Office buildings in Manhattan
The financial services industry, the motor behind much of New York City’s economy, has been quietly exiting space, which bodes extremely poorly for the city’s real estate market, the Wall Street Journal said.
The city could lose approximately 10,000 securities jobs by the end of the year, according to statistics from the New York state comptroller cited by the Journal. One in eight jobs in the city relies on securities firms, the comptroller’s data indicate. [more]
AG Eric Schneiderman
[Updated at 1.30 p.m.] Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has filed a lawsuit against some of the nation’s largest banks charging that the use of a national Mortgage Electronic Registry System called MERS has led to deceptive and fraudulent foreclosure filings in New York state and federal courts, his office announced today.
The lawsuit alleges that, as a result of the system, employees and agents of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have submitted court documents containing false or misleading information that made it appear that the foreclosing party had the authority to bring a case when it didn’t. The system has also made it impossible for the general public to reach property transfers through public records, as the information is now stored on a private database. [more]
Bank of America and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae mortgage bonds were the big winners from a Federal Reserve housing study that circulated through Congress this week, Bloomberg News reported, while mortgage bonds backed by high-cost debt lost in a massive market-shakeup. [more]
The latest disastrous turn in Bank of America’s acquisition of Countrywide Financial has the nation’s second largest lender paying a record $335 million penalty for Countrywide charging more to lenders of certain races and origins.
The settlement is more than 10 times the total amount the U.S. Department of Justice has collected for all previous fair-lending settlements, according to Bloomberg News. Individual borrowers could collect more than $1,000 from the settlement, depending on the form of the loan. [more]
Insurance giant Manulife Financial, the Toronto-based parent of John Hancock Financial, said today that it bought 10 Exchange Place, a 30-story trophy office tower in Jersey City, for $285 million, marking the company’s first major acquisition in the New York City market.
Manulife, the largest insurance firm in Canada, outbid a number of rival firms for the 748,000-square-foot building, located on the Hudson River waterfront and home to tenants including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Ace Insurance.
Atlanta-based Invesco sold the property after placing the building up for sale through a bidding process that started earlier this year, however Manulife’s managed to top all rival offers in the first round, eventually settling on a price of $381 a square foot. [more]
Lehman Brothers Holdings matched Equity Residential’s $1.33 billion bid for a 26.5 percent stake in Archstone, and then sued partners Bank of America and Barclays for breaching Lehman’s right of first refusal for the stake in a sale, Bloomberg News reported.
Archstone is a real estate investment trust with stakes in 60,000 U.S. apartment units and 14,000 units in Germany, that Lehman purchased in October 2007 with Tishman Speyer for $22 billion. Lehmar eventually filed for the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and refinanced the portfolio and brought in equity partners Barclays and BofA, which combined for a 53 percent stake. [more]
Sam Zell’s Equity Residential has emerged as the leading bidder in a race to buy 53 percent of rival Archstone, offering more than $2.5 billion in cash for the stake, currently held by Bank of America and Barclays, the Wall Street Journal reported. The rest of the company, a real estate investment trust, is owned by the bankruptcy estate of Lehman Brothers Holdings.
The proposed sale to Equity Residential would value Archstone at about $16 billion, the Journal said. If sold as a whole company, Archstone currently could be worth as much as $18 billion.
Real estate giants the Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities have all submitted bids for Archstone in recent months, it was previously reported. [more]
The price lenders must pay to move past the federal investigation into their foreclosure practices went up by $5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. And it could rise higher.
The ongoing negotiations between government officials and banks, which appeared close to being finalized in September at a cost of $20 billion to the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers, have centered on a new number: $25 billion. The final cost could eventually reach $29 billion.
The lenders in question are Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo [more]
Brookfield Office Properties CEO Ric Clark and 4 World Financial CenterBrookfield Office Properties has struck a deal with Bank of America to take its 49 percent stake in 4 World Financial Center and will own the entire property, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of America simultaneously renewed its lease for 750,000 square feet in the tower.
The largest landlord in the neighborhood, Brookfield has committed to Lower Manhattan with this deal and its recent promise to spend $250 million to upgrade the retail at the World Financial Center. However, with layoffs looming at financial firms and millions of vacant square feet being delivered in the World Trade Center, Brookfield has reason to be concerned. [more]
Bank of America should face fraud claims because its Countrywide unit submitted faulty data in claims for reimbursement of federally insured mortgages, according to an audit by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Bloomberg News reported.
“Countrywide did not properly verify, analyze, or support borrowers’ employment and income, source of funds to close, liabilities and credit information,” a HUD regional inspector general wrote in the audit. “This noncompliance occurred because Countrywide’s underwriters did not exercise due diligence in underwriting the loans.” HUD runs the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages on loans to borrowers who can’t find traditional financing, such as those with low income. Comments
