The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Meet the new CEO of Extell Development

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 04:30 PM PST

Gary Barnett’s Extell Development has brought on a new CEO at a time when its inventory’s fate is at the mercy of the market. On Monday, the prolific developer handed the keys to his castle to Sush Torgalkar — the 42-year-old former COO of Westbrook Partners and a well-liked executive known for his access to institutional investors and ability to navigate thorny deals. Barnett didn’t offer a reason for bringing on a new president and […]

Anthony Scaramucci and EJF Capital split on $3B Opportunity Zone fund

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 03:44 PM PST

Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital has split up with EJF Capital on the firms’ planned $3 billion Opportunity Zone fund. The reasons for the split were not immediately clear, and SkyBridge plans to move forward on its fund with a new partner, according to sources familiar with the two companies. Scaramucci’s company is currently looking for the new partner. The Opportunity Zones program, part of December 2017’s tax overhaul plan, offers tax deferrals and benefits to investors […]

Criterion Group buys Long Island City development site for $80M

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 03:00 PM PST

Shibber Khan’s Criterion Group paid just shy of $80 million for a Long Island City development site that had been the subject of a lawsuit with the property’s seller. The Astoria-based developer paid $79.95 million for the two parcels just north of Queensboro Plaza between 22nd and 23rd streets, property records filed with the city Tuesday show. The seller is listed as PEC Realty Corporation, which property records connect to Allan Briteway Electrical Contractors Inc. […]

Gov. Cuomo pushes for union wage requirements, says vacancy decontrol coming to an end

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 02:45 PM PST

Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday said he will push for an expansion of what projects are required to pay workers prevailing wages, a change that would benefit the city’s construction unions. During the governor’s joint State of the State and budget address, Cuomo said projects that receive public subsidies should be required to pay prevailing wages (essentially union pay), noting that it would ensure developments are “built right, built fairly.” The state legislature has previously […]

New chief economist takes helm at Trulia amid housing market cool down

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 02:15 PM PST

Residential listings portal Trulia hired Issi Romem as its new chief economist at a time when indicators show the U.S. housing market is cooling down. Romem will head the the San Francisco-based company’s Housing Economics Research team, which provides research, analysis, and commentary about the housing market across the country. Romem jumped to Trulia after four years as chief economist for BuildZoom, a platform for homeowners seeking contractors. He is also a fellow at the […]

Hamptons Cheat Sheet: Shelter Island’s Ram’s Head Inn relists for $9.75M, oceanfront Quogue mansion cut to $17.9M … & more

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 01:30 PM PST

Shelter Island’s Ram’s Head Inn up for sale with $9.75M price tag The 90-year-old Ram’s Head Inn on Shelter Island, which also contains a restaurant and venue, has hit the market again for $9.75 million, Curbed reported. The 12,000-square-foot inn has a three-story Colonial-style manor house with 22 rooms; indoor and outdoor events spaces; a 110-seat restaurant and a 5,000-square-foot unfinished basement. The 4.3-acre property at 108 Ram Island Drive also has an all-weather tennis […]

German co-living company raises $300M for US expansion

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 01:15 PM PST

A German company is attempting to force its way into the ever-tightening co-living industry. Medici Living Group raised $300 million as part of a joint venture with investment firm W5 Group to develop 1,500 units across the U.S. under its co-living brand, Quarters, the Berlin-based company said Tuesday. The company is entering a crowded U.S. co-living industry, a concept developed about a decade ago to provide shared living spaces. Quarters, which currently has locations in […]

Manocherian family picks up UES rental for $90M

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 12:45 PM PST

The Manocherian family is adding to its vast multifamily empire with a $90 million rental building on the Upper East Side. The family’s Pan Am Equities bought the 50-unit Stonehenge 86 building at 103 East 86th Street from Ofer Yardeni’s Stonehenge Partners, sources told The Real Deal. The purchase price works out to $1.8 million per unit. Representatives for Pan Am and Stonehenge could not be immediately reached for comment. Stonehenge bought the 13-story pre-war […]

Avenues School co-founder sells $10M Trump Tower condo

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 12:00 PM PST

School’s out. Alan Greenberg – founder of the exclusive, for-profit Avenues: The World School – sold his condo at the Trump International Hotel & Tower for $10.3 million after almost two decades in the luxury building. The apartment went to an anonymous buyer, listed as “1CPW30A LLC” in documents filed with the city Tuesday. The 2,094-square-foot unit on the 30th floor of 1 Central Park West has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and views over Central […]

Douglas Elliman hires a new creative head as it plans a rebranding

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 11:30 AM PST

Douglas Elliman‘s pulling the plug on its national multi-million-dollar “It’s Time for Elliman” marketing campaign. The brokerage has hired a new creative head and enlisted ad agency Grey New York to rebrand its look over the next year. Amy Rosenfeld, formerly a creative director at luxury conglomerate LVMH, is joining Elliman as vice president of creative, a newly created role. Elliman COO Scott Durkin said Rosenfeld had been on his radar for about a year. […]

