Pam Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group, author Michael Gross and Wendy Sarasohn, senior vice president at Corcoran and hostess of the party (credit: Richard Lewin)

Yesterday evening a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group, Wendy Sarasohn, hosted an intimate yet lavish book party at her Park Avenue apartment for author Michael Gross. His new book, “Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles,” chronicles the lives of those buying in the Platinum Triangle — Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Holmby Hills — through their real estate.  [more]

Barbara Fox, president and founder of Fox Residential Group, threw open the doors to her East 79th Street co-op last night (or, rather, the elevator that opened onto the apartment), welcoming 200 colleagues, friends and industry players to celebrate the holiday season. With barely room to move between a book-lined den (which housed the bar) and the living room (where a three-piece band played Christmas carols), some guests took refuge on a balcony that wrapped nearly all the way around Fox’s penthouse. Others sampled h’ors d’oeuvres like pigs in a blanket. Noted revelers included Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, and Michele Kleier, president of Gumley Haft Kleier and a star of “Selling New York.” -- Leigh Kamping-Carder

From the September issue: In the last few weeks, as many of the city’s big banks have been besieged by bad news, and the stock market has seesawed sharply in a short span of time, the question on many analysts’ minds is: Could a new round of pain on Wall Street trickle down to New York’s already vulnerable commercial and residential real estate markets?

Indeed, the thinking goes, the financial services industry and its numerous offices keep commercial occupancy rates high in Manhattan, while its well-paid executives buoy the high-end residential market. Meanwhile, its lower-rung workers drive demand for rental units, sources say. Wall Street has served as an economic engine of the city for decades,
ever since major manufacturing and energy companies — like Mobil, Exxon
and chemical company Union Carbide — abandoned their New York
corporate headquarters in the 1970s and 1980s for other (cheaper)
addresses. [more]
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As part of Fashion Week, the Trump Soho Hotel Condominium hosted an
exclusive Fashion Week trunk show in a penthouse unit featuring LUCA LUCA’s spring 2012
collection honoring the top women in real estate. “Trump Soho is
downtown’s most fashionable address and we thought this was great way
to treat these fabulous real estate women to both a day of shopping
and an inside view of the fantastic penthouses,” said John Gomes,
executive vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, which is co-exclusively marketing the units with Prodigy Network for hotel-condo sales at the
property. – Miranda Neubauer [more]

From left: Barbara Fox, Marzia Kennedy and Marcia Donen Roma

Fox Residential Group is expanding its international division, Fox International Services, to meet the demands of foreign buyers of Manhattan residences, the firm announced today. The firm had always had an international division, but with the market downturn, it “went dormant” for the last 18 months, according to Barbara Fox, the firm’s president.

Fox said that during the last three month’s she’s noticed a spike in interest in Manhattan properties from international buyers in Europe, Asia and South America, and wants to service that market. She’s tapped directors Marzia Kennedy, a native Italian who is also fluent in Spanish, and experienced international broker Marcia Donen Roma to head the operation out of its New York offices. TRD [more]

From left: Barbara Fox, David Schlamm

Real estate brokers are becoming increasingly cautious with their listing descriptions to comply with federal, state and city fair housing laws, the New York Times reported. There is no official Department of Housing and Urban Development list of acceptable and unacceptable terms, and at one time that encouraged so much caution that the agency actually sent a list of phrases that were acceptable, including “bachelor apartment.” But as social sensitivities heighten, some brokers, including David Schlamm, president of City Connections, are wary of the phrases “bachelor pad,” “fisherman’s retreat” and “traditional neighborhood.” Barbara Fox of Fox Residential Group even refers to “family” — as in, a house is “perfect for families” — as the “f” word. [more]

Has the penthouse begun to lose its cachet? It used to be that penthouse literally meant the apartment on the top floor of the building, and according to New York City building code, it is “an enclosed structure on or above the roof of any part of a building, which is designed or used for human occupancy.” But according to the New York Times, that definition has been stretched in recent years by developers seeking to make the most out of their new construction. [more]

Barbara Fox

Fox Residential has a new Virtual Office Website, or “VOW,” the company announced today. The VOW gives visitors access to all listings in the city, rather than just the company’s exclusives. “This one-stop shopping eliminates the need to visit multiple websites to find the kind of properties you are looking for,” said company founder Barbara Fox in the announcement. Fox is just the latest of the firms launching VOWs. Century 21 NY Metro, Prudential Douglas Elliman and A.C. Lawrence established VOWs this year, and at the end of 2009, Halstead Property became the first major city firm to institute one. TRD

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Earlier this week, The Real Deal
checked out Penthouse A at the Lucida, the new LEED-certified
condominium by Extell Development at 151 East 85th Street. Gumley Haft
Kleier head honcho Michele Kleier, who has the exclusive listing on the
$8.95 million duplex, was hosting a party for brokers there that
evening while filming for HGTV’s second season of realty reality show “Selling New York”
(see photos from the event above). Kleier and her daughters, Sabrina
Kleier Morgenstern and Samantha Kleier Forbes, along with brokers from
Core (who were not in attendance at the party), star in the show, which
Morgenstern said is tentatively [more]

With the warm weather here to stay, The Real Deal celebrated last week with a Spring Fling at the Upper West Side’s Empire Hotel, across from Lincoln Center. At least 200 of New York real estate’s power players — from Kushner Companies heir-apparent Jared Kushner and songwriter-turned-developer Henry Justin, to superbrokers Dolly Lenz and Barbara Fox — mingled and posed for pictures on the rooftop bar. A total of 28 principals of real estate firms were in attendance. Prudential Douglas Elliman retail queen Faith Hope Consolo, developer Morris Moinian, Brown Harris Stevens’ Wendy Maitland and Halstead Property’s Jill Sloane showed up. Warburg Realty President Frederick Peters, commercial broker Robert Knakal of Massey Knakal Realty Services, and Jonathan Greenspan, president of OLR, also made appearances. Bank of America sponsored the event. Click here for a slide show. TRD

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