Homes in Bedford Stuyvesant
New York Community Bank, New York City’s biggest lender to landlords, has agreed to a 50 percent discount on the distressed mortgages for four residential properties in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Crain’s reported. This is a first for the bank. The property addresses were not mentioned. [more]
The Midtown-based real estate development firm Pink Stone Capital expects to
build a high-end residential rental tower with 54 floors at 111 Washington Street,
two blocks south of the World Trade Center site in the Financial District.
The approximately 430,000-square-foot high-rise will have about 500 units in a
mix of studios and one- and two-bedroom apartments, Meir Milgraum, director of
acquisitions for the firm, said. One or two large penthouses may also be included,
he added.
Pink Stone bought the defaulted $50 million note from New York Community
Bank in March. The bank lent parking
magnate Gerald Brauser and his company Term-Washington Street Garage the
money in 2006 to develop the property. [more]
New York Community Bank has unloaded the mortgages on Van Cortlandt Village, three foreclosed Bronx buildings on Sedgwick Avenue, in the latest in a series of note sales on distressed properties by the bank, according to Crain’s. It has sold mortgages on three dozen distressed buildings in the last year, said RuthAnne Visnauskas, deputy commissioner for development at the city’s Housing Preservation and Development, angering city officials and housing advocates.
“There’s obviously nothing wrong with a bank selling a mortgage,” Visnauskas told Crain’s, but “there should be more involvement on the side of the bank to make sure violations are getting corrected.” [more]
A group of Bronx housing advocates led by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. rallied against the New York Community Bank which owns the debt on 34 foreclosed and decrepit buildings in the borough, the Tremont Tribune reported. The group is urging the bank to take responsibility for maintaining buildings that they’ve foreclosed on after issuing property owners unsustainable loans. The advocates say that New York Community Bank has a track record of
lending to “notoriously bad landowners,” and more than 10 percent of its mortgage portfolio is on foreclosed buildings that go long periods without heat, hot water, working elevators, proper ceilings and other basic maintenance.
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Pink Stone Capital, the firm run by Richard Ohebshalom, son of Empire Management’s Fred Ohebshalom, purchased the $50 million note on the development site at 111 Washington Street. The New York Post reported the loan was purchased for close to par from the New York Community Bank. The Financial District location sits across from the new W hotel and condos, and was supposed to be a hotel designed by Costas Kondylis until the financial crisis sacked the 400,000-square-foot blueprint. Craig Nassi of BCN Development, who was in charge of the hotel plans, told the Post he believes the new owners will turn it into a rental building. Comments
Legal challenges for prolific architect Costas Kondylis who designed large residential towers such as the Trump Organization apartment buildings in Lincoln Square, are mounting. A division of New York Community Bank is claiming in court papers filed this week that Kondylis as well as his former partners and related companies lied to the lender when the firm sought an extension of a revolving loan. New York Commercial Bank, a division of Westbury, L.I.-based New York Community Bank, says in the suit filed May 3 in New York State Supreme Court that it lent the firm more than $1.29 million through the revolving loan, which was guaranteed by the company and its principals, under a false representation about the firm’s financial condition. This suit comes a little more than a month after a state judge ruled that Kondylis former company Costas Kondylis & Partners owes rival firm Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects more than $119,000 in unpaid fees they sued for last year. [more]
From the August issue: Over the last two years, the dollar volume of distressed commercial
real estate loans at a sampling of New York-based community banks has
risen eightfold. That’s only the beginning of a wave of delinquencies
expected to hit portfolio lenders, analysts said.
Experts predict more red ink in the mid-year earnings reports
released this month from lenders such as New York Community Bank,
Flushing Savings Bank and Astoria Federal Savings. These institutions
are considered stable lenders, but have still seen a steady increase in
failing loans. [more]
