Though historically averse to social media and online marketing, the commercial real estate sector is increasingly giving these tools a shot, CoStar News reported.

“Clearly social media is still a divisive issue in commercial real estate — the difference in sentiment between enthusiastic adopters and major detractors parallels the sentiments in other industries driven by client relations, such as non-profits and law firms,” said Angela Brown, external communications manager for CoStar Group. [more]

Well-leased commercial buildings in major markets may not be as profitable as
many commercial real estate investors believe they are, the Wall Street Journal
reported. According to an analysis by Costar Group, many leases in top
markets such as New York City, San Francisco and other areas are set
to expire next year. And because of the weak economy, tenants might be
demanding significantly lower rents than they otherwise would. In
Manhattan, Costar found that despite recent gains,
current office rents are still nearly 28 percent below their peak prices in
2008. The Real Deal recently found that office leasing in Manhattan was tightening [more]

Carlton’s Howard Michaels

Howard Michaels‘ Carlton Group has reached the number one spot among New York City office investment sales brokerages for the first time thanks to demand for recapitalizations, the New York Post reported.

Carlton ranked number six nationally for the first half of the year based on $1.1 billion in total volume of debt and equity financings. Eastdil Secured came in at number one with over $4 billion.

Carlton’s New York figures are due to three local recaps valued at $1.1 billion — at 1 Park Avenue, 1180 Sixth Avenue and 450 West 33rd Street, according to the Post.

“Typically, recaps haven’t been recognized as investment sales, but they’re the exact same art,” Michaels said. With $850 billion in commercial mortgages due to mature by the end of the year, according to CoStar Group, Michaels anticipates even more demand for recaps, “due to the widening out of spreads in the CMBS market, which is lowering loan levels, and the sluggish economy.” [more]

Top row, from left: Mitchell Konsker, Paul Glickman, Mitti Liebersohn and Alex Chudnoff. Bottom row, from left: 99 Park Avenue, 1290 Sixth Avenue, 681 Fifth Avenue and 1411 Broadway

Following the exit by five major leasing brokers from Cushman & Wakefield to Jones Lang LaSalle last month, there has been a behind-the-scenes battle over who is the landlord leasing representative for millions of square feet of Manhattan office space that had been handled by Cushman.

In that contest, JLL has picked up at least three buildings owned by Midtown-based Eastgate Realty with more than 1.7 million square feet.

The buildings are the 550,000-square-foot 99 Park Avenue, the 530,000-square-foot 120 Park Avenue and 665,000-square-foot 875 Third Avenue, data from CoStar Group shows. [more]

From left: Garret Thelander and Paul Massey

Massey Knakal Realty Services has tapped Anglo Irish Bank executive Garrett Thelander, who helped open the New York office of the troubled lender and grow its staff to 35, to lead its new mortgage division, it was expected to be announced today.

Thelander, 55, is once again charged with starting a new office, this time as a managing director for Massey Knakal, to hire brokers and develop the new arm, Paul Massey, company CEO, told The Real Deal.

The hiring of the bank executive comes two weeks after Massey Knakal launched a retail brokerage division, bringing in long-time retail agent Benjamin Fox for that job. At the same time, the firm has had significant defections, including a top producer for the firm, Shimon Shkury, who left with his team to open the new firm Ariel Property Advisors. [more]

From the September issue: While real estate research firm CoStar is perhaps best known for its large-scale commercial market analysis, the company’s latest database upgrade focuses on a different investor: the little guy. Norm Miller, vice president of analytics with CoStar, said that while nationwide investment-grade property buyers often attract more attention in the media, “average investors” — buyers who nab strip malls and small apartment buildings rather than skyscrapers — are a worthy set to follow.
“Seventy percent of the owners out there were being ignored, because they weren’t being represented by [these] institutional high-class property [reports],” Miller said.
So far, Miller said that CoStar’s tracking of that group, which began last month, has yielded some intriguing results.
For example, the set of smaller investors is showing relatively low rates of default and foreclosure on their properties.

[more]

New York City now has the lowest level of overall distressed CMBS loans in the nation after surpassing Seattle for the first-place spot, according to a new report from CoStar Group, which examined data from Investcap Advisors and QuantumRisk. As of the end of July, both New York and Seattle had a probability of default ratios of less than 2 percent. New York was also among the least stressed office markets in the nation, with a ratio also below 2 percent for that segment of the real estate market. Meanwhile, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Orlando, Atlanta and Detroit got no such good news. As the top five markets with the highest overall probabilities of default — their ratios came in between 11 and 15 percent — the cities are also facing potential loss severities on CMBS loans of between 10 and 14 percent. TRD

[more]

Real estate data company CoStar is expanding its New York City office presence, according to Crain’s, more than doubling its space with a 12,000-square-foot office at 1177 Sixth Avenue between 45th and 46th streets. Although the company had been on the hunt for raw space it could build out, CoStar eventually settled on the space, which sits among the building’s upper-level floors. Although the rent is unclear, asking rents for similar space in that building range from $75 to $85 per square foot. CoStar will be leaving its current New York City office at 420 Lexington Avenue, where it had leased 5,000 square feet. [Crain's]

[more]

The National Football League is nearing a deal to relocate its
Manhattan headquarters in a cost-cutting move that would shrink its
office space by about 15 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The NFL is currently located in 205,000 square feet at 280 Park Avenue,
which is owned by Broadway Partners, but the lease expires in 2012 and
it is now planning to sign on for 175,000 square feet at the Rudin
family-owned 345 Park Avenue, two blocks north. The organization will
hardly be the first big tenant to downsize and take advantage of
bargain prices amid the commercial real estate slump. Office rents on
Park Avenue between 47th and 65th streets are down to $65.97 per square
foot from their $102.62 per square foot peak, according to CoStar, and
while leasing activity has picked up, that’s mostly because of tenants
like the NFL consolidating while it’s still inexpensive to do so. The
NFL, which has been cutting costs across the board since late 2008, has
around 75 fewer staffers in its New York office since the downturn
began and has tapped Ted Moudis Associates to design the new office
space. [WSJ]

[more]

John Cushman

The international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy headquartered at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza in the Financial District [more]