The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Mayor taps Republican ex-Council member as buildings chief

Posted: 03 May 2022 03:04 PM PDT

Four months into Eric Adams’ mayoralty, he finally named a buildings chief. Adams on Tuesday appointed Eric Ulrich commissioner of the Department of Buildings. Ulrich, who for 12 years was one of the few Republican members of the City Council, has been a senior adviser to the mayor since January. Ulrich takes over for Constadino (Gus) Sirakis, who became acting commissioner in March. He had succeeded de Blasio-appointee Melanie La Rocca, who took on a

Rising interest rates weighing on Vornado’s earnings, Steve Roth says

Posted: 03 May 2022 02:55 PM PDT

New York City’s office market is improving every month, but what it will look like a year from now is anyone’s guess, Vornado Realty Trust’s management said Tuesday. Vornado’s shares rose roughly 2 percent after the company reported first-quarter earnings and revenue that beat Wall Street consensus expectations. Funds from operations per share, a key REIT earnings metric, increased more than 20 percent year over year to $0.79 on an as-adjusted basis, beating the consensus

The Agency acquires Triplemint for NYC debut

Posted: 03 May 2022 01:30 PM PDT

The Agency has acquired New York City-based Triplemint in an all-equity transaction. Under the deal, the Los Angeles-based firm will adopt Triplemint’s proprietary technology, while Triplemint will adopt the Agency’s brand. Going forward, the companies will jointly operate as The Agency. Triplemint co-founders David Walker and Philip Lang will serve as the chief strategic officer and chief business officer at the Agency, respectively. Triplemint’s staff of over 75 software engineers, data scientists, marketers and strategists,

Editor’s note: A ringside seat to the bloodsport of real estate

Posted: 03 May 2022 01:00 PM PDT

Billionaires and autocrats monopolize everything these days. Whether it’s Elon Musk’s deal to purchase Twitter, Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine or Bezos or Zuckerberg or Trump or Xi, it’s the age of the strongman. Real estate looks downright democratic by comparison. It’s hard for one single person to dominate a skyline. The best a billionaire developer can do is compete against another billionaire developer to put up the tallest building or the biggest project. Billionaires

Alfieri family disintegrates in fight over real estate fortune

Posted: 03 May 2022 12:15 PM PDT

The HBO hit “Succession” might ring a bit too true for New Jersey’s Alfieri family. The clan’s patriarch and his children are feuding over a real estate fortune worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the New York Post reported. The battle, now coming into public view through court filings, pits family members against each other along gender lines. Jennifer Alfieri, 50, is accusing her father, Dominick, and brother, Michael, of gutting her trust fund, which

Compass acquires California title and escrow provider

Posted: 03 May 2022 11:30 AM PDT

Compass is growing in the Golden State. This time the brokerage announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Consumer’s Title Company of California, a title and escrow provider licensed in all of California’s 58 counties. Consumer’s Title has three offices across the state: Westlake Village and Santa Clarita in Southern California, and Gold River, near Sacramento, in Northern California. Founded in 2007, the company has a team of over 40 escrow, title

Home decor retailer leases 135K sf for first Bronx store

Posted: 03 May 2022 10:30 AM PDT

A Texas-based home decor retailer is hoping to feel at home in the Bronx. At Home has signed a lease for 135,000 square feet at Prestige Properties and Development’s Bay Plaza Shopping Center, Welco Realty announced. The home decor store will fill a space vacated by Kmart, which has closed nearly all of its stores since filing for bankruptcy in 2018. The deal is technically a sublease with Transform KM, one of the entities that

Eviction filings pick up as housing courts get busy

Posted: 03 May 2022 09:15 AM PDT

Weeks after New York’s eviction moratorium expired, legal services were overwhelmed by an influx of cases. In the months since, the situation has only grown more burdensome. Landlords have filed about 2,000 eviction cases on a weekly basis since the beginning of March, the New York Times reported. The volume of filings represents about a 40 percent jump from mid-January, when the moratorium expired. People are beginning to be evicted. The process is slow, as

Macy’s embracing smaller stores in department store shuffle

Posted: 03 May 2022 08:30 AM PDT

Macy’s is using fewer square feet to embark on a big change to its retail strategy. The department store chain plans to accelerate the rollout of a slew of smaller locations, the Wall Street Journal reported. The outlets carry fewer products than the brand’s traditional stores and can quickly update inventory to mix trendy items with household staples. Macy’s is shooting to add another 10 off-mall stores this year, which will include Market by Macy’s,

Rockpoint investing $2B in industrial assets

Posted: 03 May 2022 07:30 AM PDT

The industrial real estate market’s hot streak still has investors seeing green. Rockpoint Group announced a venture with the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority that will target roughly $2 billion in gross asset value through industrial investment opportunities. The Boston-based firm said it is teaming with the sovereign wealth fund to focus on “build-to-core industrial investments.” The platform has already closed on its first investment, a 117,000-square-foot project in Silicon Valley’s South San Jose submarket. Rockpoint

