The city’s largest residential brokerage firm, Prudential Douglas Elliman, could drop “Prudential” from its name and leave the global network if it can’t hammer out a new franchise agreement to replace one that expires in about a year, Dottie Herman CEO of the residential firm, told The Real Deal.

Top executives at Prudential Douglas Elliman are scheduled to meet this month with a division of the Canadian conglomerate Brookfield Asset Management to discuss the future of its license agreement for the name Prudential, Herman CEO said.  [more]

From the November issue: Three autumns ago, the collapse of Lehman Brothers knocked the wind out of New York’s real estate industry. Home sales flattened. Prices plunged. And, as layoffs mounted, office buildings emptied out. While there have been some spurts of activity, the industry has not gotten back to the highs of the boom. In fact, as the unemployment rate still hovers at an uncomfortably high level, and Wall Street (a once-reliable real estate engine) reports losses, it seems that a complete recovery might be years away.

All the same, there are signs of comebacks — whether they are from developers who once defaulted on mega-loans and seemed like pariahs, or stock prices that have bounced back from the doldrums at some public real estate companies. There are also geographic stretches of the city that had been pocked with empty retail spaces and empty condo buildings, but are now filling up with stores and residents. There are even some bankers who had been caught up in the subprime mess who are now back on the lending scene in a big way. [more]

More than 250 real estate professionals joined Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Howard Lorber, Elliman’s chairman, at a celebration of the start of the fall sales season at the Trump Soho Hotel Condominium at 246 Spring Street (see photos above).

The guests enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at Bar d’Eau, the seventh floor seasonal indoor-outdoor bar located alongside the luxury hotel-condo’s 6,000-square-foot outdoor pool deck, and toured the only duplex penthouse, one of 11 at the property, according to a press release from Elliman. – Miranda Neubauer [more]

From the South Florida website: Howard Lorber, CEO of South Florida-based Vector Group and chairman of New York brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman, has been ranked South Florida’s highest paid CEO, with a yearly salary of $6 million plus bonuses, according to research carried out by the South Florida Business Journal.

Vector Group is famous in the tobacco industry for producing the Ligget brand of cigarettes, but is also involved in real estate through its New Valley subsidiary. New Valley has a 50 percent ownership interest in Douglas Elliman Realty, which operates the largest residential real estate brokerage company in the New York metropolitan area. New Valley also has real estate holdings in California, according to Vector’s website. [more]

From left: Steve Witkoff, Howard Lorber and 1107 Broadway

Lehman Brothers has reached a deal to sell the in-default debt on 1107 Broadway to the Witkoff Group and Howard Lorber’s Vector Group for about $190 million, the New York Post reported.
The deal, determined at auction yesterday, comes just days after Lehman sold its majority ownership stake in 200 Fifth Avenue, located between 23rd and 24th streets, to JPMorgan Chase. The two buildings, connected by a footbridge, make up what used to be the International Toy Center.
“We think it is one of the great opportunities we’ve seen,” Steve Witkoff, CEO of the Witkoff Group, told the Wall Street Journal.

Witkoff, who has 90 days to finalize the deal at 1107 Broadway, between 24th and 25th streets, said he plans to turn the building into high-end condominiums. [more]

Susan De Franca

Prudential Douglas Elliman has lured a top marketing executive at Related to lead an expanded development team, the company announced yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, luxury apartment sales executive Susan de Franca will take over as president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Developments in September, finally filling the position previously occupied by Andrew Gerringer, who departed in April 2010 to join the Marketing Directors.
De Franca was hired by Related as it was in discussions for the residential towers at the Time Warner Center a decade ago. Since then, she’s forged marketing campaigns for more that $3 billion in luxury developments in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, including the Superior Ink project in the West Village, where De Franca nabbed a free pad last year. [more]

Dottie Herman, the president and CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman (credit: Marilynn K. Yee / The New York Times), and Howard Lorber, the company’s chairmanFrom the June issue: Prudential Douglas Elliman has the most agents of any real estate brokerage in the city. Its offerings account for nearly one-quarter of Manhattan’s listed apartments, and it turns 100 this year.

But in recent months, the firm’s top-banana status may have slipped somewhat.

In the last year, Elliman has seen its Manhattan listings decline from 2,010 to 1,320 as of May 2011 — a drop of 34 percent, the largest dip among Manhattan’s major firms. Perhaps more important, the total value of those listings fell sharply, from $3.8 billion to $2.6 billion, according to The Real Deal’s analysis of data from On-Line Residential.

A busier residential sales market may bear some of the responsibility for that slide. Because The Real Deal’s data does not include properties that have recently sold, a drop in the value of a firm’s listings could mean that fewer homes are lingering on the market.

However, even if that’s the case, competitor companies seem to be replacing their sold listings at a quicker clip than Elliman is. [more]

Setai Fifth Avenue developer Bizzi & Partners hosted more than 200 brokers at the building’s two 60th floor penthouse units last night to formally introduce Prudential Douglas Elliman as its exclusive sales and marketing broker (see photos above). The building had been previously marketed in-house. Giuseppe Rossi, executive vice president at Bizzi & Partners, welcomed the crowd and Elliman Chairman Howard Lorber introduced his team, led by Karen Mansour, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Douglas Elliman Developments. The tower, located at 400 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 36th Street, includes a 214-room luxury hotel and 184 condominium units, and Elliman officials said the property is unlike any in the New York market and they expect it to drive tremendous demand from the brokerage community. TRD

Though the Mexican empanadas, tequila and piñatas were typical of Manhattan Cinco de Mayo celebrations yesterday, the location certainly was not: a new condominium between 81st and 82nd streets along Park Avenue (see photos above). That contributed to the large crowd at 949 Park Avenue last night — 145 brokers, by the count of Fredrick Eklund, one of three Prudential Douglas Elliman agents exclusively marketing the building — packed into one of the glassy development’s six units, all duplexes.

The crowd was dodging “Million Dollar Listing” camera crews filming an episode for the show, premiering in the fall, as well as the staircase, and a jam-packed elevator corridor where visitors were angling to get to the roof. [more]

Harry Macklowe has struck a deal to buy 737 Park Avenue for between $250 million and $255 million, sources tell Crain’s, and plans to convert the 108 rental units into condominiums. Macklowe’s interest in the property was widely reported, but details of the sale price and his intentions for the property are new. It’s the second building in the area that Macklowe has purchased in the hopes of doing a condo conversion, as last month Macklowe purchased a property at 150 East 72nd Street near Lexington Avenue for $70 million. Macklowe also bought 953-961 First Avenue with Prudential Douglas Elliman chairman Howard Lorber earlier this year. In purchasing 737 Park, 30 percent of which is comprised of rent stabilized units, Macklowe joined an undisclosed equity partner, according to Crain’s. [more]