The Real Deal New York

In the dog days of summer, most New York City real estate moguls leave the city’s blistering heat behind. Many head for the East End of Long Island. Developer Billy Macklowe, for example, has a home in Sagaponack, top broker Mary Ann Tighe owns in Southampton and developer Joseph Moinian is known for throwing elaborate parties at his nine-bedroom waterfront compound on Dune Road in Quogue. Others choose more exotic locations; Elizabeth Stribling heads to… [more]

It’s been a rocky couple of years for the real estate market on Long Island’s East End. But now that the worst of the downturn has passed, the region’s major residential firms are seeing a slight increase in size compared to the last two years. Click to enlargeThis year, the 10 biggest brokerages in the Hamptons, Shelter Island and the North Fork collectively had a total of 1,230 agents — up 7 percent from 1,149… [more]

When Kushner Companies paid a record $1.8 billion for the aluminum-clad office building 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007, located between 52nd and 53rd streets, the market was still booming. But less than two years later, Lehman Brothers had collapsed, and that 10-digit price tag seemed to be an outrageous reminder of a bygone era. Yet company CEO Jared Kushner continued to believe that the retail portion alone could be worth $1 billion. Today — after… [more]

Realogy — the largest residential brokerage franchisor in the world and the owner of Manhattan-based firms Corcoran Group and Citi Habitats — filed documents in June announcing that it planned to raise as much as $1 billion through an initial public offering. Now, as the IPO looms, many in the industry are wondering what the stock sale will mean for the company’s New York City brands. According to the prospectus that Realogy filed with the… [more]

Twenty-nine-year-old Michael Stern was riding the elevator in a Verizon-owned building at 212 West 18th Street when he found out that Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy. Stern’s company, JDS Development, wasn’t actively acquiring properties at the time, and he’d been dragged “kicking and screaming” by a broker to check out the prewar building, which Verizon was using as storage for copper wire. But once Stern saw the views from the upper floors of the… [more]

New York City is famous for its cramped — and pricey — living spaces. That’s truer than ever this summer, with the busy rental market continuing its frenzied pace. But tenants looking for smaller units are feeling the worst of the pain, as rent increases for studios and one-bedrooms outpace the market overall, according to a Prudential Douglas Elliman quarterly market report released last month. In fact, in the second quarter of 2012, rents for… [more]

Click to enlargeLast year, Long Island real estate broker Maggie Keats worked with a young family looking for houses in Sands Point priced up to $2.5 million. But the family didn’t buy anything, and when they started looking again this spring, they’d changed their price point. “They came to me and said, ‘We’ve reevaluated our budget. If we’d bought last year we could have spent that much, but we just don’t feel comfortable doing that… [more]

The 10 most expensive sales on Long Island’s East End so far this year range from a $28.5 million sale on Southampton’s ultra-ritzy Meadow Lane to the $13 million sale of the “Windmill house” in Bridgehampton. Those eye-popping figures still don’t quite compare to the priciest sale of 2011: Florida billionaire Jeffrey Greene’s $36 million purchase of the 55-acre Tyndal Point. In fact, the top 10 sales of last year all exceeded $20 million. And… [more]

When news broke last month that Katie Holmes had filed to divorce Tom Cruise, the first round of speculation centered on what would happen to their daughter, Suri. But questions about TomKat’s real estate holdings were not far behind. The celebrity couple, who were married in 2006, own extravagant homes in California, New York and Telluride, Colo. Their holdings include a 10,286-square-foot Beverly Hills estate with a tennis court, which they bought for $30.5 million,… [more]