Home equity financing startup Point raises $115M Series C

Posted: 03 May 2022 06:45 AM PDT

Point, a fintech startup that pays homeowners cash in exchange for a share of the equity in their homes, raised $115 million in Series C funding, it said Tuesday. The Palo Alto-based company did not disclose a valuation figure with the funding round, which was led by WestCap and follows a $22 million Series B in 2019. With the new raise, the startup’s total equity funding comes to about $145 million, according to Crunchbase. The

Can Hamptons, North Fork markets get any tighter? Yup

Posted: 03 May 2022 05:00 AM PDT

On the North Fork of Long Island, where middle-class New Yorkers could once afford second homes, rising prices and low listing inventory have become about as predictable as the tides. And the story in the higher-priced Hamptons market has been much the same. Hamptons inventory was down 42 percent year-over-year in the first quarter and 16 percent from the previous quarter, according to a Douglas Elliman report by Miller Samuel. There was only a 5.1-month

TRD’s May issue is live for subscribers!

Posted: 03 May 2022 04:30 AM PDT

The Real Deal’s May 2022 issue is live for subscribers and slated to hit your doorstep early this month. Andy Warhol said that in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Well, the future’s here. And according to Google Analytics, it’s more like 15 seconds. Social media has been whittling away at our attention spans — and self esteem — for years. But one platform has managed to make dopamine-addicted microcelebrities out of

Humdinger: Baruch Singer lands $92M for Midwood spec office

Posted: 03 May 2022 04:00 AM PDT

Negative press magnet Baruch Singer might have something to croon about. The landlord with a history of discord at residential properties in Manhattan has secured financing to complete an ambitious project in the frigid outer orbit of the city’s office market: Midwood, Brooklyn. A company controlled by Singer got a $92 million loan from Parkview Financial to finish a 10-story, 215,000-square-foot building at 1508 Coney Island Avenue, the lender disclosed. The long commercial corridor is

HSBC grabs 265K sf at Tishman Speyer’s Spiral

Posted: 02 May 2022 04:06 PM PDT

Tishman Speyer has reeled in another high-profile tenant to its brand-new Hudson Yards tower. HSBC has signed a lease for 265,000 square feet at the Spiral, making the soon-to-open skyscraper the new U.S. headquarters for the London-based bank. HSBC will occupy three of the building’s 65 floors. The financial terms of the 20-year agreement were not disclosed. JLL represented HSBC in the deal. Tishman Speyer was represented by an in-house leasing team. HSBC is expected

Owners reject offer for parking lot by LIRR, so town moves to seize it

Posted: 02 May 2022 03:16 PM PDT

The Town of Oyster Bay is trying to seize a 65-spot parking lot near Hicksville’s Long Island Rail Road station. Attorneys for the town launched legal action to seize the property at 47 West Barclay Street using eminent domain, Newsday reported. The attorneys asked the state Supreme Court to condemn the property so it can remain available for commuter parking. The town board had unanimously voted in favor of condemnation in November. The parking lot

Vornado selling Queens office property for $173M

Posted: 02 May 2022 01:21 PM PDT

Vornado Realty Trust has struck a $173 million deal to sell its Center Building office property in Long Island City, where the office market has held up favorably compared to Manhattan’s. The Steve Roth-led REIT is in contract to sell the roughly 550,000 square-foot building at 33-00 Northern Boulevard to a partnership led by 60 Guilders, sources told The Real Deal. The property is near fully leased to government agencies including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Castle-like Connecticut mansion hits market at $39M

Posted: 02 May 2022 01:00 PM PDT

It’s not quite a castle, but a sprawling mansion on the market in Connecticut may still be fit for a royal family. Sitting on eight acres in Greenwich, the 18,000-square-foot mansion at 555 Lake Avenue recently hit the market for $39 million, or over $2,000 per square foot, the New York Post reported. Despite its historic look, the property was built this century, in 2001. Cherry trees line the driveway leading to the eight-bedroom Georgian-style

Brooklyn retail rents on the rise

Posted: 02 May 2022 12:00 PM PDT

Retail space got costlier in most Brooklyn commercial corridors in the past 12 months. Of 17 major retail corridors in the borough, 10 had average asking rent per square foot grow from last winter to the one that just ended, according to a report by the Real Estate Board of New York. Still, the average rent is below its pre-pandemic peak in 16 of the 17 corridors — in some cases, well below: On Fulton

Charney, Tavros pick up stalled LIC development site

Posted: 02 May 2022 11:00 AM PDT

A pair of buyers are in contract to pick up the development site of a planned hotel in Long Island City, potentially changing the course of the project. Charney Companies and Tavros Capital are in contract to buy the development site at 24-09 Jackson Avenue in Queens from Toyoko Inn, PincusCo reported. The cost won’t be known until the sale closes, but the site was being offered at about $60 million. Toyoko Inn assembled the

