The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Cushman & Wakefield reports $101M quarterly loss

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 05:05 PM PDT

Cushman & Wakefield reported a net loss of $100.8 million in the second quarter, down from a $6.3 million profit a year ago. The loss came despite cost-cutting, as $75 million was trimmed for things such as travel, entertainment, events and incentive compensation. “I think most of us would agree that the impact of Covid-19 is unique and certainly different from previous recessions such as the great financial crisis,” said CEO Brett White during an

“We’re not crying in our milk”: Hilton eyes new hotels despite $432M loss in Q2

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 03:45 PM PDT

Hilton Worldwide Holdings pressed on with developing new hotels despite heavy losses last quarter. The hotel giant opened 60 hotels with 6,800 new rooms last quarter despite reporting a net loss of $432 million in the second quarter. That’s down almost 66 percent from its net income of $261 million during the same period 2019. Still, the company grew its pipeline by 11 percent year over year to 414,000 rooms, executives said on a Thursday

Ashkenazy debt in doubt as trustee moves to end Surrey Hotel ground lease

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 03:15 PM PDT

In late April, Ashkenazy Acquisitions took the unusual step of pushing the Surrey Hotel into bankruptcy to protect its debt interest in the shuttered property from being wiped out by a ground lease default. Ashkenazy’s involuntary petition was granted in July but the ground lease on the Upper East Side hotel is now likely to be terminated anyway. In a court filing this week, the Chapter 7 trustee for the hotel’s estate said the lease

Lightstone bought Gowanus parcels for a pittance, seller’s sons allege

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 03:05 PM PDT

When their father’s estate sold an entire city block in Brooklyn for $19 million, brothers Grant and Scott Phillips got a $12.3 million cut. Eight years later, they are in court, fighting for more. The brothers, who stood to inherit the Gowanus property, sued for $130 million, alleging that an appraisal had valued the site at $40 million and that the deal was closed without their knowing the terms, which they claim voids the sale.

Zillow’s revenue jumps 28%, but losses mount

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 02:45 PM PDT

Zillow beat its own doomsday predictions as homebuying bounced back quicker in the second quarter than most people predicted. The Seattle-based listings giant said revenue grew 28 percent to $768 million, as homebuyers shopped online and the company saw increased sales of Zillow-owned homes. Its iBuying platform Zillow Offers saw an even bigger revenue spike, 82 percent, to $454.3 million. Ahead of its earnings report Thursday, Zillow had projected second-quarter revenue between $577 million and

Kushner Cos. buys Gary Barnett out of development on NJ waterfront

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 02:24 PM PDT

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development is saying goodbye to the New Jersey waterfront — at least part of it. The developer, known for his luxury high-rise condo towers in Manhattan, has sold his company’s 50 percent stake in two completed phases of New Jersey’s Pier Village to Kushner Companies, according to sources familiar with the transaction. The deal, which gives Kushner full ownership, valued the project’s rentals, retail and hotel at $181 million, the source said.

Douglas Elliman’s New York revenues fall by half

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 01:24 PM PDT

Douglas Elliman tried to get into fighting shape last quarter, trimming $20 million in costs through layoffs, furloughs and salary cuts. Still, it wasn’t enough to avoid a beating: the residential brokerage, New York’s largest, reported a net loss of $5 million for the quarter. During the same period last year, Elliman, a subsidiary of Vector Group, reported net income of $15.1 million. Year-over-year, revenues have also plummeted, dropping 45 percent to $132.9 million from

Brookfield Property’s retail tenants paid 34% of rent in Q2

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 12:32 PM PDT

Brookfield Property Partners collected just 34 percent of rent across its retail portfolio in the second quarter, helping drive another sharp decline in earnings this year. Its office holdings also took a hit. The real estate arm of Brookfield Asset Management reported a net loss of $1.5 billion from April through June, compared with $23 million of net income over the same period in 2019. At Thursday’s earnings call, company executives blamed its poor April

TRD Insights: Here’s what Netflix, Disney and CBS pay at HPP-Blackstone Hollywood studios

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 12:15 PM PDT

Blackstone’s acquisition of a 49 percent stake in Hudson Pacific Properties and its $1.65 billion Hollywood real estate portfolio is a big bet on the demand for space from content creators like Netflix. The streaming giant also happens to be the largest studio tenant in the HPP portfolio. And now we know how much they’re paying. (Related: Inside Hudson Pacific and Blackstone’s field of streams ) Like many of Blackstone’s recent blockbuster buys, such as

