Richard LeFrak, president and chairman of the LeFrak Organization, and William Rudin, president of Rudin Management

Heads of two of the city’s leading real estate families said although the short-term commercial property landscape remains difficult, opportunities are fast approaching. Richard LeFrak, chairman and CEO of the LeFrak Organization, told an audience during a Real Estate Board of New York luncheon in Midtown this afternoon that signing a new lease with a tenant was similar to a famously difficult medical procedure. “It is like having a colonoscopy,” he said. “That is exactly what it is like.” He was joined on a panel by William Rudin, president of Rudin Management, and Jeffrey DeBoer, president of the national trade association, the Real Estate Roundtable, in a discussion moderated by Steven Liesman, senior economics reporter for CNBC. Rudin confirmed that striking lease deals was hard work, but there was more activity in the market. [more]