Live at 5pm, find out what the stimulus means for real estate

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 12:50 PM PDT

In a special edition subscribers-only episode of TRD Talks Live, join associate publisher Hiten Samtani, attorney Stuart Saft and Miller Samuel’s Jonathan Miller as they discuss the impact that the $2 trillion federal stimulus package will have on all sectors of real estate. In our web and print coverage over the last few weeks and through our new series of TRD Talks, we’ve broken down the impacts of coronavirus on every sector of the real

What the $2T stimulus does for real estate

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 12:45 PM PDT

“In moments of crisis,” the legendary developer Big Bill Zeckendorf was fond of saying, “one’s world tends to become simplified.” Even those with big dreams (pretty much every successful real estate professional) get down to the basics: survival. This is a crisis unlike one we’ve ever seen. The world has stopped. “It’s the first time ever that we’ve had a chain of supply shock to the system and a demand shock,” developer Steve Witkoff said.

Diagnosing real estate’s work from home syndrome

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 12:30 PM PDT

Longtime broker Leonard Steinberg drilled into the sense of conflict among the city’s residential agents and their firms last month when he called for a two-week ban on apartment tours, due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic. “We should all view it as a moral obligation to not expose this virus to the most vulnerable,” Steinberg, Compass’ chief evangelist, wrote in an Instagram post to his 52,000-plus followers on a Sunday in mid-March. Many New

Trump Organization properties losing $1M a day to pandemic

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 11:15 AM PDT

Trump Organization properties are missing out on more than $1 million in revenue each day as the coronavirus pandemic hammers the hospitality sector, the company’s primary source of income. Several Trump-owned properties have been forced to close and around 500 employees have been laid off or furloughed, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company has shut properties in Las Vegas and Florida, including Mar-a-Lago and the Trump National Doral Miami. Those that remain open

Not so fast: REBNY urges agents to stay home

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 10:31 AM PDT

New York real estate agents may not be going back to work so fast. Hours after the Cuomo administration appeared to reverse its stance on whether agents are essential workers, the Real Estate Board of New York cautioned that the new guidelines are “not yet final.” In an email to members, REBNY President James Whelan stressed that “health and safety” are the board’s top priority, and he urged agents to continue operating under the assumption

Innovo, Square Mile land $305M in construction financing for Bronx warehouse

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 09:45 AM PDT

Andrew Chung’s Innovo Property Group and Square Mile Capital Management have secured $305 million in construction financing for a 1 million-square-foot industrial development in the Bronx. The loan for 2505 Bruckner Boulevard came from Bank OZK and the finance arm of EverWest Real Estate Investors, the developers announced on Thursday. A Cushman & Wakefield team of Adam Spies, Adam Doneger, Steve Kohn and Alex Hernandez arranged the deal. Construction on the 20-acre site should be

State’s highest court strikes down portion of rent law

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 09:15 AM PDT

The highest court in the state has struck down a portion of New York’s new rent law, concluding that it violates due process. The court ruled in landlords’ favor that the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 should not apply retroactively to cases involving rent overcharges. It also limits the rent used to calculate damages to four years prior to a complaint. In each of the four cases before the court, the jurists

Small Talk: Wildly Accurate Predictions for the Long Term Impacts of Coronavirus on Real Estate

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 08:45 AM PDT

If there’s one thing I know about the long term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on real estate, it’s that no one really knows what the long term impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on real estate will be at this point. So here are some very smart predictions about how the coronavirus pandemic will impact real estate in the long term that will all definitely come true: Demand for office space will plummet, and office

Pelosi proposes SALT rollback in next stimulus

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 07:00 AM PDT

Ahead of another stimulus package to address the coronavirus pandemic, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly considering a retroactive rollback of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap. The $10,000 cap went into effect in 2018 as part of President Donald Trump’s 2017 sweeping tax overhaul. A Democrat-led effort to repeal it in 2019 was unsuccessful. At the time, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo went as far as calling the cap an act of

WeWork asks landlords to cut rent bill as SoftBank abandons bailout

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 06:13 AM PDT

SoftBank is abandoning plans to buy $3 billion of WeWork shares from investors, a major blow to the company as it struggles to stabilize during the pandemic. The announcement was made to a board committee Wednesday evening, according to The New York Times. WeWork’s former CEO, Adam Neumann, is among the shareholders who will now miss out the chance to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock to SoftBank. The rescue deal’s collapse

Manhattan office leasing just had its worst quarter since 2013

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 05:30 AM PDT

On the heels of its busiest year in nearly two decades, office leasing in Manhattan ended the first quarter of 2020 on a low note, with the coronavirus pandemic putting a damper on all types of economic activity. Leasing volume for the quarter totaled 6.82 million square feet, the fewest since the third quarter of 2013, according to a new report from Colliers International. More than half of that total came from January, which saw

These are the sectors where real estate lending is still happening: report

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 05:00 AM PDT

While some parts of the real estate lending world have been shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, plenty of investors still need to find places to deploy their capital — but a bit more carefully. Banks, funds, mortgage real estate investment trusts, and agencies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have all begun adjusting their lending approach in face of the economic downturn, according to a new capital markets report from Miami-based real estate capital

How the coronavirus crisis is gutting real estate

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:30 AM PDT

In just three months, the coronavirus ravaging the globe has infected at least 750,000 people and killed nearly 37,000. And those are just the confirmed numbers. The pandemic has also stopped the longest-running bull market in history, put the world’s biggest economies into intensive care and become a mortal threat to storied companies. In less than a month, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 35 percent before Congress passed a $2 trillion stimulus package, the

Strong quarter for Manhattan home sales belies current struggle

Posted: 02 Apr 2020 04:00 AM PDT

The first quarter of 2020 was a strong one for residential sales despite the coronavirus pandemic’s drag on fresh inventory. The number of deals jumped as prices dropped and new development closings soared, according to appraiser Jonathan Miller’s quarterly report for Douglas Elliman. Miller said the report by and large does not yet reflect the crisis that cost thousands of New Yorkers their jobs and brought many of the city’s businesses to a halt over