The Real Deal - New York Real Estate News

Biden admin eyes modern update to Community Reinvestment Act

Posted: 06 May 2022 11:00 AM PDT

Regulators are once again gearing up to overhaul bank lending to lower-income communities. The Biden administration announced a proposal to modernize the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. The proposal aims to update rules around lending to recognize how online financial services have changed banking. The current set of rules are centered on banking through brick-and-mortar locations. The overhaul would look more closely at CRA obligations in areas where banks

Related sues Meadow after foreclosure on Garment District hotel

Posted: 06 May 2022 10:15 AM PDT

Even venerable real estate firms have deals they would rather forget. For Midtown-based Meadow Partners, the purchase of the Gregory Hotel is one. The developer bought the Garment District establishment, then known as Hotel 35 Herald Square, for nearly $50 million in 2014 and invested about $10 million in renovations. In April 2021, a year after Covid shut down the city, the hotel’s lender, AllianceBernstein, initiated a foreclosure. After another year, investors Denis Xhari and

Disbarred real estate attorney Mitch Kossoff gets 4+ years in prison

Posted: 06 May 2022 10:04 AM PDT

Former real estate attorney Mitchell Kossoff was sentenced to more than four years in prison Friday for stealing nearly $15 million from his clients. The 68-year-old Kossoff was sentenced to 4.5 to 13.5 years after pleading guilty. “When clients hire counsel to represent them, they expect their attorney will follow the highest ethical standards. Yet Mitchell Kossoff violated the fundamental trust of his clients by taking millions for himself,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said

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Posted: 06 May 2022 09:30 AM PDT

Name a better deal. I’ll wait. For just $1, we’re offering a month of unlimited access to The Real Deal’s subscriber-exclusive content, plus the 2022 edition of our annual Data Book — a must-have compendium of essential facts, figures and rankings across each of TRD’s markets. Sign up for a digital subscription today to lock in this unmissable deal — but first, let’s do some price indexing to see what else you can get for

Developer sentenced to 3 years for blowing investors’ money on himself

Posted: 06 May 2022 09:00 AM PDT

A Connecticut developer was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to swindling investors. Samuel Klein of Greenwich defrauded investors out of $1.5 million, prosecutors said. The 66-year-old will also have three years of supervised release after serving his time and has to pay restitution. Klein collected tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments from friends and associates for real estate deals, the Hartford Courant reported, but spent the money on

Colliers acquiring majority stake in Rockwood

Posted: 06 May 2022 08:15 AM PDT

Colliers International is poised to expand its in-house offerings after picking up a majority stake in a major real estate investment firm. The brokerage announced this week it is acquiring a 65 percent stake in Rockwood Capital. The financial terms of the investment were not disclosed. Rockwood’s leadership will retain the other 35 percent of the company in the deal Colliers called a “perpetual partnership.” The firm projects it will draw annual management fee revenue

Opendoor stock soars on first profitable quarter

Posted: 06 May 2022 07:30 AM PDT

After eight years, Opendoor has logged its first profitable quarter. The San Francisco-based iBuyer’s shares soared more than 15 percent in early trading Friday after it reported record revenue of $5.2 billion for the first quarter, a nearly seven-fold increase from a year ago. First-quarter profit came to $28 million, or $0.04 per share, up from a net loss of $270 million, or $0.48 per share, last year, far outstripping Wall Street’s — and its

Veris buys “Sopranos”-themed North Jersey apartments for $130M

Posted: 06 May 2022 06:30 AM PDT

Veris Residential woke up one morning and got itself a nine-figure tribute to Tony Soprano himself. The real estate investment firm formerly known as Mack-Cali Realty bought a newly built luxury residential and retail complex in northern Bergen County for $130 million in March, Veris revealed in its first-quarter earnings report Wednesday. The off-market transaction, which Veris said completes a 1031 exchange, is expected to close this quarter. Located at 87 Madison Avenue in Park

Hotel bill is union’s latest effort to boost market share

Posted: 06 May 2022 05:00 AM PDT

Hotel workers are supporting a measure that could reduce the number of hotels in the city. That sounds contrary to their interests, but the opposite is true, because the bill targets nonunionized hotels. The New York Hotel and Gaming Trades Council a measure that calls for every certificate of occupancy issued for a class B hotel to allow for residential use as well. However, it won’t cost any of the union’s members their jobs: The

Shocking twist in Crown Heights “deed theft” case

Posted: 06 May 2022 05:00 AM PDT

An eviction drama that shook Crown Heights has taken an unexpected turn. An attorney for Ida Robinson, a 98-year-old who alleges a real estate operative stole her row house and evicted her, withdrew a motion alleging fraud. Adam Birnbaum, who joined Robinson’s cause on a referral from Attorney General Letitia James, dropped the claim less than two months after filing it. The case had drawn widespread attention after tenant activists moved the Robinsons back into

How to steal a building in broad daylight

Posted: 06 May 2022 04:30 AM PDT

“I’m going to let you be rough with me and push me over. I know you like to play rough. You can knock me out of the way, and you’re going to make a ton of money.” Kent Swig was in the room with the head honchos at Fortress Investment Group, trying to convince them to sign non-circumvent agreements — an unheard-of practice for the distressed-debt investing wizards. But Swig thought he had something that

Ron Perelman’s former Lenox Hill offices hit market for $160M

Posted: 06 May 2022 04:00 AM PDT

A whisper listing in Lenox Hill could make a lot of noise if it finds a buyer willing to meet its astronomical asking price. A pair of buildings on East 62nd Street where billionaire investor Ron Perelman once kept his offices have been placed on the market, according to a person familiar with the listing, who said the owners are hoping they’ll command a price “in excess of $160 million.” The adjacent properties between Park