The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Pharma billionaire to sell Hamptons estate for $50M

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 01:10 PM PDT

Pharmaceutical billionaire Stewart Rahr has something to “rah rah” about. The entrepreneur struck a deal to sell his sprawling Hamptons estate for roughly $50 million, one of the priciest deals inked in the area this year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The home was first listed in 2015 for $95 million, and was most recently asking $56 million. Rahr expanded and sold pharmaceutical distributor Kinray, which his father founded in 1944, to Cardinal Health

Rockland County village rolls back “discriminatory” zoning

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 12:15 PM PDT

Authorities in the village of Airmont, New York, will stop enforcing zoning provisions that the Department of Justice alleges discriminate against the village’s Orthodox Jewish residents. An injunction entered this week by a judge in the Southern District of New York requires that property owners be allowed to build communal places of worship (such as home synagogues) as-of-right in all residential districts. The DOJ filed its suit against Airmont at the end of 2020, alleging

The Closing: Gil Dezer

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 11:30 AM PDT

Any screenwriter who pitched the character of Gil Dezer to a Hollywood studio would be laughed out of the room. A chain-smoking, gold chain-wearing, foul-mouthed developer who owns the Aston Martin DB5 James Bond drove in “Goldfinger” and was married at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago? The 46-year-old president of the development firm started by his father, Dezer might be straight out of central casting, but he’s also a genuine innovator. Dezer pioneered the practice of partnering

Lower East Side home of Mercury Lounge for sale

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 10:45 AM PDT

The Lower East Side building that’s home to the popular nightclub Mercury Lounge is for sale. The mixed-use tenement building is listed for $7.5 million, according to Bowery Boogie. In 2010, the property sold for $5.28 million, or $550 per square foot. The building is split between the venue, which occupies the ground floor, and eight apartments above it. Five of those units are rent-stabilized, while three are market-rate. The Mercury Lounge has been at

Rudolph Valentino’s former Beverly Hills estate sells for $15M

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 10:00 AM PDT

A four-acre Beverly Hills estate that once belonged to the golden boy of Hollywood’s early Golden Age is ready for its megamansion. Falcon Lair, the property that had been owned by silent film star Rudolph Valentino, sold for $15 million, according to Dirt.com. That’s half the original asking price when it hit the market in late 2018. The property at 1436 Bella Drive in the Beverly Crest section sold to filmmaker Jenifer Westphal and her

Landlords shun federal rent relief over program requirements

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 09:30 AM PDT

The federal government wants to give landlords and tenants $50 billion to help keep renters in their homes — but some of those property owners are turning down the funding that they’re eligible for. Some landlords have taken issue with the requirements to receive federal rent relief, including disclosing financial information, as well as limits on evicting tenants if they choose to do so, the Wall Street Journal reported. In Boston, a tenant attorney said

Walgreens, Duane Reade to sublease 16 stores

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 09:25 AM PDT

Walgreens and Duane Reade, once fixtures of many New York City streets, are packing up even more of their stores. The pharmacy convenience stores are subleasing at least 16 of their Manhattan locations, according to public listings by JLL. The chains, both subsidiaries of Walgreens Boots Alliance, are looking to shed more than 156,000 square feet of space, the listings show. The locations include: 322 Eighth Avenue, 254 Park Avenue South, 769 Broadway, 55 East

Investors pile into house-flipping

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 08:15 AM PDT

The number of investors backing house-flippers jumped 50 percent in two months, as low interest rates continue to drive the hunt for higher profits. Research firm Attom Data Solutions found that the gross earnings on a fix-and-flip home reached a little more than $66,000 in 2020, the highest since 2005, Bloomberg reported. But prices have increased for such homes, slightly reducing the profit to 40.5 percent last year compared with 41.5 percent in 2019. House-flipping

Croman gets until 2023 to pay final $2M in tenant restitution

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 07:30 AM PDT

Landlord Steve Croman has bought himself extra time to pay off the remaining $2 million he owes tenants, thanks to hundreds of vacancies across his rental portfolio. Croman agreed in 2017 to pay tenants $8 million to settle allegations that he harassed them out of their rent-regulated apartments. The deadline for paying the final $2 million installment of the settlement was Dec. 31, 2020. In a Dec. 11 email, Croman’s attorneys said he couldn’t make

Newmark’s acquisition of Knotel is approved

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 07:05 AM PDT

A bankruptcy court has approved the sale of flex-office provider Knotel to brokerage Newmark. Newmark officials said they expected the deal to close quickly, Commercial Observer reported. The brokerage provided $20 million in debtor-in-possession financing after Knotel filed for bankruptcy in January, and its stalking-horse bid of $70 million brought it closer to acquiring the coworking company. “Flexible workspace has been one of the fastest-growing areas of commercial real estate, and we expect this adaptive

TRD Tips: Bradley Tusk gives a crash course on SPACs

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 06:30 AM PDT

With big-name real estate investors racing to found special-purpose acquisition companies, you may find yourself wondering: What exactly is a SPAC? The Real Deal sat down with venture capitalist Bradley Tusk, founder of the eponymous Tusk Ventures and former strategist for Michael Bloomberg, to find out what, exactly, a SPAC is, and when — and how — investors should get involved. Often intended as a fast-track to funding, SPACs enable startups to generate interest and

Two cannabis REITs form joint venture

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 06:10 AM PDT

As cannabis-focused real estate blossoms, two real estate firms focused on the sector will now be rolled into one. The REITs, NewLake Capital Partners Inc. and GreenAcreage Real Estate Corp., will merge to form a joint venture with $325 million in assets and 24 properties across nine states, Bloomberg News reported. “This deal creates a leading player in cannabis real estate to provide capital for real estate build-out,” David Weinstein, CEO of GreenAcreage, who will

Why affordable housing sits empty

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 05:30 AM PDT

I thought landlords were bluffing when they said the new rent law would force them to leave some apartments vacant. I was wrong. Yes, there have been articles and TV news segments about units sitting empty after the law capped rent increases that landlords once imposed to pay for renovations. It still seemed unlikely to me, however, until I ran into a guy I knew from pickup basketball and struck up a conversation. It turns

Ranking New York’s top residential brokerages of 2020

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 05:00 AM PDT

Last year, there were no winners — just brokerages that suffered less than the rest. The coronavirus pandemic crippled New York City’s residential real estate market in 2020. Agents were banned from showing homes for nearly an entire quarter, and many wealthy Manhattanites fled the city, wounding an already fragile luxury market. That only made brokerage margins thinner, driving a surge in the M&A activity that has been a hallmark of the sector in recent

The art of the (discounted) deal

Posted: 19 Mar 2021 04:00 AM PDT

One of the biggest investment-sale bargains in New York since the beginning of the pandemic happened just last month. That’s when Scott Rechler’s RXR Realty acquired a 42 percent stake in hundreds of Manhattan rental units from Gary Barnett’s Extell Development. RXR valued the two buildings at $800 million, a 20 percent discount from their pre-Covid valuation of $1 billion. But while the pandemic has emptied out New York offices and strained landlords, renters and