A mosaic wall at Bellmarc’s Chelsea office
From the May issue: The Bellmarc Group is replacing its longtime Upper West Side location at 81st Street and Columbus Avenue with two larger outposts, one in the 70s and one in Morningside Heights, The Real Deal has learned. [more]
From the April issue: So long, mortgage contingency. With lack of inventory creating conditions reminiscent of the real estate boom, many buyers are waiving the clause in a purchase contract that protects their down payment if they can’t get a mortgage.
But with banks skittish about home loans, that decision is much riskier than it was in the mid-2000s, brokers said. [more]
From left: Vanessa Gad, Rolan Sereny and Neil Binder
Residential real estate brokerages often boast about the breadth and quantity of their offices, as well as the number of agents who work full-time on-site. But recently, several firms have gone the virtual route, forgoing physical offices in an effort to shave down operating costs and retain agents with higher commissions in an increasingly competitive environment, brokerage owners told The Real Deal. [more]
A mosaic wall at Bellmarc’s new Chelsea office
From the December issue (UPDATED): In need of more space after acquiring A.C. Lawrence, the Bellmarc Group will open a new office at 48 West 22nd Street in Chelsea this month, firm head Neil Binder told The Real Deal. Bellmarc Group, the parent company of Bellmarc Realty, absorbed fellow brokerage A.C. Lawrence in October. The merged company now has a total of 400 agents in its five offices. Especially crowded is Bellmarc Realty’s office at 936 Broadway, which now has 150 agents crammed into it, Binder said. Roughly 45 agents will move from there to the new, 2,500-square-foot storefront space. [more]
From left: Jerry Weinstein, Larry Friedman
Manhattan Apartments — the rental brokerage that has been on a long, public slog through financial troubles and litigation in the years since the recession began — has ceased operations, The Real Deal has learned. The firm’s remaining agents have the option to join rental rival AC Lawrence, a division of the Bellmarc Group, which will take Manhattan Apartments’ 11,000-square-foot space at 729 Seventh Avenue in the Times Square area. [more]
Neil Binder
Bellmarc Companies, the parent company of Bellmarc Realty, one of Manhattan’s largest residential brokerages, has absorbed residential and commercial real estate brokerage A.C. Lawrence Real Estate, The Real Deal has learned. The consolidated company, which will be known as the Bellmarc Group, will have about 400 agents, a spokesperson for the new firm said.
Bellmarc owner Neil Binder said he had been looking for opportunities to sell some of his former partner Marc Broxmeyer’s interest in the firm since Broxmeyer’s retirement a few years ago. “I tried to sell his interests but was not satisfied with the options, so I decided to find a company that would complement us,” and then acquire it, with some interest in Bellmarc given “as consideration,” Binder said. [more]
Neil Binder, center, and his just-sold UES townhouse
Bellmarc Realty President Neil Binder has sold his 16-foot-wide glass townhouse on the Upper East Side for $6.5 million, according to public records filed yesterday with the city. The residence is located at 250 East 68th Street.
The real estate executive, who bought the house for $3.7 million in 2005, first listed the home for sale in February 2011 for $9.5 million. The asking price later dropped to $6.5 million. The property was listed by Lisa Strobing of Bellmarc. [more]
From left: Neil Binder and 1178 Lexington Avenue (credit: PropertyShark)
Bellmarc Realty plans to close its second-floor Madison Avenue location in favor of a new storefront on Lexington Avenue scheduled to open at the end of May, firm co-founder Neil Binder told The Real Deal. The 3,000-square-foot office, under construction at 1178 Lexington Avenue on the corner of 81st Street, will have space for 60 agents, who will move from the shuttering location at 1051 Madison Avenue, Binder said. [more]
The planned purchase of a large stake in Bellmarc Realty by William Raveis Real Estate, which would have been one of the larger real-estate acquisitions in recent memory, is dead.
Neil Binder, Bellmarc’s president, confirmed today to The Real Deal that during negotiations in recent weeks the two sides could not bridge their differences about how a brokerage should be run.
“As we continued to progress on trying to create a framework for marriage, it appeared to both sides that we had different business models,” Binder said, without elaborating about whether the disagreement was over price or how the combined company might function on a day-to-day basis…. [more]
Bellmarc Realty is close to being acquired by Connecticut-based William Raveis Real Estate, sources tell Crain’s. As The Real Deal previously reported in a profile of the firm in the April issue, William Raveis has sought to enter the Manhattan market ever since expanding to Westchester in July 2009. The Real Deal ranked William Raveis the 10th largest firm in Westchester on the strength of its 80 agents and 98 residential listings averaging more than $1 million in value…. [more]
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