From the October issue: New York City is at a peculiar crossroads. For months, investors have
marshaled unprecedented amounts of capital, salivating at the prospect
of snapping up distressed properties. “We’re fortunate this cycle to
have the most dry powder in our
history,” Blackstone Group president Tony James said last month at the
Barclays Capital Global Financial Services Conference, which was held
in Manhattan. The firm has about $28 billion in unspent capital, he
said. About $12 billion of that is earmarked for real estate. “We’re
just beginning what will be the best period in decades for private
investing,” he said. Dan Fasulo, a managing director at Real Capital
Analytics, estimated
that $50 billion has been raised and is ready to be deployed into
distressed real estate. Paradoxically, investors have found very little
worth buying so far, in large part because banks continue to hold
troubled loans on their books, hoping conditions will improve. [more]

LeFrak Organization Chairman and Chief Executive Richard LaFrak sat down with the New York Times to discuss survival in a down market and integrity in a corrupt industry. He jokingly commented in his interview that his proudest accomplishment is that he has “done business in Northern New Jersey for 25 years and [hasn't] been carted away in handcuffs yet.” But, humor aside, LeFrak said that he sees the corruption in New Jersey as “pathetic.” He argued that a focus on fundamentals keeps his business strong, even in a recession. “I’m kind of a farmer — I start with dirt and make it grow — and that’s been a tradition for 100 years,” LeFrak said. “My sons will be the fourth generation, and yet we’re still applying the same fundamental ideas applied by our predecessors.”

Shore Condominium Residences

Recent buyers of a $650,000 two-bedroom condominium unit in a new LeFrak Organization residential tower in Jersey City say a powerful noise emanating from a neighboring comm [more]

Recent buyers of a $650,000 two-bedroom condominium unit in a new
LeFrak Organization residential tower in Jersey City say a powerful
noise emanating from a neighboring commuter train transformer makes their master bedroom uninhabitable. Apartment owner Theodore Lee accuses the developer, the sales brokerage
and others of not telling him about a noise affecting his unit in the
North Tower of the Shore Condominium Residences at Newport that he said
has forced him to use his larger bedroom as a storage room. Lee and his wife, whose name he requested not be published, filed suit
in Hudson County Superior Court April 21, charging the LeFrak
Organization, Metropolitan & Waterfront Residential Brokerage, two
individual brokers and other entities with violating a consumer fraud
statute, breach of contract, misrepresentation and other charges. [more]