MetaProp to invest $5M in affordable housing startups

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 11:00 AM PST

MetaProp, the New York-based venture capital firm, is looking to bolster the creation and protection of affordable housing with a new initiative. The firm, which advises and invests in property tech startups, will partner with Enterprise Community Partners, a national nonprofit that focuses on affordable housing, to invest in startups that address the undersupply of affordable homes and make credit and illiquid capital more accessible. Leila Collins, MetaProp’s “investor-in-residence,” said the firm would commit $5 […]

South Florida real estate broker shot and killed by son-in-law

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 10:15 AM PST

A popular South Florida Realtor was shot and killed in northeast Miami-Dade on Monday, in a murder-suicide. Linda Marx, broker and owner of Linda Marx Realty, was killed by her son-in-law Steve Kasimow in front of his home on Northeast 211th Street near North Miami Beach. Kasimow then committed suicide in Hollywood, according to NBC Miami. Kasimow was reportedly upset about his divorce and got into an argument with Marx, who was 70. Marx got […]

Wining-and-dining ban on title insurance industry reinstated by Appellate court

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 09:40 AM PST

After a brief reprieve, the title insurance industry is again facing a ban on wining and dining clients. The Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court handed down a ruling on Tuesday that reinstated the vast majority of the controversial regulations that the Department of Financial Services placed on the industry last year. The rules ban title insurance companies from treating their clients to entertainment and meals. The appeals court wrote in its […]

Is the assemblage game going to pieces?

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 09:05 AM PST

Piecing together a sizable parcel of Manhattan land is a time-consuming and hairy process. And in today’s tanking investment sales market, many are just avoiding it outright. But there is still a handful of players — many of them among the city’s savviest and most risk-tolerant — in the assemblage game. And the chess moves they are making, which often involve seemingly unconnected purchases throughout Manhattan, offer a window on the next batch of projects […]

Blackstone getting ready to close on record $20B real estate fund

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 08:05 AM PST

The Blackstone Group is getting ready to close its largest private-equity real estate fund yet: a $20 billion investment vehicle with three times as much purchasing power. Real estate funds typically use $2 of debt for every dollar of equity, meaning that the new fund has about $60 billion figure in buying power, the Wall Street Journal reported. That’s more than all the commercial real estate that traded in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco […]

Send the date: Share your real estate events with The Real Deal

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 07:15 AM PST

Each week, The Real Deal provides a roundup of the top real estate events in New York you need to know for the week ahead. Send conferences, panel events, networking opportunities and more to [email protected]. To search for future industry events or browse past ones, click here.

Homebuilder Hovnanian, facing years-old debt, could get stock delisted

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 06:45 AM PST

Hovnanian Enterprises, one of the country’s largest homebuilders, took on loads of debt to acquire companies and land more than a decade ago only to see the housing market collapse in 2008 and property values tumble. Today, the New Jersey-based firm, which includes K. Hovnanian, faces the risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange as it continues to struggle with that debt. The company said it will seek shareholder approval at its […]

Colliers names co-heads for new capital markets platform

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 06:05 AM PST

Colliers International has tapped two veteran brokers to co-head the company’s new U.S. capital markets platform. David Amsterdam, a president at the company who overseas eastern region activities, and David Kotansky, a managing director in the Portland, Oregon office, will oversee divisions dedicated to investment sales, brokering debt and equity deals and structured finance, the company announced. Both will also continue with their previous responsibilities. The newly-established “capital markets platform will add great value to […]

Vision Fund to lead $700M funding round for construction startup Katerra

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 05:40 AM PST

Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion Vision Fund is preparing another major investment in real estate tech, with plans to lead a $700 million round of financing for Katerra, the construction startup founded by former Flextronics International CEO Michael Marks. This financing round would value the four-year-old company at more than $4 billion, according to The Information. The SoftBank fund invested $865 million in Katerra last January, after which the company was valued at $3 billion. Katerra […]

Makowsky slashes price of Bel Air spec mansion to $150M

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 05:00 AM PST

High-end developer Bruce Makowsky once again took an axe to the price of his massive Bel Air spec mansion, this time chopping it down to a still-sky-high $150 million. The new asking price is $38 million less than the $188-million price tag he posted last year, the Los Angeles Times reported. And it’s a 40-percent drop from its original listing of $250 million in 2017. Back then, the 38,000-square-foot home was the nation’s priciest listing. […]

The Circle of Life: Lenox Hill co-op passes from one hedge funder to another

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 04:30 AM PST

UPDATED, Tuesday, Jan. 15 at 9:58 a.m.: The keys are changing hands, but the owners are still hedge funders. Marc Lasry, the billionaire co-founder of investment firm Avenue Capital Management, just sold his $9.5 million on a one-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment at 812 Fifth Avenue. Lasry is a co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks. The apartment, which overlooks Central Park, was bought by William Reeves, co-founder of hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management. Reeves and his wife are […]

New York’s McMansions are definitely not dying

Posted: 15 Jan 2019 04:00 AM PST

National Drive in Mill Basin, Brooklyn, is a museum of late-20th-century suburban hodgepodge: A modest colonial here, a questionable Spanish villa there. Stucco sits beside stone and brick beside vinyl. None are so remarkable, however, as the edifice sitting where National Drive ends near the Mill Basin inlet, just off Jamaica Bay. With its white façade, black windows and wall-to-wall marble, 2458 National Drive is an acquired taste. A buyer put up $10 million last […]