The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

John Catsimatidis rejects Joe Biden’s request for campaign funding

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 03:08 PM PDT

John Catsimatidis attended a fundraiser for Joe Biden, but declined to open his checkbook for the Democrat’s presidential campaign. The Red Apple Group, a former mayoral candidate with an estimated worth of $1.3 billion, reportedly attended a fundraising event at the home of short seller Jim Chanos in New York, CNBC reported. Biden spoke to Catsimatidis for about 10 minutes, but could not sway his allegiance from Donald Trump. “I just smiled,” Catsimatidis said of […]

MAP: Everywhere Google owns property in America

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 02:56 PM PDT

Google now feels guilty. After the Mountain View-based company and its peers in Silicon Valley helped to create a shortage of affordable housing, Google is pledging to spend $1 billion on creating more housing in the Bay Area. In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said $750 million of that will be repurposing Google’s own land, currently marked as commercial or office space, as residential housing and the rest is an investment fund […]

REBNY plans rally ahead of hearing on rental commissions

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 02:43 PM PDT

The New York real estate industry is gearing up for its next fight. This time, brokers are at the forefront, vehemently opposing a proposed law that would alter their typical commission payment on rental transactions, and the industry’s top trade group is planning a show of force in support. The City Council has scheduled a public hearing for a series of bills that would reconfigure rental broker fees for June 27 at 1 p.m. The […]

Sen. Julia Salazar, bane of the real estate industry, talks rent laws and property rights

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 02:30 PM PDT

She’s been called a communist, a socialist, and someone who doesn’t believe in traditional private property rights. On the eve of the rent law vote, The Real Deal‘s Georgia Kromrei and Kathryn Brenzel sat down with freshman Sen. Julia Salazar to discuss her “Good Cause,” eviction bill, her ideology, her ideas about property rights and when she is — and isn’t — willing to come to the table. Here are some highlights from our hour-long […]

TPG joins Gurals, Northwind on FiDi office redevelopment

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 01:30 PM PDT

TPG Real Estate Partners is joining the Gural family and the Northwind Group as the majority stakeholder on their deal to purchase and reposition the 7 Hanover Square office tower in the Financial District, sources told The Real Deal. The real estate investment arm of private equity firm TPG Capital signed an agreement last week to form a joint venture with the Gural’s GFP Real Estate and Ran Eliasaf’s Northwind Group on their $308.5 million […]

Anbang looks to sell 5th Ave office condo at steep discount

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 01:00 PM PDT

 Anbang Insurance Group has decided to sell off another one of its pricey Manhattan properties. And this one could go at a steep discount. The Beijing-based conglomerate has put the office condominium at 717 Fifth Avenue up for sale, sources told The Real Deal. Anbang, which became a poster child for China’s extreme appetite for overseas acquisitions, is shooting for a sales price north of $200 million, sources told TRD, which could be roughly […]

Class action cases over broker commissions pick up steam

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 12:16 PM PDT

Two class action antitrust lawsuits that threaten central tenets of the U.S. real estate business have now joined forces with their allegations now tied to an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. An amended class action complaint filed in a federal court in Chicago consolidates cases filed by Minnesota-based home seller Christopher Moehrl and Sawbill Strategic in March and April, respectively, while adding six more plaintiffs from across the country, Inman reported. As […]

When luxury leaks

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 11:35 AM PDT

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 […]

Boston Properties unloads Central Jersey’s tallest office tower

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 10:45 AM PDT

A 23-story office building in New Jersey has been sold by Boston Properties for $38 million, a real estate investment trust that is betting big on co-working and ground-up development. The 415,743-square-foot complex in East Brunswick, known as One Tower Center, was sold Monday to Edison-based American Equity Partners, NJBIZ reported. CBRE, which brokered the deal on behalf of the seller, said that the Middlesex County building and the neighboring Two Tower Center are the […]

