The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Landlords hail relief bill as end of “cancel rent”

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 03:50 PM PST

State lawmakers today revealed the details of how the state will dole out New York’s $1.3 billion in rent relief. A newly amended bill aims to meet the federal requirements for the rent-relief program, which include means-testing and priority for tenants who demonstrate housing instability or risk of homelessness. Landlords could receive rent relief for as much as a year of rental arrears — plus three additional months, if funds are available — but it’s

GFI sells ground under Ace Hotel in Brooklyn for $45M

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 03:30 PM PST

iStar Financial is back at 61 Bond Street. Development firm GFI Capital Resources has sold the ground beneath its 285-key Ace Hotel development in Boerum Hill to investment firm iStar for for $45 million, property records show. Now, GFI, led by Allen Gross, will make ground lease payments to Jay Sugarman’s iStar. The agreement, dated Feb. 1, returns iStar as the primary lender on the project. It provided a $50 million construction loan for the

Zillow profits hit record $46M in Q4

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 02:26 PM PST

Following a year in which home-buying services went virtual, Zillow has struck a deal to buy an online home-tour scheduler. The listings giant has struck a deal to buy ShowingTime.com, a home tour scheduler, for $500 million, the companies said Wednesday. ShowingTime coordinates home-showing schedules for a network of nearly 1 million agents and hundreds of multiple listing services. The deal coincides with a record quarter for Zillow. The Seattle-based listings giant reported record profits

Valentino inks lease for first Soho store

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 01:50 PM PST

It may be just a two-year deal, but a new lease by Valentino may be a good sign for the city’s struggling retail sector. The luxury fashion brand will open its first Soho store at 135 Spring Street in a space that’s currently occupied by Diesel. Valentino is expected to take over the nearly 8,800-square-foot duplex space at the end of February, and will open later this spring. “Valentino is going to do something special

“Torture song”: Landlord apologizes for blasting Barney theme to deter homeless

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 01:22 PM PST

“I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family!” For hundreds of hours in late January and early February, that “Barney & Friends” theme song blasted in an endless loop across a secluded stretch of San Pedro, aimed directly at an encampment of homeless people. The source was a former banquet hall turned “multi-use filming space,” owned by Jerico Development. The landlord, whose headquarters is near that stretch of Ante Perkov Way, was seeking

Commercial evictions up in air as current ban winds down

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 12:35 PM PST

UPDATED, Feb. 10 2021, 6:38 p.m.: New York’s moratorium on commercial evictions and foreclosures expires in 12 days, and a bill to replace it may have hit a roadblock. The current ban stems from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s March 2020 moratorium on commercial evictions and foreclosures, which he has repeatedly extended. The latest extension, through a Jan. 23 executive order, prevents those actions from taking place until Feb. 22. A spokesperson for Cuomo told Eater that

Wexner family buying Greg Norman’s Jupiter compound listed for $60M: sources

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 11:45 AM PST

Retired professional golfer Greg Norman and his wife Kiki found a buyer for their $60 million South Florida compound: the family of billionaire Leslie Wexner, the founder and former CEO of L Brands, The Real Deal has learned. The Normans listed their nearly 32,000-square-foot estate at 382 South Beach Road on Jupiter Island in late January for $59.9 million. The deal is contingent, according to Realtor.com. Sources said the buyer is the Wexner family. Wexner,

DivcoWest buying 325 Hudson for $150M+

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 10:15 AM PST

DivcoWest struck a deal to buy a Hudson Square building in what could be one of the first big office trades of the new year. The San Francisco-based real estate investment firm has an exclusive agreement to buy Jamestown Properties’ 325 Hudson Street, sources told The Real Deal. Pricing for the 10-story, 225,000-square-foot building is north of $150 million, according to one source. Representatives for DivcoWest and Jamestown did not respond to requests for comment.

