Sterling American Property, the real estate investment management fund controlled by Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz’s Sterling Equities, is letting go of a struggling Long Island office complex in a deed in lieu of foreclosure, according to the Wall Street Journal. The 127,000-square-foot Hauppauge property, Woodlands Office Park, had a loan balance of $12.7 million as of last summer, which was being overseen by special servicer ORIX Capital Markets. [more]

A 107-acre Long Island country club that went bust in the aftermath of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the real estate market crash was auctioned off for $19 million yesterday, but as individual parcels the land could be worth much more, the Post reported. The site of the posh former Woodcrest Country Club in Muttontown could be divided into a maximum of 35, three-acre parcels, per local zoning laws, and according to Ellen Zipes, a broker with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, each of those plots could garner bids of as much as $2 million.
[more]

Third Avenue’s iconic Lipstick Building, scene of Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, is nearing foreclosure, according to the Post’s Lois Weiss. Sources said the Royal Bank of Canada has hired Doug Harmon and Adam Spies of Eastdil Secured to market a $210 million mortgage it holds on the 34-story office tower at 885 Third Avenue, which was purchased by Israel-based Metropolitan Real Estate Investors for $648.5 million in 2007. Facing shortfalls in rent revenue — in part because of the 16,000-square-foot trading floor still vacant after Madoff’s departure — the owners have since depleted their loan reserves. Madoff had occupied three floors. One of those is now being paid for by the U.S. government; the other has been rented by Surge Trading, which bought Madoff’s company after the Ponzi scheme unfolded. SL Green is a likely taker for RBC’s loan, because as part of their purchase in 2007, Metropolitan sold 79 percent of the land below the tower to SL Green, Gramercy Capital and a private investor for $317 million. The building owners now pay $11 million per year in rent, which is slated for an increase in 2012. [Post] 

While a tough 2009 made people reset their expectations, Pamela Liebman, the Corcoran Group’s president and CEO, told the Palm Beach Daily News she thinks the number of transactions nationwide will likely rise this year, though the dollar volume will not. Palm Beach, in particular, has been slow to recover. “It still feels the drag of the overall housing glut in Florida,” Liebman said. Her near-term outlook for Palm Beach and Delray Beach, however, is upbeat. Corcoran, which was the listing broker for the 2009 record $24 million sale of La Bellucia mansion and is also marketing Bernard Madoff’s five-bedroom Palm Beach home, has worked on getting buyers and sellers on the same page. “I think for a long time in all of our markets, whether it was Palm Beach or the Hamptons or New York City, there was a lot of talk about people wanting luxury and ‘the biggest’ and ‘the best’ — the biggest apartment, the best views, the most oceanfront,” Liebman, 47, said. “People are buying properties again for themselves to enjoy, not to make a statement about their life and how much money they have.” Liebman, who said she stays in her Miami home at least twice a month, said that international buyers — many from South America and Russia — are in the market, as are Europeans “but not as strong as they were.”
[Palm Beach Daily News]

Serena Boardman (Photo credit: Patrick McMullan)

From the December issue: It’s 2005, and golden-haired socialite
Serena Boardman is sunning herself on a yacht near the coast of
Sardinia in Italy. Nearby, her friend Dori Cooperman — now best known
for befriending actress Lindsay Lohan in rehab — is on the phone with
a reporter from W Magazine, chronicling the addictive qualities of
photo Web site PatrickMcMullan.com. Boardman interjects with her
opinion of the site, which documents the social lives of New York
City’s glitterati. “Tell him it captures a moment,” she shouts. Until
recently, the scene was typical for the 39-year-old Boardman, the
jet-setting heiress to a banking fortune whose stepmother is a European
princess. Along with society pals like Alexandra von Fürstenberg and Blaine Trump, Boardman spent her 20s being photographed in couture gowns at galas and benefits all over New York and Palm Beach, often with her equally glamorous sister, Samantha. Magazines chronicled her taste in clothes (Roberto Cavalli ruffled cocktail dresses) and jewelry (Verdura). She held jobs at the Web site Luxuryfinder.com and in the jewelry department at Sotheby’s. But to the media they were a postscript to Boardman’s glamorous social life. So it comes as a surprise to those who know Boardman that only a few years later, she’s morphed into one of the most successful real estate brokers in the business. [more]

Real estate bigwigs brought their “A” game to David Moore’s “Funny Business” comedy show for charity at Caroline’s comedy club in Times Square last Thursday night (see highlights in the video below). Stephen Siegel, chairman of global brokerage at CB Richard Ellis, told jokes about the down real estate market, the bad job market and at least one that was not family friendly. The show also featured schtick by Jonathan Tisch, chief executive of Loews Hotels, who sang a rendition of the Frank Sinatra song “It was a very good year.” He started out: “When I was 53 — it was a very good year — it was a very good year for hotel chains and travel. The money flowed free. It was before AIG. It was 2006.” And Stew Leonard, president and CEO of popular grocery chain Stew Leonard, told a Madoff joke. The charity comedy show was hosted by David Moore, CEO of Register.com and vice chairman of private jet company Marquis Jet. TRD
[more]

Marisa Noel Brown, daughter of Madoff-ruined Fairfield Greenwich Group founder Walter Noel, and
her husband have put their townhouse at 12 East 78th Street on the
market. The 7,800-square-foot home is listed with Stribling &
Associates’ Patricia Farman-Farmaian for $12 million. Last month, the
Observer reported that the couple’s broker was calling other agents
saying the home was for sale for $11.5 million, but suggested that
interested parties could bid even lower. The couple bought the home in
January 2008 for $13.5 million.