From left: Donald Trump, president of the Trump Organization, Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, and Lois Weiss, real estate columnist for the New York Post

Compiled by Lauren Elkies

In the wake of Sandy Weill’s reported $88 million sale of his 15 Central Park West penthouse, The Real Deal wanted to touch base and see if real estate executives had any last minute predictions for the New Year since speaking with the magazine for the December residential market report.

Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, said to expect 2012 to be a bit of a repeat of 2011, while developer Donald Trump said “really good real estate will have excess value.” Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, predicts a “continuing strong demand for new condominium offerings all over town,” while Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, said “the euro will continue to be in trouble causing a flight to safety to the U.S. and particularly New York City, so New York City properties will trade at even lower cap rates.” Meanwhile, Citi Habitats President Gary Malin and Halstead Property Development Marketing President Stephen Kliegerman recently told amNY that 2012 would bring more development and fewer amenities to New York City’s real estate market. [more]

Andrew Heiberger has recruited 265 agents
and staff since launching Town a year ago.From the December issue: When Andrew Heiberger launched the residential brokerage Town, he prophesied that it would become the city’s biggest firm, vowing to hire the industry’s “best and the brightest.”

A year later, at least part of that prediction is on its way to coming true. With five offices and some 265 agents and staff, Town is undoubtedly the fastest-growing brokerage in Manhattan. By way of comparison, Rutenberg Realty — until now the city’s most rapidly expanding firm — didn’t top 200 agents until three years after its 2006 launch. (Rutenberg, in contrast to Town, has a low-overhead business model with just one small office.)

It’s still too soon to tell, however, whether Town’s agents will become the city’s best. At press time, Town said it had 152 exclusive listings worth approximately $405 million, with an average asking price of $2.67 million for sales and $7,500 per month for rentals.

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From left: Wendy Maitland, a managing director at Town, 45 Horatio Street (credit: PropertyShark) and Eric McCarthy, another Town managing director

Less than a year into its existence Town Residential is opening its fifth office this weekend in the West Village, the brokerage told The Real Deal. The firm signed a lease for a 16-foot wide, three-story townhouse at 45 Horatio Street between Hudson and Greenwich streets. It will be managed by Wendy Maitland, who also serves as the managing director of Town’s Flatiron office at 110 Fifth Avenue, and Eric McCarthy, who previously served as a downtown managing director at Citi Habitats. Maitland will have a presence in both offices.

The opening comes just as Town’s Flatiron office and its Financial District office, at the corner of Greenwich and Rector streets, have reached capacity at 110 and 32 agents, respectively. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

From left: Costas Kondylis signing a “Building Stories” book at the PBS screening, Kondylis and Norma Foerderer of the Trump Organization and Kondylis with The Real Deal Publisher and “Building Stories” Producer Amir Korangy

PBS picked up The Real Deal’s documentary on prolific architect Costas Kondylis for its 2012 documentary series, and last week celebrated with The Real Deal by holding a private screening at 1 Bryant Park Tower in Midtown.

Like the movie premiere in May, the PBS screening attracted many notable real estate bigwigs, including Halstead Property President Diane Ramirez, Peebles Chairman Don Peebles and many other friends and colleagues of Costas Kondylis (see more photos after the jump). — Adam Fusfeld [more]

Andrew Heiberger, the founder and former chief executive of Citi Habitats, said Town Residential, his new brokerage, is off to a “remarkable start,” with 40 employees and 140 licensed representatives. He sat down with the New York Times to give an update on the company, of which he serves as chairman and chief executive.

The brokerage now has four offices, Heiberger said, including two that just opened in the last few weeks. The first location was 110 Fifth Avenue; the second 88 Greenwich; the third was 730 Fifth Avenue, and the fourth, 26 Astor Place. “My headquarters will be 730 Fifth,” he said. [more]

Jeff Doder, formerly senior managing director at the Corcoran Group, is joining the relatively newly formed Town Residential, the Manhattan-based firm announced today. Doder, who will assume the position of managing director of sales, has been in real estate for over 20 years and managed Corcoran’s Park Slope office, which doubled in size during his six years at the company, Town said in a statement.

Is this a sign that Town might be opening a Brooklyn office? A spokesperson said the company has no plans for Brooklyn this year. Instead, Doder said: “I will be focusing on Manhattan, but will use my knowledge of the Brooklyn market to assist our clients and representatives.” [more]

From left: Architect Costas Kondylis and Princess Katherine Karadjordjevic, developer Donald Trump, the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman, Town’s Andrew Heiberger and wife Robyn, and marketing guru Louise Sunshine (credit: Clint Spaulding of patrickmcmullan.com). Click the image to see more photos.

Developer Donald Trump, who spent weeks courting the fringes of American politics in a possible presidential bid, stuck to real estate last night in brief remarks at the premier of a documentary produced by The Real Deal about the prolific and aging New York architect Costas Kondylis. (See more photos after the jump.)

Trump, who traveled the United States questioning President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, praised Kondylis — born in Africa to Greek parents — as a “great design architect.”

Kondylis was the architect on many of Trump’s buildings such as the Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza and an imposing row of residential towers that were critically panned called Riverside South, which face the Hudson River. [more]

From left: Andrew Heiberger, 730 Fifth Avenue and Paula Busch (building credit: PropertyShark)

Town Residential is opening a new, 10,000-square-foot office in the Crown building at 730 Fifth Avenue near 57th Street, to house its uptown sales and executive offices. The firm will bring 70 new agents and its executives into the office in time for a June 1 opening, the company said. This marks Town’s third office since Andrew Heiberger, formerly the founder of Citi Habitats, launched the firm last year, joining the flagship office at 110 Fifth Avenue and the Town Financial District offices at the corner of Greenwich and Rector streets. Paula Busch, who The Real Deal reported joined Town Residential this month after leaving her senior executive post with the Corcoran Group, will serve as the office’s managing director of sales, the firm announced. TRD [more]

Paula Busch, a veteran senior-level manager in the Corcoran Group’s flagship 660 Madison Avenue office, has left the firm for Town Residential, the latest in a string of recruits to Andrew Heiberger’s new brokerage. According to Town, Busch will take over as managing director of sales. Busch, who had overseen 350 agents in her role at Corcoran, said in a statement that she is “thrilled to be joining a company as innovative and entrepreneurial as Town,” while Heiberger praised her as a “pillar of the industry.” TRD [more]

From left: Robert Dvorin, Dottie Herman, Andrew Heiberger and Phillip Acha

A Prudential Douglas Elliman veteran and his team have left the firm in the wake of several high-profile departures over the last few months. Robert Dvorin, who was with the company for eight years and ranked among the top 25 agents at the company in 2008, 2009 and 2010, left to join Town, a relatively new residential brokerage and brainchild of Citi Habitats founder Andrew Heiberger.

Dvorin’s five-person sales team, including his wife, Young Lee, made the move with him. The broker was previously the director of sales at SoLofts and is currently marketing a 33,000-square-foot apartment building at 55 Warren Street in Tribeca for $29.9 million, which he took with him from Elliman.
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