Brooklyn Fare inks 25-year Upper West Side lease

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 09:30 AM PST

Brooklyn Fare is expanding its footprint into the Upper West Side. The grocer has signed a 25-year, 21,600-square-foot lease at the base of the Brodsky Organization’s rental building at 75 West End Avenue, within the Lincoln Square submarket. The asking rent for the space was $85 per square foot, according to Lee & Associates NYC, which brokered the deal. This is the fourth New York City location for Brooklyn Fare, which has existing stores in

Why real estate is spending big on City Council races

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 09:00 AM PST

The creator of a New York City campaign fund to which real estate titan Stephen Ross and others have given $1.47 million has revealed the sole purpose of the effort: to win City Council races. Or, at least, to prevent certain candidates from winning them. “The council drives the agenda,” political consultant Jeffrey Leb told the Wall Street Journal. Leb, the fund’s treasurer, declined to say which of the nearly three dozen races for City

Bank forecloses on Prodigy’s AKA United Nations hotel building

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 08:30 AM PST

UPDATED, Feb. 10 2021, 7:30 p.m.: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has moved to foreclose on a Manhattan hotel building owned by Prodigy Network, a once-prominent crowdfunding firm that has been slowly collapsing for the past year. In a complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court this week, the Toronto-based lender claimed that the hotel owner — an LLC tied to Prodigy — failed to make interest payments going back to last May, and

Proptech startup raises money to compete with Dealpath

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 08:00 AM PST

A competitor to Dealpath’s transaction management software has wrapped a new funding round. New York-based Nativ closed a $3 million seed round to help the startup grow its workflow software Atlas, co-founders Jeff Saul and Adam Kerr told The Real Deal. The round was led by San Francisco-based VC investor Bling Capital, which has backed other proptech companies like CompStak and VTS. “We think we can really vie to be the leading deal management platform

Cities come back: Home prices up 15% in 3 months

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 07:35 AM PST

Across the country, cities are rebounding. Young, white-collar workers are taking advantage of record-low mortgage rates and remote work to move to more desirable urban areas. Home prices in urban U.S. markets rose 15 percent in the three months through late January, according to Redfin. That’s a change from early in the pandemic, when price gains lagged those in the suburbs or even fell, Bloomberg reported. “People are anticipating that now is a great time

Trump argues to live in Mar-a-Lago — as an employee

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 07:00 AM PST

Former President Donald Trump has a new job. As president of his Mar-a-Lago club, Trump meets the definition of a “bona fide” employee, Trump attorney John Marion told officials in Palm Beach on Tuesday. The statement follows complaints from local residents who argue Trump shouldn’t be allowed to live there permanently because of zoning rules, Bloomberg reported. “He is very active on the property,” Marion told the town council. “This guy, as he wanders the

Ryan Serhant leases 15K sf to open Soho HQ

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 06:30 AM PST

Serhant is bringing his new brokerage to Soho. The celebrity broker’s firm has outgrown its initial office in Tribeca and has signed a 15,000-square-foot lease to take over the four-level building at 372 West Broadway. The long-vacant storefront was last occupied by Tommy Hilfiger. “We’re just growing too fast,” said Serhant. “So we went on the hunt for a trophy building and found one.” Serhant declined to reveal terms of the lease, but said his

Salesforce: Employees can work from home forever

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 06:10 AM PST

Salesforce has made a statement that is sure to worry office landlords. “The 9-to-5 workday is dead,” wrote Brent Hyder, the massive company’s president and chief people officer, in a blog post Tuesday. That accompanied an announcement that employees of the cloud-based software company will have the option to return to the office part-time or work fully remotely. Through an employee survey, the San Francisco–based company, which employs 54,000 people globally, found about half of

These were the largest Manhattan real estate loans in January

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 05:30 AM PST

The 10 largest Manhattan loans recorded in January totaled $1.95 billion, a 7 percent decrease from December’s total. For the first time, the top loan of the month was for an acquisition that went into contract during the pandemic: a hefty CMBS loan that 601W Companies secured for its $953 million purchase of SL Green’s 410 Tenth Avenue. The remainder of the top 10 included one other acquisition loan and a construction loan, while the

Mayoral poll shows Yang ahead, McGuire with uphill battle

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 05:00 AM PST

Covid is the top issue for Democratic voters in the city, but they have mixed feelings on who should handle it as the next mayor, according to a new poll. The first independent survey of the race, from Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics, found that former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has the most name recognition and early support, followed by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and City Comptroller Scott Stringer. The results also suggest

Average home mortgage reaches record $402K

Posted: 10 Feb 2021 04:00 AM PST

Though applications for home loans fell last week as mortgage rates ticked up, the average loan to purchase a home reached an all-time high. An index tracking applications to purchase homes dropped 5 percent, seasonally adjusted, last week from the prior week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The metric was unchanged the week before. But as home prices continue to soar as supply remains low and strong demand persists, homebuyers are seeking loans for