The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

SL Green sees improved “market vibe,” office return in “a blink of an eye”

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 02:50 PM PST

On Thursday’s earnings call, SL Green CEO Marc Holliday linked the company’s upcoming shift in headquarters from the Graybar Building to One Vanderbilt with his sunny outlook on the New York office market. The real estate investment trust owns both buildings. He noted an improvement in “the psychology and the market vibe” in recent months, as tenants have made plans to return to the offices by late summer. SL Green’s new chapter, Holliday said, “coincides with

These real estate stocks could be the next short squeeze

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 02:00 PM PST

The short-squeeze frenzy on Wall Street could soon rock more real estate firms. The share prices of some struggling brick-and-mortar retailers, including GameStop and AMC Entertainment, swung wildly this week as retail investors clashed with hedge funds over speculative trading known as short selling. And at least one major real estate company caught the eye of those same mom-and-pop traders. The unprecedented trading activity saw GameStop briefly become nearly as valuable as Delta Airlines before

Compass accuses Realogy of lying, cheating and stealing

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 01:15 PM PST

Eighteen months after being sued by Realogy, Compass is striking back, accusing its chief rival of unfair competition, defamation and flooding the market with false information. In a new court filing, Compass said Realogy’s top executives conspired in a desperate campaign to impede its growth, which ultimately turned agents and homeowners into “collateral damage.” “They have waged a war of disinformation by deliberately flooding the market with false information about Compass,” Compass said in a

Condé Nast considers move to Gold Coast to save money

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 12:45 PM PST

Condé Nast is looking into office options in New Jersey to cut costs. The publisher of magazines — including Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker — wants about 400,000 square feet of office space split between Manhattan and the New Jersey waterfront, Bloomberg News reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter. That’s less than half of the publisher’s existing 1 million-square-foot lease at One World Trade Center. It’s already trimmed its footprint at

Judge partially lifts restraining order on Gowanus rezoning application

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 12:03 PM PST

If a city agency makes a small change to its website, will a “usual Joe Schmo in Gowanus” know what that means? That, more or less, was the subject of a nearly two-hour hearing Thursday on a lawsuit that seeks to stop the Brooklyn neighborhood’s rezoning from moving forward. Kings County Supreme Court Judge Katherine Levine didn’t rule on that issue directly, but agreed to partially lift a temporary restraining order on the rezoning, allowing

WeWork dumps several Manhattan locations

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 11:24 AM PST

WeWork recently exited several leases in Manhattan as the company eyes turning a profit by the end of the year — and a potential public offering via a special-purpose acquisition company. In recent weeks, the company closed and exited four locations in Midtown, Soho and the Meatpacking District, a WeWork spokesperson confirmed to The Real Deal. It’s also relocating members from a fifth location in Midtown where the company is in discussions with its landlord

WeWork in talks to go public via SPAC

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 10:37 AM PST

Now We’ve seen everything. WeWork is in talks to combine with a special-purpose acquisition company to go public, according to the Wall Street Journal. The co-working giant attempted an initial public offering in late 2019 but had a spectacular flameout during the IPO process, after scrutiny of its financials and governance. WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani and the company’s board have been in discussions with a SPAC affiliated with BOW Capital Management and at least one

City Council renews tax lien sale for one year

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 10:15 AM PST

UPDATED Jan. 28, 2021, 4:05 p.m.: The City Council on Thursday renewed the city’s tax lien sale for one year, while exempting some property owners affected by the pandemic. In a 39-8 vote, the City Council approved a bill that will renew the sale of liens on delinquent property taxes, water and sewer bills for one year, rather than the usual four, after failing to agree on a comprehensive reform. The bill exempts those who

Robinhood looking for NYC office as Reddit traders upend Wall St.

