The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Zillow to shutter Naked Apartments

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 03:30 PM PDT

Rental listings site Naked Apartments will go dark later this month as Zillow sends apartment seekers to StreetEasy instead. Starting Oct. 28, apartment seekers who visit Naked Apartments in search of a New York City rental will be redirected to StreetEasy, according to an email notification. Going forward, Streetasy will have “the most complete set of NYC apartments available for rent,” the email said. Zillow bought Naked Apartments for $13 million in 2016, three years

Manhattan retail asking rents fall to nine-year low

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 03:00 PM PDT

Manhattan retail asking rents fell to their lowest point in nearly a decade this summer as the pandemic compounded a downward trend in demand. Asking rents across Manhattan’s 16 main shopping corridors fell to $659 per square foot during the third quarter, according to CBRE. That’s down 12.8 percent from the same time last year, and the lowest level since the back half of 2011. Prince Street in Soho saw the largest drop in asking

Amazon inks huge deal for 975K sf warehouse

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:49 PM PDT

Amazon’s industrial footprint in New York City is officially Bigfoot-sized. The e-commerce giant secured a 975,000-square-foot warehouse at the Matrix Global Logistics Park in Staten Island, Crain’s reported. It was the largest industrial deal of the past quarter, according to a CBRE report that did not identify the tenant. Amazon has already leased two other warehouses on the site near Goethals Bridge, bringing its capacity there to nearly 2.3 million square feet. Ikea is also

San Francisco mayor blasts “lefty movement” for blocking housing

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:30 PM PDT

San Francisco Mayor London Breed didn’t mince words in telling a leading podcast of her city’s tendency to torpedo new housing developments. On this week’s edition of Freakonomics, Breed blamed progressives for limiting the supply of dwellings, which she said drives up housing costs. “San Francisco has a very, very, extremely left group of people on the Board of Supervisors more loyal to a ‘lefty movement’ than San Francisco’s residents,” said Breed, who is allied

California’s Prop 15 tax measure could add housing: study

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 02:15 PM PDT

Few issues in California this year have generated as much debate as Proposition 15, the “split-roll” ballot measure that could raise property taxes on commercial and industrial properties for the first time in decades. Groups representing California landlords and developers have spent $20 million this year opposing Prop 15. Supporters of the bill raised about $30 million during the same period of time. Prop 15 would update Prop 13, a ballot measure passed in 1978

Unibail-Rodamco sues Express over $30M in missed rent

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 01:24 PM PDT

Act of God? Mall operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield said its lease agreements with Express cover such events, and still require the retailer to pay the rent. Now Unibail is suing Express, saying the retailer owes $30 million in skipped rent across 27 locations throughout the U.S. Fourteen of those stores are in malls in California, according to the suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Many struggling retailers have argued the pandemic allows for missed rent

JLL makes cuts to I-sales team

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 12:59 PM PDT

JLL has let go some of its high-profile brokers as the battered real estate market continues to squeeze the city’s brokerage firms. Investment sales brokers Brock Emmetsberger, Tom Gammino and Will Suarez were laid off by the firm, sources told The Real Deal. The reason was poor production as brokers across the city have struggled to complete deals during the pandemic, according to one source. Representatives for JLL did not immediately respond to requests for

Nasdaq’s VC arm invests in proptech startup Dealpath

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 12:15 PM PDT

Dealpath, the data management startup backed by the likes of Blackstone and JLL, received a new capital injection from Nasdaq’s investment arm. Nasdaq Ventures provided Dealpath with the new funding to help the proptech company to expand its cloud-based platform that manages the workflow on investment transactions, the companies told The Real Deal. Nasdaq declined to divulge the size of the investment. The latest cash injection follows investments from real estate players like Blackstone, JLL

Do you know your real estate vocab?

