From left: President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman

The $26 billion settlement reached today between numerous state attorneys general and the country’s five largest mortgage servicers will afford New York State a $136 million settlement, according to a statement from New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office today. New York’s settlement is the largest per underwater borrower of any state in the nation, and the fourth highest dollar amount of any settlement nationwide, the statement said. [more]

From left: Stephen Ross, chairman of the Related Companies, Robby Browne, senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, Bruce Mosler, chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, Jeff Blau, president at Related, and Jack Cayre, a found of Core.

[Updated 12:50 p.m., on Feb. 2, with chart of New York City's top donors to 2011 presidential campaigns] Professionals from the residential brokerage firm the Corcoran Group were the most generous among employees of real estate companies in New York to give directly to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and other contenders in 2011, an analysis of election finance data by The Real Deal shows (see chart of New York City’s top donors to 2011 presidential campaigns).

A total of 18 brokers and agents from the Corcoran Group gave $30,920 in 2011 to presidential candidates, the most from any industry firm, residential or commercial. They sent $20,920 to Obama and $10,000 to Romney, the records show. The top contributor from Corcoran was Robert Browne, known as Robby, a company senior vice president who donated the $5,000 maximum to Obama. [more]

From left: Edward Mermelstein and TRD Publisher Amir KorangyIs the housing market bound to correct itself, or does it need government guidance to get back in the right direction? That’s the question at the center of the debate over President Barack Obama’s Home Affordable Refinance Plan, which gives underwater homeowners wider access to the market’s low interest rates.

“What we’ve learned over the last couple of years is regardless of the regulation that’s put out to either force the banks to lend more or to loosen the regulatory measures, it hasn’t shown to have worked,” Edward Mermelstein, a New York City real estate developer and a partner and co-founder of law firm Rheem Bell & Mermelstein, told Multi-Housing News. “Let the market correct itself … the less interference that’s provided, the quicker that’s going to happen.” [more]

Developer Donald Trump had some advice for the Occupy Wall Street protesters in an interview with Sean Hannity that appeared on Fox News last night (see video above).

“If I could speak to that group,” he said, jokingly admitting he’s probably not the person they’d want to hear from, “I’d say, ‘Folks, let’s go. Let’s hop on the train, let’s hop on the planes — we’re going down to Washington.’”

That answer was prompted in part by Hannity, who showed no restraint in expressing his dismay for the Obama administration’s policy towards the banks.

But earlier in the interview, Trump admitted banks “have not been treating people properly.” [more]

A Staten Island congressman is claiming that a tax on investment
profits within President Barack Obama’s health care plan could affect
his constituents’ real estate transactions, the Staten Island Advance
reported.

“This tax has absolutely nothing to do with improving health
care, and instead punishes the people of Staten Island who have sold
their houses in a tough market and made a profit,” said Rep. Michael
Grimm, who is sponsoring legislation change the law. [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]

Source: Prudential Douglas Elliman

The East End residential real estate market completely collapsed in the first
quarter of 2011, according to a Prudential Douglas Elliman market report released
today, but the report’s preparer said the numbers were an anomaly created by
fear surrounding the possible expiration of the so-called “Bush tax cuts” this past
December. (President Barack Obama eventually extended the cuts for two years in late December.)
Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel and the compiler of the report,
said that buyers who feared Bush tax cuts would expire in 2010
moved early on their East End purchases, thereby inflating last quarter’s sales
numbers and depressing statistics for the first three months of this year.
The combination set the first-quarter report up for drastic declines. [more]

Real estate developer Donald Trump was on Sean Hannity’s show last night talking about why he should be president of the United States. He will announce whether he’s running for the highest office before June. He said the polls have been “really amazing.” He criticized President Barack Obama as being a “horrible president,” in fact “the worst president ever.” All the talk about Trump running for office isn’t a joke or just a way to promote his show “Celebrity Apprentice,” he said. People dig him, he said, because “I think I’m known as a really good businessman.” Trump would run as a Republican but he’s a “very conservative person.” If he didn’t get the Republican nomination, Trump said he would run as an Independent if he felt certain he could win.

Just because President Barack Obama’s latest budget proposal calls for rollbacks in mortgage interest deductions solely for high-income taxpayers, should a homeowner assume that all of his or her write-offs are secure from attack? Absolutely not. In fact, those tax benefits — from capital gains exclusions to home equity and second-home interest deductions — might be more vulnerable to broad-based cutbacks during the next two years than at any time in decades.
Here’s why: An influential, bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill — led by a so-called “gang of six” in the Senate — is drafting a legislative framework that would essentially seek to implement much of the president’s deficit-reduction commission report released last December. [more]

President Barack Obama (top right) and images from his former apartment at 142 West 109th Street

President Barack Obama may call the White House his home this President’s Day, but during his Columbia University years, a two-bedroom in Morningside Heights was his abode of choice, according to the New York Daily News, which took a look inside the apartment, in honor of the holiday. The apartment, unit 3E at 142 West 109th Street, has seen extensive renovations since Obama lived there three decades ago. The $1,900-a-month apartment between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues was leased up last August. [NYDN] [more]