The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Real estate damages from Woolsey Fire now estimated at $5B

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 03:00 PM PST

The Woolsey Fire that destroyed thousands of structures earlier this month in Los Angeles and Ventura counties is now estimated to have caused up to $5 billion in real estate damages. Property data firm CoreLogic projects total losses from the fire at $3.5 to $4.5 billion in residential property damage, and up to $500 million in damage to commercial properties, the OC Register first reported. The Woolsey Fire lasted over a week, and in addition […]

Ron Moelis’ billionaire banker brother is the buyer of 520 Park’s $62M penthouse

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 02:20 PM PST

Billionaire investment banker Ken Moelis is the buyer of the $62 million penthouse at Zeckendorf Development’s 520 Park Avenue. The deal — one of the priciest this year — closed this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. He’s the brother of affordable housing developer Ron Moelis, who is the founder and CEO of L+M Development Partners. Moelis’ boutique investment bank Moelis & Company advised on Hilton’s $26 billion sale to Blackstone in 2007, the […]

PMG, Raven plan $1B worth of co-living units

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 01:45 PM PST

Less than two years after Property Markets Group launched its own co-living business, the Kevin Maloney-led firm said it has $1 billion worth of inventory in the hopper. In partnership with Raven Capital Management, a New York-based private equity firm, PMG has committed $300 million in equity to building X Social Communities, which it described as a multifamily housing division. XSC has 10,000 units in the pipeline nationwide, according to Noah Gottlieb, a principal at […]

Richard Phan, Carrie Chiang’s “right hand,” jumps to Elliman

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 01:15 PM PST

UPDATED, Nov. 28, 4:26 p.m.: Richard Phan — who spent more than a decade at Corcoran with top broker Carrie Chiang — has jumped to Douglas Elliman. He started at the firm this month. Phan said he had considered making a change on-and-off for the last few years and now the timing felt right, in part because he’s developed his own client base. “In order for me to grow my business and grow professionally, the […]

Irrational exuberance? Rising commercial real estate prices could signal warning for economy: Fed Reserve

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 12:30 PM PST

Ever-rising commercial real estate prices nationwide could be a risk to the stability of the U.S. financial markets, as they were in the last recession. That was the assessment from the Federal Reserve in its inaugural financial stability report on Wednesday. Fed officials cited commercial real estate — in which purchase prices continue to outpace rent increases — as well as nonfinancial corporate borrowing as risks in its report, according to the Wall Street Journal. […]

HUD’s Lynne Patton says she will move into NYCHA housing to protest heating outages

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 11:35 AM PST

Lynne Patton, the top bureaucrat at the Department of Housing and Urban Development for the New York region, said on Wednesday she plans to move into a NYCHA high-rise in Harlem to protest heat and hot water outages throughout New York City public housing. President Trump, who appointed Patton in 2017, has proposed eliminating all federal funding of capital repairs at public housing projects nationally, as they face a $40 billion backlog. The news was […]

Gladstone, Heiberger settle $100M libel suit

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 11:00 AM PST

Was it a stunt? A statement? Either way, developer Robert Gladstone has dropped his $100 million libel suit against Town Residential and Andrew Heiberger. Lawyers for the two parties said the action had been discontinued with prejudice in a letter sent Tuesday to Judge Gerald Lebovits. The CEO of Madison Equities alleged in March 2017 that the brokerage executive defamed him and tried to “poison public sentiment” against him, as the two sparred over the […]

Silverstein: Amazon can save Midtown’s luxury condo market

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 10:30 AM PST

Larry Silverstein thinks Amazon might bail out Midtown Manhattan’s struggling high-end condominium towers. “Long Island City is one, sometimes two, subway stops from Park Avenue and 59th Street,” Silverstein said. “There are going to be a lot of executives in Long Island City.” “Could that part of Manhattan get lucky because executives at Amazon want to live close to where they work? Highly possible,” he added. The chairman of Silverstein Properties spoke at a panel […]

Retail rents in Brooklyn are a mixed bag. These corridors saw the biggest changes

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 10:05 AM PST

Are retail rents going up or down in Brooklyn? Well, it depends on where you are. A new report from the Real Estate Board of New York analyzed 16 of the borough’s prime retail corridors from the summer and found an almost even split between areas where rents were going up (seven) and areas where rents were going down (eight). Average asking rents for ground floor retail in one corridor — Franklin Street in Greenpoint […]

Westchester & Fairfield Cheat Sheet: A rich county gets a ratings downgrade, ‘City Square’ plans revealed … & more

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 09:35 AM PST

Westchester County loses top AAA rating after downgrade Despite its array of mansions and other areas of affluence, Westchester County, one of the richest suburbs in the country, saw its elite credit rating get cut by a pair of prominent ratings agencies, according to Bloomberg. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings both made the move after the county drew down on its cash reserves to cover raises retroactively given to government employees, the outlet reported. […]

As California wildfires grow, homeowners, insurers hire private firefighting crews