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 09:58 AM PST

As stocks for GameStop and AMC Entertainment continue their confounding surge, the popular mobile day-trading company Robinhood is looking for a home in the nation’s financial capital. The Menlo Park-based company, a favorite among retail traders who have recently been squeezing short sellers, is looking to lease about 60,000 square feet for a Manhattan office, sources familiar with the search told The Real Deal. It would be the first Big Apple headquarters for Robinhood, which

Broker confidence rebounds after challenging year: REBNY

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 09:30 AM PST

After hitting all-time lows in the middle of 2020, broker confidence is rebounding, according to the Real Estate Board of New York’s latest quarterly survey of industry professionals. Overall, REBNY’s broker confidence index was at 4.35 out of 10 in the fourth quarter of 2020, a 41 percent increase from the low point of 3.08 in the previous quarter. While that’s a notable improvement, it’s still a sharp decrease from the same period in 2019,

SoftBank to invest $100M in Miami startups

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 08:53 AM PST

SoftBank Group COO Marcelo Claure is launching a $100 million initiative to fund Miami-based tech companies and those moving to the Magic City. Claure, who is also CEO of SoftBank Group International and executive chairman of WeWork, made the announcement on Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s Cafecito Talks series, streamed live Wednesday on Twitter. Claure, a Miami Beach resident, said SoftBank will invest $100 million into venture capital-backed tech companies in Miami, and announced that it

Walmart’s plan to ship packages quicker: robot-staffed mini-warehouses

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 08:15 AM PST

With online sales surging, Walmart is planning to set up mini warehouses in dozens of its stores. The retailer said this week that it plans to build a large number of fulfilment centers, measuring 20,000 to 30,000 square feet, inside its stores or in spaces next to them, according to CNN. The centers will be manned by robots who can pack orders in “a few minutes,” according to a blog post written by the company’s

Biden to address racial gap, environmental justice in housing

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 07:38 AM PST

President Joe Biden’s housing plan is coming into focus. The newly inaugurated Biden’s executive order Tuesday reinstating a Fair Housing rule was just the first step in a broader agenda for racial and environmental justice in housing. “Housing is a right in America, and home ownership is an essential tool to wealth creation and to be passed down to generations,” the president said as he signed the order. And he has bigger plans. In addition

AMC shares surges in trading frenzy, boosting survival bid

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 06:30 AM PST

Shares for AMC surged 300 percent Wednesday, offering new hope for the struggling cinema chain that has been fighting off bankruptcy for months. The jump was powered not by a flood of movie-goers but by a group of small traders cheered on by posters on a Reddit message board named WallStreetBets. That triggered a trading frenzy akin to the one that has sent GameStop shares skyrocketing. “AMC is clearly next,” one poster wrote on the

How Blackstone’s Jon Gray undercut his UK counterpart

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 05:46 AM PST

A decade ago, Blackstone’s Jon Gray was fresh off two multibillion-dollar real estate acquisitions, Equity Office Properties and Hilton, and he was working around the clock. In London, his European counterpart, Chad Pike, was overseeing a much smaller arm of the company’s real estate investment business. There was another difference between the two men: According to a profile in Business Insider, which reveals previously unreported details from that period, Pike was a fan of traveling

Landlords increasingly turn to lawsuits against nonpaying retailers

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 04:00 AM PST

It’s been nearly a year since the start of the pandemic — and for some retailers, that means it’s been nearly a year since they’ve paid rent. Take L’Occitane, the French beauty brand. On March 25, 2020, the company told one of its landlords, Simon Property Group, that it would stop paying rent at its locations for “as long as the crisis continues,” starting in April. It then halted rent payments at 40 of its

Long Island home sales spike in Q4

Posted: 28 Jan 2021 03:00 AM PST

Long Island home sales and prices surged in the fourth quarter, with demand particularly strong in the Hamptons and the North Fork. In the Hamptons, the median home sale price was $1.4 million, nearly 55 percent higher year-over-year, according to the latest Douglas Elliman report. The median sales price marked a record high for the second straight quarter, after 15 years of tracking the totals. The number of transactions in the Hamptons also rose, to