Dollar volume and number of properties sold (source: Massey Knakal Realty Services)

Manhattan investment sales last year declined as the year wore on as sellers decided not to place properties on the market, even as the total amount sold far outpaced 2010, executives at investment firm Massey Knakal Realty Services said.

There were $21.7 million in investment property trades in 2011, up 87 percent from the $12 billion in 2010. But investment sales in the fourth quarter were just $5 billion, down from the $6.1 billion in the third quarter and $8 billion in the second quarter, the firm reported at a year-end market briefing this morning. [more]

Helen Hwang, an executive vice president at Cushman & Wakefield, Aaron Jungreis, president at Rosewood Realty Group, James Nelson, a partner at Massey Knakal Realty Services, David Schechtman, senior director at Eastern Consolidated

Compiled by Adam Pincus
Brokers broadly expect next year to be an improvement over 2011 in New York City’s investment sales market, although concerns about the global economy and financial services layoffs create uncertainty, and that puts a drag on activity. This year, total investment sales are expected to end up at about $25 billion, far ahead of the $14.5 billion in 2010. The Real Deal talked to a series of brokers about what they expect for the new year. [more]

Barbara Fox, president and founder of Fox Residential Group, threw open the doors to her East 79th Street co-op last night (or, rather, the elevator that opened onto the apartment), welcoming 200 colleagues, friends and industry players to celebrate the holiday season. With barely room to move between a book-lined den (which housed the bar) and the living room (where a three-piece band played Christmas carols), some guests took refuge on a balcony that wrapped nearly all the way around Fox’s penthouse. Others sampled h’ors d’oeuvres like pigs in a blanket. Noted revelers included Robert Knakal, chairman of Massey Knakal Realty Services, and Michele Kleier, president of Gumley Haft Kleier and a star of “Selling New York.” -- Leigh Kamping-Carder

The Associated Builders and Owners of Greater New York held its 101st annual dinner dance to honor achievements and contributions from notable members of New York City’s real estate community last night. About 200 members filled the ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Battery Park City to take part in the celebration.

This year’s honorees were: Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as Public Servant of the Year; George McDonald, founder of the DOE Fund, as Jerome Belson Humanitarian of the Year; Fred Harris, senior vice president of AvalonBay Communities, as Development Company of the Year; and Massey Knakal Realty Services Chairman Robert Knakal for leading the Brokerage Company of the Year. – Marc Becker [more]

From left: Kushner Companies principal Jared Kushner and 200 Lafayette Street (credit: PropertyShark)
Jared Kushner has teamed up with Los Angeles-based CIM Group to acquire a Soho office building for $50 million, the New York Post reported.

The 130,000-square-foot office tower at 200 Lafayette Street, on the corner of Broome Street, has gone into contract. The sellers are investors John Zaccaro Sr. and John Zaccaro Jr. They bought it for $20.5 million in 2006. As The Real Deal previously reported, the pair had been disputing with partners over how to respond to a foreclosure lawsuit filed over a $29.8 million mortgage by an affiliate of Blackrock Financial Management.

The building was being marketed by Robert Burton, senior vice president of sales at Massey Knakal Realty Services, and the Post said Kushner and CIM plan to invest $20 million to convert the interior into state-of-the-art office space. [more]

Real estate developers, brokers and attorneys are gathered for the third annual Massey Knakal Multi-family Summit for the tri-state area at the McGraw-Hill Conference Center on Sixth Avenue. The focus of this year’s summit is the acquisition, disposition, financing and management of multi-family properties in the greater New York City area, with a special emphasis on the political environment, trends in rents and operations, as well as a discussion of cap rates, financing and interest rates.

Bruce Beal, executive vice president of the Related Companies, talked about about the rental market and Related’s current projects.

“We’ve been doing everything from looking at distressed opportunities — projects that failed, retail projects that weren’t leased, half built condominium buildings — mostly in our core markets like New York, Boston, California,” he said. — Katherine Clarke [more]

Developer Steve Cheung purchased a vacant site for $8.3 million where a bankrupt Brooklyn company sought to build a Starwood Aloft Hotel in Long Island City during the real estate boom.

Cheung, president of Elmhurst-based E Home Real Estate, closed this past Friday on the acquisition of the L-shaped parcel at 29-37 41st Avenue that has 205,032 square feet of development rights, he told The Real Deal. The price comes out to about $40.48 per square foot.

Cheung has been developing residential projects for about a decade in Queens, he said, in areas such as Flushing and Ridgewood, including the five-story mixed-use project at 311 Saint Nicholas Avenue in Ridgewood. He recently purchased 70-32 Queens Boulevard in Elmhurst for a future project. [more]

Timour Shafran of Capin & Associates in front of the Hamilton Heights building where he has a syndication deal pendingFrom the October issue: It’s a deal that blends the American Dream with a touch of globalization, and hints of a bubbling trend.
Fifty-three Chinese-Americans pooled $160,000 each to buy a corner at Delancey and Pitt streets on the Lower East Side for $8.5 million this summer. They each plan to contribute $240,000 more to fund the construction of a 53-unit condo to replace the auto shop that is there now, said seller Anthony Marano, a principal at Ozymandius Realty.
“Fifty of the units are already spoken for,” Marano told The Real Deal. “It’s not a building that will be vacant or unfinished. We wish we could have done it, but there’s no construction financing to speak of.”
[more]

From the September issue: In the last few weeks, as many of the city’s big banks have been besieged by bad news, and the stock market has seesawed sharply in a short span of time, the question on many analysts’ minds is: Could a new round of pain on Wall Street trickle down to New York’s already vulnerable commercial and residential real estate markets?

Indeed, the thinking goes, the financial services industry and its numerous offices keep commercial occupancy rates high in Manhattan, while its well-paid executives buoy the high-end residential market. Meanwhile, its lower-rung workers drive demand for rental units, sources say. Wall Street has served as an economic engine of the city for decades,
ever since major manufacturing and energy companies — like Mobil, Exxon
and chemical company Union Carbide — abandoned their New York
corporate headquarters in the 1970s and 1980s for other (cheaper)
addresses. [more]
[more]

From left: Adam Spies, Robert Knakal, Woody Heller, Richard Baxter and Harry Krausman

Sources: CoStar Group, PropertyShark.com and The Real Deal.
Footnotes: Sales data is for Manhattan deals published on the city property record site Acris in September and provided by PropertyShark.com. Brokers and additional information is from CoStar Group and The Real Deal.

The top commercial deal to be recorded in city property records in September
was JPMorgan Chase Asset Management closing on the $719 million acquisition of the 14-story office and commercial building
200 Fifth Avenue, (part of the former International Toy Center buildings),
PropertyShark.com data shows. Eastdil Secured’s Adam Spies and Douglas
Harmon brokered the sale (see chart above). The purchase drove much of the
monthly total transfer value, which was $2.9 billion in commercial deals reported
on the city property record site Acris, an analysis of PropertyShark.com figures
show. [more]