How Crescent Heights developer Russell Galbut plans to remake South Florida

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 10:00 AM PDT

When Miamians and tourists drive eastbound on the MacArthur Causeway, past Star, Palm and Hibiscus islands, past the cruise ships with passengers waving as they exit the port, the first building that’ll catch their eye will be a veritable skyscraper. A 44-story, 519-foot-tall luxury residential building dubbed Park on Fifth is set to rise at 500 Alton Road, right at the entrance to South Beach. The project on the site of the former South Shore […]

Smelly apartments and foreign tenants: How Fortress became Japan’s biggest landlord

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 09:30 AM PDT

In late 2017, Fortress Investment Group was acquired by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank for $3.3 billion. Around the same time, Fortress was making big moves in Japan. The New York-based private equity firm is now Japan’s largest private apartment owner, after picking up 100,000 affordable housing units from the Japanese government for $553 million in 2017, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company has budgeted another $500 million for renovations, and plans to turn a […]

S&P 500 real estate stocks haven’t been this high in a long time

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 09:00 AM PDT

Real estate stocks are having a very good year. As of Monday, a quarter of the 32 companies in the real estate sector on the S&P 500 were trading at their highest levels in at least the past year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sector is the second-best performer for the year, behind only technology stocks. Investors are particularly keen on companies betting big on e-commerce. Prologis and Duke Realty, both of which […]

Glenn Close to part ways with 11-acre Westchester estate

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 08:30 AM PDT

Emmy Award winner and Westchester County native Glenn Close has listed her 10.67-acre estate in Bedford Corners for $3.6 million. The acclaimed actress has tapped Muffin Dowdle of Ginnel Real Estate to oversee the sale of her five-bedroom, five-bathroom estate at 136 Succabone Road in Bedford. Close, a longtime resident of the tony suburb, home to many stars of the screen, is the latest notable individual with local roots to put her house on the […]

In run-up to IPO, the We Company could have a $34B problem

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 07:02 AM PDT

It’s been a year of ballooning financial numbers for the We Company, which has seen both revenue and losses roughly double year-over-year. Another figure has reportedly nearly doubled as well – the co-working company’s lease obligations. In a development that may concern investors in the run up to an initial public offering, the company formerly known as WeWork had about $34 billion in lease obligations at the end of last year, up from $18.2 billion […]

Online food ordering platform Olo takes 36K sf of prebuilt space at 1 WTC

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 05:48 AM PDT

Olo, a tech firm that provides online ordering services for restaurant chains, is the latest company to take its pick from the menu of prebuilt offerings at the Durst Organization’s One World Trade Center. The company has just signed a lease for the building’s entire 82nd floor, with a floor area of 36,099 square feet, the New York Post reported. The asking rent was $82 per square foot. The lease takes another bite out of […]

City to tap Minneapolis public housing boss as new NYCHA head: report

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 05:16 AM PDT

After five months, two missed deadlines and several rejections, the New York City Housing Authority finally has a new boss – probably. Gregory Russ, currently head of Minneapolis’ public housing authority, was selected late last week by Mayor de Blasio to head the troubled – and much larger – NYCHA, sources told The City. But the administration denies this. “No decision has been made on any candidate,” de Blasio spokesperson Marcy Miranda told The City, […]

Carlton Group — post Howard Michaels

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 04:30 AM PDT

When financier Howard Michaels was diagnosed with gastric cancer four years ago, he didn’t want anybody outside the firm to know about it. Michaels, founder of the Carlton Group, continued working, sending emails up until the day before his death on Sept. 21, 2018. “He hid that from everybody,” said Kevin Swill, former COO of Carlton. “He felt that our clients might go somewhere else if he wasn’t at the helm.” […]

Analysis: Here’s what the new rent law will do to the average stabilized apartment

Posted: 18 Jun 2019 04:00 AM PDT

UPDATED, June 18, 11:41 a.m.: The new rent bill that was signed into law on Friday has already been described as “devastating” and “disastrous” for New York City’s real estate industry. But what specifically does it mean for certain multifamily landlords? The new legislation touches on a wide range of rent-related issues, from vacancies and improvements to condo conversions and mobile homes. To illustrate the practical impact of these changes, The Real Deal took a […]