The Real Deal has had an action-packed schedule. We hit up the Charity: Water event at 123 East 10th Street, the largest and priciest home available in the East Village, hosted by Rubicon Property. We stopped by Core’s cocktail party on the 17th floor of 812 Fifth Avenue, which was recently redesigned by architect Joseph Dirand. We also dropped by the Griffin Court condominium in Hell’s Kitchen, where Gumley Haft Kleier was hosting a viewing party of this week’s HGTV’s realty reality show “Selling New York.” Meanwhile, back at the office we were letting our fingers do the walking and got some fun nuggets. Click here for more. [more]

From left: Dean Spanos and Trump Park Avenue

Dean Spanos — president of the San Diego Chargers football team and son of Greek-born real estate developer Alexander Spanos — has sold his two-bedroom condominium unit at the Trump Park Avenue for $5.3 million, the Observer reported. The 1,813-square-foot unit, located on the 18th floor of the tower at 502 Park Avenue, sold for just under its $5.5 million asking price posted in April, close to $1 million more than Spanos paid for the unit in 2007. [more]

15 Central Park West and (from top) Dolly Lenz, Howard Margolis and Michele Kleier

What does “trophy” really mean in New York real estate these days? The New York Times takes another look at the semantics of the market’s upper-upper-echelon this week, polling a number of the top brokers and appraisers in the city and not coming up with much of a consensus. Minimum “trophy” price tags ranged from $10 million to $45 million, with uptown trophy homes drawing higher cutoff prices than downtown ones. Definitions of “trophy” homes included: “my neighbors are famous;” “an apartment in 15 Central Park West;” and “I own what you want.” [more]

From left: 995 Fifth Avenue, 535 West End Avenue, the Lucida and Michele Kleier

Gumley Haft Kleier, the boutique New York City brokerage made nationally famous by HGTV’s “Selling New York” last year, is “very seriously considering opening up a division to represent new developments,” co-president Michele Kleier told the New York Times. The television starlet has been getting lots of business from Gary Barnett’s Extell Development lately, including trophy listings at 995 Fifth Avenue, 535 West End Avenue and the Lucida. Four or five listings in another new development are also coming her way soon, she said, declining to identify the property. “I would love to represent a whole building,” Kleier said. “Truthfully, we have never been set up for it.” [NYT] [more]

Core founder and HGTV’s “Selling New York” star Shaun Osher is relaunching his “Core Talks” webisode series with the help of a real estate pro who’s already warmed to the camera. In the living room of her $27.5 million listing at the former Stanhope Hotel, “Selling New York” co-star Michele Kleier, of Gumley Haft Kleier, chatted with Osher about the current real estate environment and about how she got into the industry nearly 30 years ago. Now, she said, “I think you and I are two of the only really strong boutique firms that are around.” But despite her newfound reality television fame, Kleier remains, in her own words, “very old fashioned.” She told Osher, “I am not a person who you will find on e-mail all the time… I hate it when I’m out with somebody and they’re looking at an apartment and they’re on their e-mail. It’s like, so irritating. You know, give me 10 minutes.”

Corcoran agent Matthew Lenahan

While New York City real estate agents need thick skin — enduring a cutthroat industry with infighting, mind games and, at times, harsh environs — there’s one jungle that most of them would not be prepared for: the Nicaraguan wilderness. But one agent, Matthew Lenahan from the Corcoran Group, who specializes in the Harlem market and whose listings include units in the Soha 118 at 301 West 118th Street, will face a challenge unthinkable by most. He is among the cast members for the new season of “Survivor,” set to debut Sept. 15, during which time contests will face numerous mental and physical challenges, in a bid to win a $1 million grand prize. In addition to his name appearing on the Corcoran website, it can be found on an online “Survivor” fan page.
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Earlier this week, The Real Deal
checked out Penthouse A at the Lucida, the new LEED-certified
condominium by Extell Development at 151 East 85th Street. Gumley Haft
Kleier head honcho Michele Kleier, who has the exclusive listing on the
$8.95 million duplex, was hosting a party for brokers there that
evening while filming for HGTV’s second season of realty reality show “Selling New York”
(see photos from the event above). Kleier and her daughters, Sabrina
Kleier Morgenstern and Samantha Kleier Forbes, along with brokers from
Core (who were not in attendance at the party), star in the show, which
Morgenstern said is tentatively [more]

New York City real estate marketing isn’t what it used to be. Between the cadre of stagers, photographers and publicists it takes to sell an apartment in 2010, longtime brokers reminisced to the New York Times this week about the simpler days — when Michele Kleier said she sold premier Park Avenue properties with little more than classified newspaper ads that read “Superb condition. Sun filled. Excel. maint.” One reason for the explosion of marketing and promotion in the real estate world is simply the addition of thousands of units to the marketplace, but as the industry has grown, it’s also changed. Exclusive listings are now the norm, but that wasn’t always the case, and brokers didn’t devote resources to listings that bore no guaranteed income. There’s also more at stake today. Kleier, who sold that “sun filled” apartment at 1125 Park Avenue for $145,000 in 1977, just closed on a unit in the same building for $4 million, but only after investing in a catered luncheon for brokers at the home, paying for multiple website advertisements and featuring it on HGTV’s “Selling New York.” [NYT]

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From the June issue: In politics, most elected officials have some sort of “advance” team
that arrives at events hours beforehand to scout out a perfect photo op
or to set up a news conference. It turns out similar sorts of advance people exist in New York real
estate, in the form of brokers and personal assistants who preview
properties before the potential buyer even walks through the door.
While brokers have been doing this for some time, more personal
assistants are taking on a surrogate real estate role for their bosses.
Previewing properties in New York has become an increasingly
popular trend as buyers have become pickier about getting bargains and
inventory has risen. On a recent episode of the new real estate reality television show “Selling New York,” high-end broker Michele Kleier showed a townhouse to an advance man checking out the property for an unnamed Hollywood bigwig.

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HGTV’s new realty reality show, “Selling New York,” premiers tonight at 9 p.m., promising to showcase the “top of the real estate food chain.” The show follows Gumley Haft Kleier’s Michele Kleier and her broker daughters, Samantha Kleier Forbes and Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern, as well as Core’s Shaun Osher, among other brokers from each firm as they maneuver their way through some of the city’s most high-end real estate transactions. In honor of the debut, The Real Deal did some digging to find out which of the city’s prized properties are slated to be featured this season. Among them: a four-bedroom loft at the Chelsea Mercantile listed for $22.45 million, the 25 Murray Street loft for which former Giants star Michael Strahan is asking $1.85 million, a $17 million landmarked townhouse at 109 East 69th Street, and a 2,295-square-foot spread at highly-anticipated One Brooklyn Bridge Park (see slide show of many of the homes above). Click here for more information about the residences expected to appear in the upcoming season.
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