Among last year’s major deals involving insurance companies were refinancings are (from left) 345 Park Avenue, 125 West 55th St.

From the February issue: With their recession-proof premiums still rolling in, traditionally conservative insurance companies are ramping up their investments in New York City commercial real estate. “REITs and insurance companies have the perfect storm to acquire properties,” said Jahn Brodwin, senior managing director at Manhattan consulting firm FTI Schonbraun McCann Group. “Both are looking for the same criteria. They want low-leveraged transactions with conservative underwriting and longer terms — 10-year deals as opposed to the three, five years that banks want. They are looking for stable, core properties.” [more]

From left: Marc Lewis, Denise Salizzoni, Tiffany Stilwell, Marc Windheuser and the former Century 21 NY Metro office at 228 East 45th Street

With Century 21 NY Metro now closed, boutique brokerage A.C. Lawrence has taken over the firm’s 45th Street office space and hired several of its top managers, including former CEO Marc Lewis as chairman.
Former Century 21 NY Metro managers Denise Salizzoni and Tiffany Stilwell are also joining A.C. Lawrence’s management. Salizzoni will serve as rental director and Stilwell as listings manager. Former Century 21 NY Metro Sales Director Marc Windheuser has returned to Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Other former Century 21 agents are “free to decide” whether they want to join A.C. Lawrence or not, said A.C. Lawrence spokesperson Charlotte Kullen, formerly the spokesperson for Century 21 NY Metro. A.C. Lawrence, which has around 35 agents, said it is launching an “aggressive recruitment campaign,” however. [more]

Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Lori Barbaria and the $19 million Bridgehampton house

A Francis Fleetwood-designed oceanfront residence in Bridgehampton is now listed for $19 million, after slashing $1 million off its $20 million asking price, Curbed reported. The property — which boasts 2.6 acres, including 300 feet of beachfront property — has been on the market since June 2009, when it was originally listed for $22 million. The five-bedroom, six-and-a-half-bathroom house on Dune Road is being marketed by Lori Barbaria of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Amenities include a pool, master fireplace, two terraces and a three-car garage. [Curbed]

[more]

Michael Guerra

Queens and Brooklyn — which both got a significant boost from the
federal homebuyer tax credit — saw real estate sales jump in the
second quarter of 2010, according [more]

Hall Willkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens, said he’s seeing an increase in activity in the $2 to $10 million market

The Manhattan residential real estate market continued its slow
improvement in the first quarter of 2010, according to market reports
released today by the city’s major real estate brokerages. While prices were still far below last year’s levels, they were up from
the previous quarter and the number of closed sales nearly doubled from
the first quarter of 2009. “It’s not the market it was, but relative to last year, it’s improved,”
said appraiser Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel and
the preparer of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s report (see some of thel market reports after the jump). [more]

Although Wall Street bonuses have reportedly climbed by about 17 percent, the money has appeared to have little to no ripple effect on some sectors. Brokers in the Hamptons said that that while the so-called “bonus season” is usually a busy one on the East End, they’re not seeing a February like those of past years. Paul Brennan, a regional director of the Hamptons for Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that it’s a tough reality for some in the industry to accept. “The fantasy still lingers,” Brennan said, noting that while many Wall Street-types have been making more cash, they’re reluctant to spend it. “They’ve made money, but they can’t spend it,” Brennan said, “because everybody would slit their throats, public relations-wise.” Even so, sellers are becoming confident in the market again, according to Andrew Saunders, head of Saunders & Associates in Bridgehampton. “The sellers are starting to be a little less negotiable than they were a number of months ago,” Saunders said. But while the sellers may be feeling more confident, the market still has a long way to go, some experts say: a recent Town & Country report showed that the high-end sales once frequent in the region are now few and far between.

 
L to R: Elliman’s Louise Stocker; Linda Stein’s ex Seymour Stein; Linda Stein; and suspect Natavia Lowery

A couple weeks before Linda Stein was murdered, a Prudential Douglas Elliman colleague of the one-time punk-rock manager turned high-powered broker received a chilling response from Stein’s personal assistant to a question intended as friendly small talk. “I said how’s it going to Natavia [Lowery], regarding just her working — making small talk,” Louise Stocker, an Elliman agent who sat at the desk next to Stein’s for five years, testified in Manhattan Supreme Court today. “We worked in close quarters, just being friendly and she answered in a determined voice, ‘we’re going to put an end to this.’” [more]

From the February issue: Nothing says progress like Madoff. Late last month, The Real Deal broke the story that the Ponzi schemer’s Upper East Side penthouse finally appears close to a sale.
Listing brokers Anne Corey and Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s
International Realty have told interested agents that there is an
accepted offer on the 133 East 64th Street duplex. At press time, the
U.S. Marshals Service, which seized the property from the disgraced
financier, said the listing had not yet entered contract.
The sale (if it does clear the many obstacles of today’s market) may not be unqualified good news.
The penthouse’s asking price is $8.9 million, following a November
price chop of $1 million. It’s also been sitting on the market since
September.  [more]

The Real Deal had a contingent of reporters and editors at the New York Hilton for the Real Estate Board of New York’s annual banquet and awards ceremony (click here to see an article on the event). The Real Deal’s Web editor Lauren Elkies interviewed a slew of real estate bigwigs from Bill Rudin of Rudin Management — who said Jonathan Mechanic of Fried, Frank (who The Real Deal also spoke to) is “the real deal” — to Bruce Mosler of Cushman & Wakefield — who said he loves The Real Deal, to Frederick Peters of Warburg Realty — who said “Virtual Office Web sites,” or VOWS, “will ultimately be insignificant.” [more]

From left: Natavia Lowery and Linda Stein

Jury selection continued today in the case of Natavia Lowery, the former personal assistant to broker Linda Stein, who is charged with killing the broker-to-the-stars in October 2007.

In Manhattan’s State Supreme Court, 70 potential jurors filed into a courtroom on the 13th floor where Justice Richard Carruthers explained how Stein, who was a top producer for Prudential Douglas Elliman, was “known in the real estate and entertainment world in New York.” Stein, who worked in Elliman’s 980 Madison Avenue office, counted Sting, Madonna and Billy Joel among her clients.

As on Tuesday, which was the most recent day of the trial — Wednesday was off — jurors today were then led behind closed doors today to fill out a basic questionnaire and asked if they were available for a two-month trial.

Also likely to be argued today by attorneys for Lowery, 28, who is clad in a gray top and pants in the courtroom, is whether jurors should be allowed to watch a videotaped confession from Lowery, given to police, or merely read its transcript, as defense attorneys prefer. [more]