The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

One of the priciest units at 520 Park just closed

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 03:30 PM PST

A duplex penthouse at Zeckendorf Development‘s 520 Park Avenue closed for $62 million on Monday, marking one of the most expensive residential buys of the year. The anonymous buyer is listed as “520 Park PH52 LLC” in records filed with New York City’s Department of Finance. The duplex at the limestone-clad Zeckendorf project was asking $73 million, according to an old listing. The home spans about 9,200 square feet, and features master wing that has […]

Auto group spends $31M to expand along gritty stretch of LIC

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 03:15 PM PST

The family that runs one of the city’s biggest auto-dealership empires is upgrading to some more legroom. The Bay Ridge Auto Group paid $31 million to buy the site of a gas station in Long Island City that sits next to its Lexus Dealership on Northern Boulevard. When combined, the two properties span more than three acres, and could one day be developed into a commercial property almost as big as 700,000 square feet. The […]

Interest rates are climbing, but borrowers are tapping home equity in droves

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 02:30 PM PST

As interest rates climb and salary growth stalls, borrowers are taking cash out against their homes in volumes not seen in over a decade. Close to $14.6 billion was withdrawn from home equity across the country during the third quarter, as more than 80 percent of borrowers chose to take out cash against their homes, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, these figures are still well below rates seen before the financial crisis, when […]

SL Green pays $18M to buy air rights for FiDi resi tower

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 02:00 PM PST

The city’s largest office landlord just acquired air rights for its planned 35-story, ground-up apartment tower in the Financial District. SL Green Realty paid $17.7 million to buy the development rights over the Fulton Street subway station entrance at 189 Broadway, according to documents filed with the city today. It’s unclear how much square footage was included in the transaction. However, the seller, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, released a request for proposals to sell 62,750 […]

Pop artist pioneer James Rosenquist’s Tribeca tonwhome sells after price chops

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 01:30 PM PST

A sprawling Tribeca townhouse, once home to pop artist James Rosenquist, just sold for $11.7 million. The property at 162 Chambers Street was sold by Rosenquist’s estate, according to records filed with New York City’s Department of Finance. The artist died in April 2017 — and bought the property in 1977, reportedly for $120,000. The buyer is listed in the records as “162 Chambers Street, LLC.” The signatory for the LLC is accountant Sung Pak […]

With IPO looming, Airbnb nabs Amazon exec as new CFO

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 01:00 PM PST

Airbnb hired a top Amazon executive as its new chief financial officer amid plans to go public, ending the company’s nearly year-long search to fill the position. The home-sharing startup announced it tapped Dave Stephenson for the position that had been left open since February. Stephenson was most recently vice president and CFO of Amazon’s worldwide consumer organization where he was in charge of overseeing global website sales, according to Bloomberg. Stephenson will start at […]

Long Island Cheat Sheet: Lynbrook rejects $75M Cornerstone apartment complex, Glen Cove eyes zoning changes … & more

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 12:30 PM PST

Lynbrook rejects $75M Cornerstone apartment complex because it’s too big In a 5-0 vote, the Lynbrook Village board of trustees voted last week to reject a bid to build a $75 million six-story, 200-unit apartment building dubbed the Cornerstone at Lynbrook near the village’s train station, according to Newsday, noting that trustees felt the project was too large for the community. Anthony Bartone of Terwilliger & Bartone, the developer, said he remains undeterred by the […]

Goldman Sachs lends $83M for Gotham Org’s 1,120-unit LIC project

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 12:00 PM PST

Goldman Sachs finalized a deal to finance a massive affordable development in Long Island City — on the same day Amazon announced it would bring half of its HQ2 to the neighborhood. The investment bank’s Urban Investment Group provided the Gotham Organization with $83 million for its 1,120-unit mixed-use project in Hunter’s Point South, Bloomberg reported. The city last year chose Gotham Organization and local nonprofit RiseBoro Community Partnership Inc. to develop the property at […]

WeWork expanding at 2 Herald Square

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 11:50 AM PST

WeWork is expanding in the Midtown office building where it is hosting Amazon. The co-working provider signed a 60,000-square-foot lease expansion at 2 Herald Square, the company told The Real Deal. The additional space covers the fifth and sixth floors and is expected to open in 2020. The company currently occupies 124,000 square feet in the 11-story building. The entirety of WeWork’s space in the property is leased to Amazon. The online retailer was also […]

In California’s ever-shrinking housing market, sleeping pods, bunk beds meet demand for space

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 11:00 AM PST

To save money in expensive cities like Los Angeles, renters have long subdivided apartments, willing to sacrifice comfort in order to find a decent place to live. Now, a cottage industry has taken that necessity to an extreme. Bunk beds, “sleeping pods,” and temporary room partitions are becoming popular with landlords and renters amid California’s tight and pricey housing market, according to the Los Angeles Times. Some renters will even squeeze into a space if […]

