Sam Zell and an Archstone building at 800 Sixth Avenue

Had Equity Residential’s Samuel Zell known that Lehman Brothers would accept a fixed price for Archstone’s sprawling apartment building portfolio, he would have bought the whole company outright, he told participants yesterday at a real estate investment trust symposium hosted by New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate.

“The fixed price removes a lot of uncertainty from the deal,” said Zell, looking rakish in a grey blazer and jeans, amidst a suit-clad crowd at the Pierre, a swank Central Park-facing hotel at 2 East 61st Street.  [more]

The CEOs of the major New York REITs- Clockwise from top: Marc Holliday, Michael Fascitelli, Owen Thomas, David Neithercut, Dennis Friedrich, Timothy Naughton

The large New York-focused real estate investment trusts struggled in the first quarter of 2013, unlike their national counterparts, with only SL Green Realty outperforming both the MSCI US REIT Index and the Standard & Poor 500 Stock Index.  [more]

Sam Zell

Sam Zell’s Equity Residential said Monday that it would sell 27 properties to a joint venture including Goldman Sachs and Greystar Real Estate Partners, in a $1.5 billion deal, The News-Gazette of East Central Illinois reported. The two-part deal is set to close in this quarter. The deal includes roughly 8,000 apartment units, although none of the properties in the deal are in New York City. Under the agreement, the buyer has the option of excluding up to 8 percent of the value of the assets from the transaction, meaning it would only need to buy $1.38 billion of the assets. … [more]

From left: Avalon Bay CEO Timothy Naughton, the Archstone Chelsea at 800 Sixth Avenue and Equity Residential head Samuel Zell

Last week’s revelation that Sam Zell’s Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities were buying Archstone for $16 billion has helped multi-family stocks rally, Businessweek reported.

Before the sale, Lehman Brothers hand been planning to take Archstone public in a $3.45 billion initial public offering, but with the new acquisition,  apartment stocks ended their 13 percent slide since their July peak. [more]

From left: Avalon Bay CEO Timothy Naughton, the Archstone Chelsea at 800 Sixth Avenue and Equity Residential head Samuel Zell

Lehman Brothers has agreed to sell landlord Archstone’s apartment building portfolio to Samuel Zell’s Equity Residential and AvalonBay Communities for approximately $6.5 billion in cash and stock, the New York Times reported. Lehman’s $23 billion acquisition of Archstone with Tishman Speyer prior to the collapse of the housing market was one of the major contributors to the bank’s collapse. Ironically, it will now help Lehman to pay back its plethora of creditors.

Englewood, Colo.-based Archstone owns or has a stake in 181 developments with 57,948 apartment units, mostly in urban areas in the Northeast, California and southeast Florida, as of September 30. Archstone had been Leman’s single biggest remaining asset, and the financial firm was planning to take it public in a $3.45 billion initial public offering that is no longer on the table. [more]

Equity Residential Chairman Sam Zell and the Beatrice

Sam Zell’s Equity Residential is in contract to purchase the 301-unit Beatrice apartment complex on Sixth Avenue for nearly $250 million, according to Crain’s. The transaction will mark the latest in a series of big apartment deals struck in recent months for record-high prices.

The Beatrice, completed two years ago by J.D. Carlisle Development, is composed of 28 floors of rental units that sit above the 25-story Eventi Hotel at 835 Sixth Avenue near West 29th Street. The deal comes on the heels of a record quarter for Manhattan apartment trades. [more]

Sam Zell

Sam Zell’s Equity Residential received the $150 million in termination fees from Bank of America, Barclays Bank PLC and Lehman Brothers Holdings to finish the sale of Archstone to Lehman, GlobeSt.com reported. Also yesterday, Lehman confirmed its completion of the purchase of Archstone’s remaining stake, grabbing the final 26.5 percent interest for $1.5 billion. [more]

From left: 111 Kent Avenue, 75 Clinton Street and 175 Kent Avenue

Investors have been scooping up rental buildings in Brooklyn at record prices, but the trend could be reaching its inflection point, according to the New York Times. The strict lending standards are continuing to force many would-be buyers into the rental market and rents are ticking ever higher as a result. Rents in Brooklyn increased 10 percent in 2010, 7 percent last year and are expected to rise another 5 percent to 10 percent over the next 18 months, according to TerraCRG. [more]

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine and AvalonBay Morningside Park

Talks to landmark the perpetually unfinished Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights have renewed for a fourth time in more than 40 years as Equity Residential lays plans for a 15-story apartment building on the church’s campus, the Wall Street Journal reported. Once again, preservationists and activists want the building and its surrounding campus — called “the close” — landmarked before Equity begins work on its development. [more]