Brooklyn Heights townhouse asking $11M leads Brooklyn’s priciest contracts

Posted: 02 May 2022 10:47 AM PDT

A condo at 30 Front Street in Dumbo was once again among the most expensive listings to find a buyer in Brooklyn last week, but it was edged out for the top spot by a Brooklyn Heights townhouse. The four-story, five-bedroom townhouse at 19 Cranberry Street went into contract asking $11 million, according to Compass’ weekly report on signed contracts for homes asking $2 million or more. Situated on the corner of Cranberry and Willow

Limestone townhouse asking $30M finds buyer after four years

Posted: 02 May 2022 10:07 AM PDT

April was a strong month for Manhattan’s luxury real estate market, posting 164 signed contracts for homes asking $4 million or more. The listed prices totaled $1.3 billion. The market maintained its pace as the month ended, according to a report by Olshan Realty covering contracts signed from April 25 to May 1. The priciest home to go into contract was a townhouse at 10 East 76th Street asking $30 million. The home was listed

Tiffany & Co. trims HQ office lease

Posted: 02 May 2022 09:25 AM PDT

Tiffany and Co. has signed on to stay at its Flatiron District global headquarters, but the jeweler is trying on a smaller size with L&L Holding Company. The company agreed to a 10-year extension for its office at 200 Fifth Avenue, the New York Post reported. The deal extends the lease until 2036, but came with a sizable cut to Tiffany’s footprint at the building. Tiffany has been occupying roughly 400,000 square feet at the

TF Cornerstone nabs North Williamsburg rental for $71M

Posted: 02 May 2022 08:00 AM PDT

UPDATED May 3, 2022, 11 a.m.: TF Cornerstone is continuing to corner its piece of Williamsburg, purchasing a rental complex for $71 million. The firm purchased The Berkley at 223 North 8th Street last week, the Commercial Observer reported. A partnership of Trinity Place Holdings and Pacolet Milliken Enterprises was the seller of the 95-unit building in North Williamsburg, where 20 percent of the units are set aside for affordable housing. A JLL Capital Markets

Top exec’s exit latest blow to Waldorf Astoria’s lagging condo conversion

Posted: 02 May 2022 07:00 AM PDT

The Waldorf Astoria has provided memorable moments in the past, but its path towards a condo conversion is shaping up to be a chapter it would like to forget. The latest blow to the struggling project came when Dajia US CEO Andrew Miller, the top U.S. executive overseeing the project, abruptly left the company last week, the Wall Street Journal reported. Miller was reportedly at odds with executives at the Chinese parent company over cost

Prologis buys Nassau site for $51M, plans project

Posted: 02 May 2022 05:45 AM PDT

One of the biggest players in industrial real estate has nabbed a substantial development site in Nassau County. Prologis is buying a 17-acre site in Bethpage from aerospace firm Northrop Grumman for $51.2 million, the Long Island Business News reported. The sale price works out to about $3 million per acre. The Denver-based logistics company reportedly has plans to develop the site into a 239,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution complex. The property has a pair of

Psychic salesman sees $40M in Time Warner Center pad’s future

Posted: 02 May 2022 05:00 AM PDT

Once dubbed the “Psychic Hotline King,” Steven Feder is trying again to sell his hotline bling. Feder’s 4,500-square-foot Time Warner Center penthouse with five bedrooms and six-and-a-half bathrooms is back on the market at $40 million, according to a Streeteasy listing. Nobody knows what price the unit will fetch, least of all its owner, although his Psychic Readers Network amassed a fortune with over-the-phone tarot readings by “Miss Cleo” in the late 1990s. His asking

Crashing the party: New SPAC rules could slash proptech deals

Posted: 02 May 2022 04:30 AM PDT

Taking a proptech firm public will never again be so easy — if regulators have their way. Many feel it would be good if they did. Shares in proptech firms that went public over the last two years in a series of mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, have continued a long downward slide into 2022, reflecting just how frothy that market became in the heady days of the pandemic, when stimulus money was

Apollo, Witkoff eye $420M construction loan for downtown Brooklyn site

Posted: 02 May 2022 04:00 AM PDT

Apollo Global Management and Witkoff are looking to score a $420 million construction loan for a high-rise project in Downtown Brooklyn, sources confirmed to The Real Deal. The developers will use the loan to build a 51-story, 592-unit apartment tower at 565-589 Fulton Street. Green Street first reported the news. Apollo and Witkoff have tapped Walker & Dunlop to help secure the financing. The project was originally a joint development by RedSky Capital and JZ

