From left: 200 West Street and 30 Hudson Street

Goldman Sachs is reconfiguring its real estate footprint and, according to the New York Post, that could have a major impact on its 42-story Jersey City property that remains the tallest in the state. The firm plans to move some of its real estate, technology and administrative staff to its new headquarters at 200 West Street in Battery Park City from the 1.5 million-square-foot office it developed in 2004 at 30 Hudson Street in Jersey City. [more]

Having punished the five largest mortgage servicers for their foreclosure practices to the tune of a $25 billion settlement, federal regulators are now setting their sights on the next tier of financial firms whose methods are increasingly coming under fire.

According to the New York Times, the Federal Reserve has recommended fines for eight more firms: HSBC’s U.S. division, SunTrust Bank, MetLife, U.S. Bancorp, PNC Financial Services, EverBank, OneWest and Goldman Sachs. [more]

Financial research and ratings firm Standard & Poor’s has been pushed out of commercial mortgage-backed securities deals following a $15 billion sale that went south last year, Bloomberg News reported.

Last July, a massive deal between Citigroup and Goldman Sachs fell apart after S&P pulled its ratings for the securities in the deal, saying it had to review its model used in rating the assets. Now, Wall Street is pushing back, finally busting the trio of ratings agencies that have had a stranglehold on the U.S. bond market, Bloomberg said. [more]

Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and several other notable investors have turned bullish on the U.S. housing market, the Wall Street Journal reported, buying up shares of home building companies, like Pulte Group, Beazer Homes and Hovnanian Enterprises. Those stocks are up 30 percent since the end of the third quarter, according to Dow Jones, far outpacing the 10.5 percent increase recorded by the Standard & Poor’s 500.

In a recent report, Goldman said it expects home prices to decline 3 percent next year, before gaining 30 percent — not taking inflation into account — through 2022… [more]

Insurance giant Manulife Financial, the Toronto-based parent of John Hancock Financial, said today that it bought 10 Exchange Place, a 30-story trophy office tower in Jersey City, for $285 million, marking the company’s first major acquisition in the New York City market.

Manulife, the largest insurance firm in Canada, outbid a number of rival firms for the 748,000-square-foot building, located on the Hudson River waterfront and home to tenants including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Ace Insurance.

Atlanta-based Invesco sold the property after placing the building up for sale through a bidding process that started earlier this year, however Manulife’s managed to top all rival offers in the first round, eventually settling on a price of $381 a square foot. … [more]

Boston Properties has sold Two Grand Central to an affiliate of Rockwood Capital for $401 million, Real Estate Weekly reported. Rockwood assumed the $176.6 million mortgage in the transaction.

The tower, also known as 140 East 45th Street, was owned in a joint venture between U.S. Real Estate Opportunities I L.P, a fund managed by Goldman Sachs, and Boston Properties, which had a 60 percent stake in the building, which is between 44th and 45th streets. The real estate investment trust, founded by Mortimer Zuckerman in 1970, said in an earnings call it received $125.9 million for its portion of the structure…. [more]

Clockwise from top left: Andrew Singer of the Singer & Bassuk Organization, 77 Water Street and Kathleen McSharry of the Singer & Bassuk OrganizationThe 26-story office building 77 Water Street in Lower Manhattan, which is net-leased in its entirety by financial giant Goldman Sachs, was refinanced with a $45 million loan from AXA-Equitable.

The loan was arranged by the Singer & Bassuk Organization on behalf of the building’s owners, the William Kaufman Organization and Travelers Insurance, according to a statement from Singer & Bassuk. The refinancing on the 600,000-square-foot building, located between Gouverneur Lane and William Street, closed Oct. 21, according to Singer & Bassuk CEO Andrew Singer, who negotiated the deal with
senior managing director Kathleen McSharry. – Adam Pincus… [more]

Greg Agran, head of commodities trading at Goldman Sachs, has purchased a condominium unit at Tribeca’s trendiest new development, Tribeca flair V33 at 33 Vestry Street, for $6.16 million, the New York Observer reported.

Agran, who also owns a $13 million apartment six blocks north at 13 Harrison Street with his wife, purchased the four-bedroom, three-bathroom unit through an LLC by the name of Morning Dew but the deed was signed in his own name, according to the Observer.

The building on Vestry Street is one of a kind, said Wendy Maitland, a broker for Town Residential who has had the listing. “It’s a 52-foot-wide lot,” she explained. … [more]

Illustration by David ColeJuly 27 was a dark day for commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS.
On that day, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup were set to begin selling a $1.5 billion batch of CMBS, secured in part by some New York City properties.
But at the last minute, Standard & Poor’s essentially put the kibosh on the deal. The rating agency said it had discovered a “glitch” in its methodology and would need more time to vouch for the worth of the mortgages at the heart of the bonds. Without the blessing of S & P, the deal died. And with that, the CMBS market — in which pools of real estate loans are bundled together and sold to investors — hit a major snag few had anticipated when the year began.
S & P’s move — along with wild stock market fluctuations, concerns about the debt crisis in Europe and the renewed round of economic problems — helped knock the wind out of the sails of the CMBS market and confirmed the industry’s worst fears of a slowdown. Many expected the CMBS market to quadruple in value from $13 billion in 2010 to $50 billion by the end of 2011, as investors started to regain faith in the strength of the commercial real estate market. Instead, they now expect CMBS issuances to be just $30 billion this year, which calls into question reports of the market’s recovery. … [more]

The Federal Housing Finance Agency plans to sue Bank of America,
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, accusing them of
misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and
sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of
dollars in compensation, the New York Times reported. The lawsuits
follow subpoenas the FHFA issued a year ago. The timing of the suits
is related to a statute of limitations that expires next Wednesday.The
lawsuits will allege that the banks did not fulfill their duties under
securities law, and didn’t pay attention to the fact that borrowers’
incomes were infalted or falsified. … [more]