TRD Insights: What #WFH could mean for office and resi costs in tech hubs

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 10:45 AM PDT

The technology industry accounted for over a fifth of major leasing activity nationwide in 2019, making it the biggest driver of the office market in the U.S. In hubs of tech talent, that activity drove office and apartment rents up and vacancies down and caused landlords to reimagine their entire portfolios to cater to the industry. But then came the big remote work experiment. With many large and small tech companies open to long-term remote

Eviction moratorium extended until September

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 10:05 AM PDT

Gov. Andrew Cuomo re-upped New York’s eviction ban just a few hours before the moratorium was set to expire. The new executive order issued Wednesday evening extends the pause on most evictions until Sept. 4. Cuomo’s moratorium, first announced May 7, supplanted an initial universal ban put in place by courts in March. While a win for tenant activists, it is not yet clear how the court system will interpret the order. Housing court has

JLL profits halved by pandemic

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 09:38 AM PDT

JLL’s profitability fell by more than half during the second quarter as fees from brokering office leases around the world slowed to a trickle. JLL, the second-biggest real estate services firm in the world, saw a 54 percent reduction in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to $103 million during the second quarter compared to the same time last year, according to the firm’s latest financial results. Company CEO Christian Ulbrich said during the

Simon strikes back at the Gap with $107M lawsuit

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 09:15 AM PDT

Call it a retail rumble, with Simon Property Group in one corner and its largest national tenant in the other. The largest shopping mall landlord has filed another lawsuit against the Gap. This one accuses the retailer of “taking opportunistic advantage” of the pandemic to avoid paying $107 million in overdue rent, even though some of its stores have reopened, Bloomberg reported. In June, Simon sued the Gap, saying it owed $66 million in rent.

Deutsche Bank probed in Manhattan DA’s Trump Org investigation

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 07:22 AM PDT

New York prosecutors’ investigation into the Trump Organization may run even deeper than was previously known. The Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed Deutsche Bank last year as part of a criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s business practices, according to the New York Times. Two sources familiar with the matter told the Times that the German bank — Trump’s main lender since the 1990s — complied with the subpoena, providing prosecutoes with financial statements and

Condé Nast wants out at 1WTC. Durst may not be OK with that

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 06:30 AM PDT

Condé Nast may have a fight on its hands. The publisher is trying to change the terms of its lease at One World Trade Center, as it searches for a new headquarters in Midtown. But the plan might face resistance: The existing lease at One World Trade lasts until 2039, according to the New York Post. What’s more, the Durst Organization, which developed the building with the Port Authority, isn’t afraid of litigation. The landlord

Manhattan is cold, the suburbs and Brooklyn are hot: Here’s what the resi market looked like in July

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 05:45 AM PDT

In Manhattan, the drops were stunning. July contracts for co-ops priced between $4 million and $5 million were down 94 percent from the same month last year. No contracts were signed for condos above $20 million. Across all price brackets, condo and co-op contracts were down 56 percent. But in Brooklyn — where New Yorkers often migrate to in search of bigger homes and more open space — the numbers surged: 178 new condo contracts

TRD Insights: CMBS delinquencies decline as borrowers get relief

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 05:00 AM PDT

The delinquency rate of CMBS loans has declined — slightly — for the time since the start of the coronavirus crisis. The percentage of those CMBS loans that are more than a month behind on payments was 9.6 percent at the end of July, down from June’s rate of 10.32 percent, according to the latest delinquency report from Trepp. The June figure was just a few basis points shy of the all-time record in June

CBRE’s Hodos and other Muggles win REBNY award for Harry Potter deal

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 04:30 AM PDT

When Richard Hodos and his team heard about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter eyeing New York City, they immediately started brainstorming. Times Square would be ideal, they thought. Or maybe another high-density, high-rent spot. Turns out Warner Bros. wanted something different. Meetings with the company revealed it had a smaller budget than expected and was looking for something to fit the gritty and medieval aesthetic of Harry Potter. The conversations led to a lease

Worst month of the year for big construction filings

Posted: 06 Aug 2020 04:00 AM PDT

New York City might get a little quieter: July was the slowest month of the year for large construction applications. The total size of the 10 biggest projects was just above 900,000 square feet, which was half of the June figure and 30 percent less than January’s, which had been the year’s lowest. May’s 10 largest filings totaled 3 million square feet, the highest of the year so far. Brooklyn projects on the list amounted