Two photos on left are of 250 East 68th Street, other two property shots are 124 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene, and Spike Lee

A former firehouse at 124 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene housed Spike Lee’s production company for years — until a dispute with the landlord got in the way. Now that Lee’s Forty Acres & a Mule Filmworks has relocated around the corner, fans of the famous filmmaker can purchase the DeKalb Avenue building for a cool $3.9 million. Also, Neil Binder, co-founder of Manhattan real estate brokerage Bellmarc, has placed his newly constructed five-story glass and stucco townhouse on the market for $9.5 million. The 17-foot-wide house, located at 250 East 68th Street between Second and Third avenues, is listed with Lisa Strobing, an executive vice president at Bellmarc. Click here for more.

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From left: REBNY President Steven Spinola, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Warburg President Frederick Peters, Elaine Mayers of Citi Habitats and Stacey Max of Bellmarc Realty

Tuesday’s approval of an amendment to a proposed Federal Housing Finance Agency ruling dealing with flip taxes could keep lenders from abandoning the New York City residential market in the future, according to industry experts.

The amendment pared down an earlier FHFA provision, announced in fall 2010, which would have barred government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from lending in all multi-family buildings in which a flip tax is written into the contract. In its original form, the proposal could have adversely affected roughly 50 percent of the New York City residential stock, according to Real Estate Board of New York President Steven Spinola.

The amendment was passed as part of a larger proposal that is still winding its way through the approval process. [more]

From left: images from inside the home at 180 East 93rd Street and a rendering of the building

A never-been-lived-in apartment at new condominium 180 East 93rd Street is for rent at $23,000, after being purchased by Parisian investors. The third-floor apartment had been on the market for $4.85 million, and closed just before the New Year for an undisclosed price, according to listing broker Ginger Brokaw of the Corcoran Group. The owners are French investors who purchase high-end properties in New York City, then rent them, said Brokaw, who represented the buyers in the transaction. They look for unique properties with stand-out features, she said: homes that are “really interesting — nothing normal.” Meanwhile, a uniquely designed penthouse at Greenwich Village co-op 552 LaGuardia Place just hit the market for $8.75 million. According to the listing, with Brown Harris Stevens’ Paula Del Nunzio, the apartment has four levels, five bedroom and four baths. Click here for more.

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30 Lincoln Plaza and Howard Milstein

A group of tenants at Milstein family condominium conversion 30 Lincoln Plaza has filed a lawsuit against the sponsor and the attorney general, claiming a “fire sale” of units in the building resulted in an “egregious miscarriage of justice” against tenants. Facing a December 2008 deadline for the offering plan to be declared effective, Milstein slashed prices for non-tenants, selling units for 40 to 60 percent less than the prices tenants had paid, according to the suit, filed Dec. 21 in New York State Supreme Court. The suit, which reveals the “vastly reduced prices” of units in the building (see accompanying chart after the jump), offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by developers after the financial crisis of 2008. The suit claims that the condo offering plan “unlawfully discriminated” against tenants and failed to adequately disclose certain material risk factors, and that declaring the plan effective was “erroneous” and “an abuse of the attorney general’s discretion.” In the suit, tenants asked that the attorney general rescind the approval of the amendment that declared the plan effective. The suit was filed by tenants Vera Salnikova and Scott Petepiece, and an unspecified number of members of the 30 Lincoln Plaza Ad Hoc Tenants Committee. [more]

Mortgages remain elusive for house hunters in New York and as a result,
many buyers are working with more than one lender. Developers are also
lining up additional lenders to help buyers obtain financing. The developments come in response to the tough credit environment.
Banks have tightened the availability of home loans to buyers and at
the same time, many are reluctant to write mortgages for some new
buildings where only a small percentage of apartments have been sold. As attorneys for buyers are putting mortgage contingency clauses in
contracts, attorneys for sellers are directing buyers to apply for
financing at more than one bank or go to a mortgage broker, said Daniel
Berman, an executive vice president with Bellmarc Realty, who has seen
the scenario play out in a few recent deals.
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