Introducing TRD’s new interactive development map

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 10:45 AM PST

Trying to keep up with the latest projects underway in New York City? Check out The Real Deal’s new interactive map where you can track more than 16,000 buildings in various stages of development across the five boroughs. The map is updated daily by TRD’s Data team and shows projects in every phase of development from the moment plans are filed to when move-ins get the green light. Check out the video above to see […]

Sam Chang plans another hotel in LIC

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 10:15 AM PST

Another day, another Long Island City hotel from Sam Chang. The developer filed permits with the city’s Department of Buildings on Monday for a 14-story hotel with 282 rooms. The project at 52-02 Van Dam Street would span about 82,000 square feet and replace a pair of industrial buildings. This is the latest of many hotels Chang’s McSam Hotel Group is planning for the neighborhood. The company is also building a 324-key hotel nearby at […]

More buildings, more defects: Why New York condos are leaking and cracking

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 09:30 AM PST

Not long after closing on a $28.5 million pad at 56 Leonard last spring, the new owner had a problem. More than one, actually. The master bathroom allegedly had poor caulking, the deadbolts weren’t working properly, and the apartment’s oak floors were starting to warp. When the owner’s contractor tore up the floor, he discovered three layers of wood under the oak — which appeared to have been laid “to conceal defects underneath,” according to […]

Here are the week’s top luxury sales

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 08:45 AM PST

Each week, The Real Deal and CityRealty look back at Manhattan’s priciest apartment sales.

Public pension funds looking for more exposure to high-risk real estate

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 08:00 AM PST

U.S. public pension funds are pushing for more exposure to riskier, opportunistic real estate investments to help close their funding gaps. American public plans have increased their allocations to opportunistic investments by a measure of six times between 2006 and 2016, according to an analysis by CEM Benchmarking cited in the Wall Street Journal. During that same time, exposure to core properties has remained flat. Pension funds are moving toward riskier deals as rising values […]

Only one luxury condo contract was signed in Brooklyn last week

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 07:20 AM PST

There were 12 contracts signed in the Brooklyn luxury market last week, split between 11 townhouses and one condo. The properties sold for about $40.1 million overall and went for an average price of roughly $3.3 million, according to the latest report from Stribling & Associates. The firm defines the borough’s luxury market as all homes priced at $2 million or higher. This transaction volume was on pace with the week before, but dollar volume […]

Manhattan’s luxe resi market went through a holiday-week slump: Olshan

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 06:30 AM PST

Last week’s Thanksgiving bird wasn’t the only turkey in town. Manhattan’s luxury residential market showed the typical holiday-week slump, with just 12 contracts signed at $4 million and up, according to Olshan Realty’s weekly market report. But real estate players can give thanks that last week’s haul was far off from the lowest Thanksgiving Day week on record. That ignominious title goes to the holiday week in 2008 – two months after the crash of […]

Public officials push back on NDAs in wake of Amazon’s HQ2 search

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 05:55 AM PST

Public officials across the country are questioning whether they’ll sign nondisclosure agreements in the future after facing some backlash surrounding the secrecy around Amazon’s HQ2 search. It’s not uncommon for companies looking to land tax breaks and other incentives to require local officials to sign NDAs as part of economic-development deals. But as part of its high-stakes search for a second headquarters, Amazon required many of the 238 bidders to sign one-page agreements that prohibited […]

Brooklyn boro prez says city’s multifamily-transfer program may be tainted by fraud

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 05:05 AM PST

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams wants state officials to investigate a city program that takes troubled multifamily buildings away from owners and hands them over to developers. The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s Third Party Transfer (TPT) program allows the city to foreclose on properties burdened with unpaid water bills, debt and disrepair and sell them to a developer for the nominal fee of $1 and $8,750 per unit, excluding the super’s apartment. […]

As margins shrink, bigger resi firms are getting more aggressive in trying to scoop up niche NYC brokerages

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 04:30 AM PST

Dexter Guerrieri co-founded Vandenberg, a boutique brokerage specializing in the venerated Manhattan townhouse market, back in 1990. Over the years, he turned away suitors trying to get him to sell the small, independent shop. But two years ago, with the market taking a turn for the worse and competition intensifying, Guerrieri and co-founder Jane van den Berg Ordway, his wife, went hunting for a buyer. Then this past August, Douglas Elliman, the city’s largest residential brokerage, […]

Avi Dorfman, who calls himself a Compass co-founder, sues for $200M stake

Posted: 26 Nov 2018 04:00 AM PST

Four years ago, tech entrepreneur Avi Dorfman sued Compass and CEO Robert Reffkin, claiming they implemented his ideas and then cut him out of the action. It turns out Dorfman is aiming to collect nearly $200 million from the firm, recently valued at $4.4 billion. Dorfman’s specific monetary claim — which hadn’t been disclosed publicly — was revealed during a hearing last month in New York Supreme Court. At the hearing, lawyers for the SoftBank-backed […]