From left: 4 MetroTech Center and Peter Riguardi, president at Jones Lang LaSalle

Deutsche Bank, the Frankfurt-based investment and financial services institution, will take 50,000 square feet of space at 4 MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn, the New York Observer reported.

The bank will house its operations and other less-than-vital staff at the building, owned by JPMorgan Chase, which was chosen for its proximity to Deutsche’s Financial District office, at 60 Wall Street.

Deutsche’s offices in Manhattan are at 120 West 45th Street, 1251 Sixth Avenue, 345 Park Avenue, 622 Broadway and 885 Third Avenue, the Observer said.
[more]

Ordinary victims of the mortgage crisis say that the big banks which
received large financial bailouts under the Bush and Obama
administrations are not doing enough to help them, even as the companies are recording
significant profits, the New York Times reported, with government
officials divided on taking a harder line. Mimi Pierre Johnson, a
real estate agent, and her husband, a construction worker, had bought a
four-bedroom home in Elmont, on Long Island, for $413,000 in 2005. But
when the recession took hold, her husband lost his construction job,
her real estate business dropped off and they began having trouble making their
mortgage payments. Her bank, JPMorgan Chase, gave her a temporary loan modification, but then canceled it. “I’m a
realtor; I know I’m doomed,” Johnson said. “But I want to say to
Chase, ‘Hello!? The government gave you a bailout to help people like
me.’” [more]

A fresh dispute is heating up for control of 103-year old landmark property the Apthorp, the Wall Street Journal reported. Developer Africa Israel USA and the building’s other owners are threatening to exercise a right in their loan agreement to block a sale of the $260 million mortgage on the property by Anglo Irish Bank to Lone Star Funds.
Private equity firms Lone Star, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase triumphed in a battle for Anglo Irish’s $9.5 billion portfolio of U.S. commercial real estate loans last month. Lone Star took pools of non-performing and sub-performing loans worth around $5 billion, including the Apthorp mortgage.

The ownership is preparing to take legal action, the Journal said, but the matter may still be worked out. [more]

From left: Anglo Irish buildings the Apthorp in New York and the
Mandarin Oriental in Boston

Private equity firms Lone Star Funds, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase have triumphed in the battle for Anglo Irish Bank’s $9.5 billion portfolio of U.S. commercial real estate loans, sources told the Wall Street Journal. Lone Star took pools of non-performing and sub-performing loans worth around $5 billion, while Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are to purchase pools of performing loans, worth $3 billion to $3.5 billion and $1 billion to $1.5 billion respectively.
Anglo Irish reportedly raised an amount within its broker’s early price guidance of $7 billion to $8 billion, the Journal said.

The sales are expected to close in October. The offering includes loans backed buildings from Manhattan — including the Apthorp at 390 West End Avenue — to Beverly Hills, Calif. Wells Fargo also won an auction for Bank of Ireland’s $1.4 billion U.S. commercial real estate loan portfolio, earlier this month. [WSJ]

JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are two of the banks among the final candidates that bid for parts of $9.65 billion in
U.S. property loans owned by Anglo Irish Bank, Bloomberg News
reported. The lenders are interested in acquiring pieces of the $4.52
billion of performing loans. Investor groups led by private-equity
firms Blackstone Group, together with Deutsche Bank, and Lone
Star Funds also submitted offers for parts of the portfolio, which
includes $5.13 billion of subperforming and non-performing debt,
according to Bloomberg News. Anglo Irish aims to sell off its loans after it was seized by the Irish government in January 2009 during a surge in souring debt. [more]

As more banks put holds on their foreclosure proceedings, some experts warn that a protracted freeze on foreclosures could be detrimental to the overall economy, according to the Hill. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Financial are among the institutions that have announced suspensions in home seizures over the last two weeks, in response to growing concern over how these foreclosures are carried out. Anthony Sanders, a real estate professor with George Mason University, said that he’s concerned over how the foreclosure stall could impact the economy. “The moratoriums, both state-mandated and self-inflicted, can be incredibly destructive to the fragile recovery or the housing and housing finance markets,” Sanders said. “Consumers looking to get back into housing are even more fearful than before. This can lead to further house price declines.” [Hill]

[more]

Short story writer Caitlin Macy and her husband, JPMorgan Chase trader Jeremy Barnum, have purchased a $3.5 million duplex on the 10th and 11th floors of 1 Lexington Avenue, the landmarked co-op on the corner of Gramercy Park North. The couple lived in a duplex seven floors below it until 2006, when they sold it for $2 million and moved to an Upper East Side condo off of Fifth Avenue. Their new digs at 1 Lexington come with a 24-foot wide master bedroom, an 80-foot terrace and floor-to-ceiling French doors, and the package was so appealing that the Barnums signed a contract in four days, listing agent Gale Rundquist, of Prudential Douglas Elliman, told the Observer. Originally listed for $5.3 million in late 2007, interest in the apartment didn’t pick up until October 2009, at which point the family beat out several other prospective buyers for the spot, Rundquist said. Uma Thurman lives in a duplex on the eight and ninth floors, directly below the Barnums’ new one. Restaurateur Danny Meyer also owns an apartment in the buildling. [NYO]

After the mortgage payment on the $53 million loan on the 12-story
office building 625 Broadway in Soho was late, the securitized note was
transferred to a special servicer, according to data from commercial
mortgage research firm Trepp. The loan on the 84,000-square-foot office building was transferred to
a special servicer March 18,
Trepp information says. The building is owned by members of the Moskowitz family, who are
principals of the Flatiron District-based property management company
Argo Corporation, and held in the name 625 Broadway Owners, according
to city records and published reports. [more]

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is looking to develop
Tower 5 at the World Trade Center as a luxury hotel and residential
building, the New York Post reported. The Port Authority had earlier
planned to sell the site to JP Morgan Chase, but sources told the Post
that a luxury hotel and residential project seem like a better bet for
the space than commercial use in this market. The Port Authority also
proposed a residential project on the Tower 5 site in 2006, before the
commercial market boomed. [more]