The Belnord and Extell’s Gary Barnett

Fitch Ratings today said it downgraded a pool of $4.53 billion in commercial real estate loans from JPMorgan Chase, led by the Belnord, a landmark Upper West Side rental building owned by Extell Development President Gary Barnett.

The Belnord loan, the biggest contributor to losses in the pool, at 7.9 percent, was harmed by the recent decision that affirmed the controversial Stuyvesant Town ruling that New York City landlords would have to refund rent overcharges in buildings that received J-51 tax benefits.
The ruling effectively means that landlords cannot raise rents on rent-stabilized apartments to market rates, and if those units were illegally converted, the tenants can get reimbursed for past overcharges. [more]

Two Trees Management has secured $229 million in construction financing for the second phase of its massive Mercedes House development on the Far West Side, according to Morrison & Foerster, the law firm that represented lenders Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase in the deal.

About 60 percent of the loan comes from proceeds of bonds issued by the New York State Housing Finance Agency which will fund about 480 units, 100 of which are reserved for low-income households. The remainder will finance 162 residential condominium units. – Adam Fusfeld [more]

The price lenders must pay to move past the federal investigation into their foreclosure practices went up by $5 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. And it could rise higher.

The ongoing negotiations between government officials and banks, which appeared close to being finalized in September at a cost of $20 billion to the nation’s five largest mortgage servicers, have centered on a new number: $25 billion. The final cost could eventually reach $29 billion.

The lenders in question are Ally Financial, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo [more]

Developer Howard Milstein, his home at 888 Park Avenue and an anonymous mask worn by the protestors

Prominent real estate figures were among those targeted by Occupy Wall Street protestors in today’s “Millionaires March.”
Protesters marched up Park Avenue and demonstrated outside the homes of real estate developer Howard Milstein and John Angelo, CEO of Angelo, Gordon & Co., along with other CEOs and wealthy executives, including News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and hedge-fund manager John Paulson. The protestors, who have been camped out in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District for the last few weeks, were joined by affordable housing groups and tenant advocacy organizations as they marched, yelling “we are the 99 percent,” and “hey there, millionaire, pay your fair share.” Some wore anonymous masks to hide their identity. Representatives from Community Voices Heard, a coalition of low-income New York City residents, were among the marchers.  [more]

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase

From the October issue: Wall Street is a place, but it’s also a state of mind. And that’s true now more than ever, as the headquarters of New York’s most powerful banks are no longer clustered on one particular Financial District thoroughfare.
Likewise, the homes belonging to the bosses of Wall Street’s biggest firms aren’t concentrated in any one place either. While there’s still some historic bias toward Uptown over Downtown, not every Wall Street titan gravitates toward the most exclusive white-glove co-ops. In addition, the success that these high-finance wizards have had with their NYC residential real estate investments is also all over the map.
What follows is The Real Deal’s rundown of who, where, and how they’ve done. First up is Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, whose address is 1185 Park Avenue. Click here for more. [more]

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From the October issue: Three years ago, with the country in the midst of a financial crisis, major global banks looked to cut costs by subletting their unneeded office space to other companies. Just weeks after Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for bankruptcy, financial institutions like MetLife, Citigroup and Bank of America dumped more than 1 million square feet of this so-called sublease space on the market. As the downturn dragged into 2009, the total amount of sublease space peaked, with Manhattan financial services firms listing at least 4.4 million square feet by the middle of the year. Today, news of Wall Street’s financial losses has pushed banks to take out the knife once again, looking for ways to cut back on expenses. And some real estate insiders expect those boardroom decisions to lead to another increase in sublease space in the Manhattan market. [more]

William Rudin and the St. Vincent’s Hospital siteThe Rudin family’s $800 million redevelopment of the St. Vincent’s Hospital site is one step closer to a reality. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudin Management obtained $525 million in construction financing and can begin construction once the government approval process, already underway, is complete.

The relative ease with which the Rudin’s cleared the financing obstacle given today’s tight lending environment was surprising, the Journal said. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and M&T Bank contributed to the loan.

But that last hurdle, government approval, could be the highest. [more]

After failing to come to any agreement last week, developer Apthorp Associated LLC, sponsor of the condominium conversion at the Apthorp, between 78th and 79th streets, is suing Anglo Irish Bank over the sale of a loan tied to the 103-year old Upper West Side landmarked building, Bloomberg News reported.

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.

Anglo Irish, which is selling a $9.7 billion portfolio of U.S. real estate loans, is required to maintain at least a 51 percent interest in the $385 million loan, Apthorp Associates LLC said in a complaint filed today in New York state court in Manhattan. [more]

Banks including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America may be forced to pay more to settle claims over their alleged part in the collapse of a $2.3 trillion mortgage backed securities market if individual claimants are allowed to team up with more sophisticated investors to form a class action suit, Bloomberg News reported.

“Class certification raises the stakes tremendously,” said Alan White, a law professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana. “The damages are going be greater in a class action than a series of individual cases.”

Mortgage bond deals involved with the class action suits originally held $204.6 billion of loans, but that figure has dropped to $89 billion as a result of defaults, borrower refinancing and home sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. [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]