From left: Lawrence Rich, Dottie Herman and Reba Miller

Lawrence Rich, a former vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman who left the firm to take a position as senior vice president at residential brokerage Core in August, has defected to Elliman after just five months, he told The Real Deal today, because he feels it’s more “like a family.”

Rich, who joined Elliman in 2004, resigned his post at Core today. He will start work at Elliman again as of tomorrow, working out of the company’s flagship office at 575 Madison Avenue, at 56th Street [more]

Lawrence Rich has left his post as a vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman to become a senior vice president at Core, effective today, Core announced.

After 25 years running a clothing manufacturing business, Rich joined Elliman in 2004. He told The Real Deal that he enjoyed his seven years with the firm, and even foresaw himself remaining with it through retirement, but recently decided he “needed to take a next step.”

Following a lengthy decision process, Rich settled on Core after being impressed by CEO Shaun Osher and what Rich calls the youthful, modern culture he’s given the smaller firm.

“Elliman tries to have as many brokers as they can,” Rich said. “Core has a different culture, it’s more selective and I see myself fitting in well with their team.” – Adam Fusfeld [more]

This Sunday is this first day gay couples will be allowed to legally marry in New York, and the real estate industry is already bracing for a possible boost. As CNBC points out, some same-sex couples from other, nearby states may be tempted to move to New York to take advantage of their newfound financial and legal benefits when it comes to real estate. Lawrence Rich of Prudential Douglas Elliman noted that for the first time, “both parties will be able to have their names legally on documents like proprietary leases in co-ops.” There are also tax breaks. “The estate tax issue will now be transferred tax free from one spouse to another. Before, without being legally married it was not the case,” explained Victoria Shtainer, also of Eliman. [more]

From left: Donny Deutsch, Douglas Teitelbaum, Donald Trump and 502 Park Avenue (building photo source: PropertyShark)

Even as real estate developer Donald Trump is testing the waters for a presidential run, he is not about to go soft and let a high-powered money manager wiggle out of a luxury penthouse apartment lease.

Trump is claiming in a new lawsuit that hedge fund investor Douglas Teitelbaum skipped out after signing a lease last year to move in to advertising executive Donny Deutsch’s former rental unit PH23 in Trump Park Avenue at 502 Park Avenue.

Trump Park Avenue LLC filed suit in New York State Supreme Court this past Friday, claiming Teitelbaum, for years a principal with Bay Harbour Management, signed a lease in April 2010 at $50,000 per month for the five-bedroom unit with 6,224 square feet. The lease called for him to move in Sept. 1 or after then current renter Deutsch was “ready to move out, and tenant can move in,” the suit says.
[more]

Trump Park Avenue at 502 Park Avenue, floor plans for penthouse #23 and advertising exec Donny Deustch

It looks like Donny Deutsch is finally moving into the fabulous 78th Street townhouse he’s been renovating for the past four years. Deutsch, an advertising mogul and media personality, has been renting penthouse #23 at Trump Park Avenue at 502 Park Avenue for the past several years, during the renovation of his townhouse, his brokers said. He’s moving out this week, however, and the 6,300-square-foot apartment is now listed for sale at $25 million, or for rent at $60,000 per month. Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Victoria Shtainer and Lawrence Rich have the listing. Click here for more.

[more]

An image of the unit that Lawrence Rich, a vice president at
Prudential Douglas Elliman (left), helped his client purchase (unit to left)
and a nearly identical-looking unit (right) listed by Bank of America exec
Brian Brille (click image for larger version)

A buyer with a love of Trump Park Avenue has closed on a $14
million apartment in the condominium, according to the buyer’s broker
Lawrence Rich, a vice president with Prudential Douglas Elliman. The
seller is likely Bank of America Asia-Pacific market President Brian
Brille. Before sealing the deal for corner condo unit 3A at 502 Park Avenue
yesterday, the buyer, listed as Faraya LLC, had made bids on other
high-profile apartments in the same building, including Yankee
Alex Rodriguez’s $10 million pad in February and Sheikh Abdul Aziz’s
$14 million residence in July, said Rich, who has been working with the
buyer from the get-go. When unit 3A, a 5,473-square-foot, four-bedroom,
six-and-a-half-bathroom apartment came on the market in early October,
Rich said he had this particular buyer in mind. [more]

Broker Dolly Lenz is reaching out to co-op boards to gauge whether they’ll bend the rules for the right candidate. One of the buildings she’s working with is the Dakota.

From the December issue:

This fall, Lawrence Rich decided he wanted a puppy. “I love my
building, but I’m missing a dog,” said Rich, an associate broker at
Prudential Douglas Elliman who lives at 45 Sutton Place South. As a real estate broker, he also knew that the co-op’s strict
no-dogs-allowed policy was likely hurting the building’s apartment
values in a tough economy.
So he printed out a list of reasons why the building should allow
dogs, and deposited copies on each resident’s doorstep, tying the
missives with a satin ribbon.
In what promises to be another challenging year for the real estate
industry, Rich is one of a growing number of brokers urging co-op
boards to consider broadening their pool of acceptable buyers. And it
seems that some of the boards are actually starting to bend — a
reality that could help boost co-op sales in 2010.

From the December issue: Everyone loves cash. Nothing new there. But in this market, cash deals are even sweeter. In some cases, a onetime payment could even be the only way to close a sale, according to brokers, attorneys and developers. And discounts often await all-cash buyers. There are other benefits: less paperwork and fewer delays in getting deals done. No long waits for banks to pore over buyers’ financial records, only to reject them on the eve of closing. “Cash used to be king, but now it’s the emperor,” said Luigi Rosabianca, a real estate attorney who says 50 percent of his clients have paid cash so far this year versus 20 percent in 2007 at the market’s peak. The exact number of cash deals is difficult to determine; property records on file with the city’s Department of Finance don’t specify how apartments are paid for. And the sheer number of cash deals doesn’t seem to be increasing, as the volume of all deals remains depressed.