Peter Hauspurg, chairman and CEO of Eastern Consolidated and Daun Paris, president of Eastern Consolidated
From the June issue: Home may be where the heart is, but what if it’s also in the workplace? This month The Real Deal takes a look at couples who work in the real estate industry.
While such pairings aren’t the norm in the business, there are high-profile examples like “Jvanka” — that is, husband-and-wife Jared Kushner, principal of Kushner Companies, and Ivanka Trump, a vice president at the Trump Organization.
Trump has reportedly said that having a shared background in real estate has been a boon to her relationship with Kushner, as she’s keenly interested in his descriptions of work machinations that others might find dull — a sentiment echoed by everyone TRD spoke to with a partner in the industry.
Aside from having a common passion, what makes couples like Trump and Kushner tick?
Here’s what five of them had to say. [more]

From left: 25 Columbus Circle, 2 Horatio Street and 19 East 76th Street

A man once nicknamed the “Psychic Hotline King” has put his Time Warner penthouse back on the market, with a $3.5 million markup. The  25 Columbus Circle penthouse belonging to Steven Feder, onetime head of the now-defunct pay-per-call service Psychic Readers Network (made famous by Jamaican-accented fortune teller “Miss Cleo”), hit the market today for $38.5 million. The unit, 75CE, was last listed a year ago for $34.95 million, according to Streeteasy.com. Also, a newly renovated and custom-decorated West Village penthouse duplex with three terraces is listed at $14.9 million. Unit PHCD at prewar co-op 2 Horatio Street has over 2,000 square feet of outdoor space, said Melanie Lazenby, the Prudential Douglas Elliman Senior Vice President who has the listing. In addition, Long Island-based real estate developer and property manager Peter Mesologites, also known as Peter Mesos, is listing a 76th Street Beaux Arts townhouse for $18 million. Click here to see more of this week’s most buzz-worthy listings.

[more]

Bernard Madoff and his former penthouse apartment at 133 East 64th Street

The $8.9 million home formerly owned by Bernard Madoff is chump change
for toy executive Al Kahn, compared to the home he has just listed.
The children’s entertainment juggernaut responsible for toys like the
Cabbage Patch Kids and Pokemon has put his 4,350-square-foot condo in
the Time Warner Center at 25 Columbus Circle on the market for $33.6
million, following his purchase of the infamous 4,000-square-foot
Madoff duplex at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 64th Street, which went into contract earlier this month. Time
Warner Center mainstays Elizabeth Lee Sample and Brenda Powers of
Brown Harris Stevens have the listing. [more]

From the November issue: In Manhattan, buyers’ brokers are a secretive bunch. When there’s a
high-profile sale, the listing agent’s name is splashed across the
headlines: Brown Harris Stevens’ Richard Wallgren, for example, closed
the sale of a $37 million penthouse at 15 Central Park West in
September; Paula Del Nunzio made news for her record-setting $53
million sale of the Harkness mansion in 2006. Less well-known are the
brokers who represented the buyers. The identities of buyers’ brokers
are a jealously guarded secret, never listed in public records and
often never revealed. That’s the way many brokers — who pride
themselves on their discretion — like it, especially in a market where
lavish spending is viewed with disfavor. Ironically, brokers who
represent buyers are taking on a greater significance than ever, even
as they’re being asked to keep increasingly quiet about their role.
Well-qualified buyers are now scarce, and bringing them to the table is
crucial to the transaction. Recognizing this, high-end brokers are
spending more of their time representing buyers.