The downtown Manhattan rental firm has closed all of its offices, changed its business model and scaled back its brokerage activities

Kevin Ellerton and 48 Wall Street (building photo source: PropertyShark)

Real estate firm Blackstone Properties — once a major if controversial player in the downtown Manhattan rental market — has now closed all of its offices, changed its business model and scaled back its brokerage activities. Founded in 2008 by 20-somethings Kevin Ellerton and David Yomtobian, Blackstone Properties quickly grabbed a large marketshare in the Lower Manhattan rental market. At its peak, the firm had some 80 agents in five offices, and Ellerton estimated in The Real Deal that about half of all brokered rental deals in the Financial District and Battery Park City were done by Blackstone agents. [more]

From the January issue: They’re giving it away. Hundreds of buildings these days tout one, two
and sometimes three months of free rent on new leases. But most of the
time, the “base rent” stays the same, even as rental agents talk about
“net effective” rents — the apartment’s cost once the free rent is
amortized over the life of the lease. It’s sort of like a no-money-down
offer. Brokers say that despite their popularity, net effective rents are
something of a gamble for landlords: Lower the initial sticker prices,
fill apartments and pray that the market rebounds and tenants stay
after their lease expires.
But there are signs that lenders may be allowing landlords to lower
the base rent instead of relying on concessions, thus recognizing that
market-rate rent levels have lowered.