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 09:00 AM PST

Around California, insurance companies and homeowners concerned about the increasing threat of wildfires are turning to private firefighting crews for an added layer of protection. An insurance company will typically hire private firefighting and prevention teams to safeguard policyholders’ homes and assets from damage, according to the Los Angeles Times. The companies see it as a cost-effective response to the fires, because hiring crews is cheaper than having to pay to replace a home and […]

Goodbye brokers? VTS launching online commercial leasing platform

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 08:30 AM PST

UPDATED, Nov. 28, 6:25 p.m.: VTS is getting ready to launch a business that would automate some commercial real estate deals. The startup tech firm is planning to launch the platform early next year, and it will focus on letting landlords and tenants negotiate directly with each other on relatively small and simple commercial deals for less than 5,000 square feet, according to the Wall Street Journal. The system will work for larger deals as well. […]

Here are 8 real estate megaprojects coming to SoFla

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 08:10 AM PST

UPDATED Nov. 28, 12:35 p.m.: When Triple Five Group gained approval from Miami-Dade County commissioners earlier this year to build the largest mall in America, the news brought national interest to South Florida’s real estate market. The project will bring an indoor ski-slope to Miami as well as other entertainment, and is betting big on retail at a time when the industry is seeing a surge in vacancies. Yet, American Dream Miami is only one […]

AIG in talks for up to 200K sf at 1271 Sixth

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 07:30 AM PST

Financial and insurance giant AIG is in discussions to take multiple floors at the Rockefeller Group’s Time-Life Building. The firm is eyeing off a 150,000 to 200,000-square-foot space at , which is currently under major renovations, according to the New York Post. JLL is representing the tenant in a proposed 11-year deal, while CBRE is representing owner Rockefeller Group at the 1.9 million-square-foot building. If AIG signs, the firm will join law firm Blank Rome, […]

Boxed in: NYC landlords struggling to deal with residents’ online shopping addiction

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 07:05 AM PST

Online shopping is designed to make life easier — except for landlords. Call it a game of logistics. Property owners are grappling to adapt to a deluge of tenant packages from the likes of Amazon, Etsy, Blue Apron and Zappos, which have rendered traditional apartment building package rooms desperately inadequate. In some instances, that simply means renovating or expanding package to support a bigger haul. In others, where expansion is not a possibility, it means […]

Ralph Lauren’s exit at 625 Madison just compounded a big problem for SL Green

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 06:30 AM PST

Office landlord SL Green Realty has taken another blow in its bid to hold onto 625 Madison Avenue, as the upcoming departure of tenant Ralph Lauren will affect its payments to the land owner. Ben Ashkenazy’s Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which owns the land on the 583,000-square-foot building and earns $4.6 million a year, is looking to sharply increase its rent when it resets in 2022, according to Crain’s. The firm took the property in 2013 […]

Here’s what the $10M-$20M NYC investment sales market looked like last week

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 06:00 AM PST

In the world of mid-market New York City investment sales last week, Blackstone Group and Fairstead Capital sold another piece of the Caiola portfolio and Highpoint bought three apartment buildings in Brooklyn. 1.) Blackstone and its partner Fairstead sold another piece of the Caiola portfolio. The property, at 417 East 83rd Street, is a six-story, 25-unit apartment building between First and York Avenue. The building changed hands in a $10 million deal. The buyer is […]

These were the top 10 outer borough loans in October

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 05:30 AM PST

The top outer borough loans during October were all about Queens and Brooklyn. Although the top 10 were split evenly between the two boroughs at five loans apiece, Queens had all of the top four deals, and Brooklyn did not make its debut until the No. 5 spot. The Bronx and Staten Island did not have any loans make the top 10 last month. The loans were worth about $748.2 million overall. The largest loan […]

All in: Zillow bigwigs buy $44M worth of stock amid selloff

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 05:00 AM PST

Zillow Group’s stock has taken a beating on Wall Street, but two major shareholders just doubled down on their investments in the listings giant. Richard Barton, the Seattle-based company co-founder and executive chairman, bought $19.2 million worth of Zillow stock last week, regulatory filings show. Meanwhile, Jay Hoag, a venture capitalist who sits on Zillow’s board of directors, shelled out $25 million to up his stake in the company. Both scooped up discounted shares of […]

Dissecting the Queens condo craze

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 04:30 AM PST

Compared to Manhattan and Brooklyn’s trendy glass towers, new condominium projects in Queens have drawn less attention. But that’s quickly changing. For three of the past five years, developers built more expensive condo projects in Queens than in Brooklyn, an analysis by The Real Deal found. And the borough’s most popular neighborhoods — including Long Island City, Astoria and Flushing — continue to set new records with the number of condo units in the pipeline. […]

GreenOak, Slate close on $280M+ Biltmore rental tower

Posted: 28 Nov 2018 04:00 AM PST

GreenOak Real Estate and Slate Property Group closed on the more than $280 million acquisition of the Biltmore rental apartment tower in Midtown on Tuesday, according to sources familiar with the deal. The Jack Parker Corporation is the seller. The Real Deal first reported in May that Slate and frequent partner GreenOak were in talks to buy the 52-story, 464-unit tower at 271 West 47th Street. Newmark Knight Frank’s James Kuhn, David Colen and Michael […]