Mayfair home of London Underground founder listed for $20M

Posted: 01 May 2022 12:00 PM PDT

A historic Mayfair home that once belonged to the founder of the London Underground hit the market for $20.8 million. Built between 1896 and 1898, the seven-story South Street building belonged to Lord Ashfield, the first chairman of London Transport, the Daily Mail reported. It has two balconies that offer views across the nearby Mount Street Gardens, which predates the house by almost a decade. The 6,477-square-foot house, less than a mile east of Hyde

You want this: Janet Jackson selling Central Park West condo for $9M

Posted: 01 May 2022 10:26 AM PDT

Sure, it’s a great apartment … but what has it done for her lately? The Wall Street Journal is reporting that pop superstar Janet Jackson has listed a Central Park West apartment she’s owned for 25 years but hasn’t been in since before the pandemic started. And it looks like she probably won’t miss it much. “I always treasured my home’s wonderful location and the breathtaking views that capture the magic and excitement of New

Private island on Montana’s Flathead Lake asks $72M

Posted: 01 May 2022 09:00 AM PDT

A private island on landlocked Montana’s Flathead Lake hit the market with an asking price of $72 million. The 350-acre Cromwell Island in western Montana has a 45,000-square-foot unfinished villa, the Wall Street Journal reported. Anne Brockinton Lee bought the island in 1989 with her late husband, Hunting World founder Robert Lee. The couple found the island during a fishing trip and bought it from the three separate owners as well as a home on

Luxury living’s next essential amenity: Pickleball courts

Posted: 01 May 2022 08:44 AM PDT

It’s a game whose brine has come. Mansion Global is reporting that the hot new amenity at high-end retirement communities, housing developments and resorts is indoor and outdoor courts to play Pickleball — a nearly 60-year-old combination of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong that the nearly 4.8 people who play every day find dill-icious. “Buyers are definitely asking about pickleball,” Wendy Pines, the sales director for the Casamar Residences, which has homes starting at $1.5 million,

Red Sox owner John Henry buys Nantucket estate

Posted: 01 May 2022 07:46 AM PDT

Boston Red Sox owner John Henry has a new waterfront estate on Nantucket. Henry closed on the first of two properties of the estate last Friday, according to Boston.com, which credited the Nantucket Current with the initial report. Property records show Henry paid $25 million and is expected to close soon on an adjacent property. A listing sheet obtained by Boston.com shows the two were marketed together for $42.5 million. The two properties combine for

De Blasio’s post-mayoral home has been a 4-star Brooklyn hotel

Posted: 01 May 2022 07:07 AM PDT

Former Mayor Bill de Blaso’s newest home is inside a chic Brooklyn hotel. The New York Post is reporting that de Blasio and his wife Chirlain McCray have been living for the last four months inside the New York Marriott Hotel at Brooklyn Bridge, the swank Downtown Brooklyn inn owned by the Queens-based real estate giant Muss Development, whose owners have been supporters of de Blasio for years. The former first couple is living at

Celebrity side-hustle: Flipping houses makes millions for stars

Posted: 30 Apr 2022 11:56 AM PDT

When they’re not making music or movies, they’re having flippin’ fun. Forbes is reporting a bevy of celebrities are using their access to cash and popularity to make a killing on their side hustle of buying, fixing up, then selling homes. Long time flipper Annetta Powell, who literally wrote the book on flipping homes titled “Finding, Fixing and Flipping Properties” told the publication that more and more of Hollywood’s royalty are making big profits on

Virginia listing sabotaged by squatter living in basement

Posted: 30 Apr 2022 09:00 AM PDT

Nobody likes unexpected house guests, especially ones who refuse to leave. One Fairfax, Virginia, homeowner is learning that the hard way, WUSA9 reports. After Thomas Burke listed his 3,500-square-foot home in mid-April asking $805,000, he was forced to take the property off the market because buyers discovered a squatter living in the basement. “NO ACCESS to see lower level and Home sold AS IS, ONLY with acknowledgment that home will convey with a person(s) living

Tennis great Boris Becker jailed for failing to disclose valuable real estate

Posted: 30 Apr 2022 08:41 AM PDT

Former Wimbledon champion Boris Becker has been found guilty by a London court of hiding millions of dollars in assets from his creditors — including property in his home country of Germany — and has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail. According to the BBC, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, who rose to fame at the age of 17 in 1985 when he became the youngest person to ever win the men’s singles

Saudi royals sell off real estate, yachts as state slashes perks

Posted: 30 Apr 2022 06:00 AM PDT

Saudi royals, feeling the squeeze from the crown prince, are selling off their assets to raise cash. Princes have sold more than $600 million worth of real estate, yachts, jewels and other assets to pay their bills, the Wall Street Journal reported. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began reeling in privileges and access to government funds in the Al Saud family in 2015, when his father took the throne. Prince Muhammad has gradually cut them