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 11:30 AM PDT

Bed Bath & Beyond closing Chelsea store for good

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 10:45 AM PDT

Bed Bath & Beyond is permanently closing its longtime Chelsea stores, as the company continues to unload scores of stores across the country. The home goods retailer will shutter its sprawling space at 620 6th Avenue, according to a state Department of Labor WARN notice filing. It will lay off 113 employees as part of the exit. The company had been at the location for 30 years. In August it renewed its lease — slightly

Judge tosses landlords’ challenge to New York eviction limits

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 10:00 AM PDT

A New York state judge dismissed a challenge to eviction limits, and asserted the court’s ability to issue such orders in the future. The plaintiffs, three landlords in Westchester County, New York, sought to block Judge Lawrence Marks’ administrative order which, until Oct. 1, halted all evictions statewide. That order was superseded by state and federal rules, which nullified the petition, according to State Supreme Court Judge David Zuckerman’s ruling. In his decision, Zuckerman affirmed

Porch is running out of cash: IPO filing

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 09:32 AM PDT

In Porch.com’s IPO filing, the home-services startup touts one of its core values: “No Jerks/No Egos.” But the “nice guy” approach has brought the firm to the brink of financial ruin, the filing shows. Unless it’s able to raise additional capital, the company “will not have sufficient cash flows and liquidity to fund its planned business for the next 12 months.” The disclosure, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday, was made ahead of

StreetEasy launches automated home-valuation tool

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 07:37 AM PDT

At a time when the pandemic is tossing property values around like laundry in a washing machine, StreetEasy has launched a new tool to tell New Yorkers what their homes are worth. The automated valuation model tool is similar to the Zestimate tool from parent company Zillow, but won’t be public-facing, Inman reports. Instead, homeowners must request access. Those who do can expect to receive an estimate of their home’s value, price per square foot

Diamond District building listed for $113M

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 07:00 AM PDT

A 12-story building in New York’s Diamond District has hit the market for $113 million — a cut above its last sale price of $1.3 million. Of course, that was in 1977, when the Yankees’ Reggie Jackson had the highest salary in baseball at $700,000. In retrospect, both deals seem like bargains (Jackson hit three consecutive home runs in the deciding game of the World Series). The building at 576 Fifth Avenue is home to

Breather launches membership program for on-demand offices

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 06:00 AM PDT

Breather, a startup that rents office space and meeting rooms by the day, is looking for more long-term relationships. Through a new membership program called “Passport,” users can purchase five, 10 or 20 monthly passes to any of its 400 spaces in 10 cities. Prices range from $1,500 to $5,800 per month and the membership can be canceled at any time. The Montreal-based startup said existing customers asked for a membership program of some sort

Eatery’s reopening is litmus test for Manhattan restaurants

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 05:45 AM PDT

Although Broadway is shut down until next year, one restaurant in the Theater District has decided the show must go on. Joe Allen on 46th Street, which long served as a meeting ground for Broadway performers and show-goers, is reopening Thursday after closing its doors in March, according to the Wall Street Journal. The eatery’s attempted revival will serve as something of a litmus test for restaurants that are trying to survive in an uncertain

Here are LA’s real estate players who donated to Biden and Trump in 2020

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 05:00 AM PDT

The presidential election is still nearly three weeks away but already there is a clear winner when it comes to which Los Angeles real estate player donated the most money. That would be — by far — multifamily developer Geoff Palmer, a longtime supporter of President Trump. Developer Jeff Worthe has given the most amount of cash to Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s side. The Real Deal tracked 75 of the biggest L.A. brokers, developers and

Affordable apartments could suffer 50% hit to bottom line: Fitch

Posted: 15 Oct 2020 04:00 AM PDT

A ratings agency predicts as much as a 50 percent hit to landlords’ bottom line at unsubsidized affordable apartments, which may lead to evictions when federal moratoriums expire. Fitch Ratings predicts “full, on-time rental payments” for affordable properties subsidized by the government, which includes federal rental voucher programs such as Section 8. But properties that don’t receive subsidies could see a total discount to their debt service coverage ratio of as much as 40 to