Bruno Ricciotti (left) and Noah Freedman, founders of Bond New York
This year, for the first time, scrappy upstarts ousted 138-year-old Brown Harris Stevens from its longtime berth among the city’s five largest firms. Since The Real Deal began its annual ranking of Manhattan residential firms in 2004, the same four sales firms — Prudential Douglas Elliman, the Corcoran Group, Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property — have dominated the top of the list.
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Bruce RatnerFor a developer who prides himself on building with a “social mission,” the bruising battle to break ground on the mammoth Atlantic Yards project has not been easy — to say the least. Over the last eight years, Bruce Ratner has been repeatedly excoriated by community activists and Brownstone Brooklynites, attacked in the press, and called everything from a “liar” to a “serial eminent domain abuser and corporate welfare queen.” [more]
Some New York City mortgage brokers are panicked about new federal rules governing their pay, saying the changes could spell doom for the already ailing mortgage industry. Last month, the Federal Reserve Board issued new regulations dictating compensation for mortgage brokers — the middlemen between the consumer and the loan originator or bank — and loan officers, who typically work directly for the originator. The new rules are the latest effort from the Federal Reserve Board to protect consumers, but mortgage brokers in New York City and elsewhere say they are already seeing unintended consequences, in an industry hurting from the subprime mortgage crisis. [more]
In the depths of the recession, when it was easier to get a reservation at Per Se than to sell a multimillion-dollar apartment in New York City, stories abounded of real estate developers scrambling to cover their costs by leasing out unsold condo inventory. It wasn’t a perfect solution — it’s notoriously difficult to get buyer financing in a part-condo, part-rental building — and in most cases, the strategy was never intended to be permanent. Two years later, as many of those original leases expire and the market begins to reheat, some developers are once again ready to sell, reuniting these once-fractured condos. [more]
Ralph Herzka, Meridian’s presidentIn a mortgage market that has been harder hit than the real estate industry as a whole, it’s rare for a company to emerge intact. However, in the world of commercial mortgage finance, Meridian Capital has managed to redefine itself and survive where others may have fallen by the wayside. [more]
Click to enlargeIt’s no secret that the world of brokering Manhattan retail leases is, well, secretive. While some firms publish reports with price-per-square-foot figures for various submarkets, closed deals do not need to be publicly recorded, and there’s no comprehensive database like there are in the office leasing and residential and commercial sales markets. [more]
Dan TishmanDan Tishman is vice chairman at AECOM Technology Corporation, and chairman and CEO of Tishman Construction Corporation, one of the country’s largest construction companies. Founded as Tishman Realty & Construction in 1898 by Julius Tishman, the company has overseen the building of mega-projects like the original World Trade Center, Madison Square Garden and Disney World’s Epcot Center. In 2010, Tishman Construction was sold to AECOM Technology Corporation, a global engineering and design firm, for $245 million.
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Stuart ElliotThe Real Deal is firing up the klieg lights and rolling out the red carpet. This month will see the premiere of our first full-length documentary feature film. Called “Building Stories,” it’s a look at the most prolific architect in New York City, Costas Kondylis, who has added an incredible 86 towers to the skyline here but is a relative unknown to the average man on the street. [more]
The first-quarter market reports released last month by the city’s major residential firms yielded few shockers. With sales volume largely unchanged from last year, industry experts agreed that the market is generally stable. But the data did bring one unexpected twist: an unusual spike in the number of co-ops sold. [more]
The stories of two of Larry Silverstein’s World Trade Center towers — one long completed, and one still under construction — told two sides of the office leasing market last month. Showing the renewed strength in the market, Silverstein’s five-year-old 7 World Trade Center lured the law firm WilmerHale, which was shut out of Midtown’s Worldwide Plaza, to lease 210,000 square feet. [more]
155 Trees Lane in Sagaponack, which is listed with Elliman’s Paul Brennan for $25 million
The tiny village of Sagaponack, tucked into the larger town of Southampton out on Long Island’s East End, has perennially been one of the wealthiest zip codes in the United States.Perhaps as a result, real estate in the hamlet (which has a population of 582) suffered even more than its neighboring Hamptons towns during a downturn that did not discriminate against markets. [more]
The glassy Reade57 (behind shorter building) plans to launch sales next month.In a city defined by soaring skyscrapers, a 20-story condominium is hardly considered a towering giant. But in Tribeca, a neighborhood marked by low-rise buildings and sprawling lofts, the New Modernist, glass-construction Reade57, a high-rise with smaller-scale apartments, will stand apart as a residential alternative in the area. At least that’s what its developers, the John Buck Company, are hoping. The Chicago-based firm, the builders behind the swanky Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District, plans to launch sales at the 84-unit condo in the middle of next month, with Brown Harris Stevens Select serving as the exclusive marketing agent. [more]
Andrew Barrocas, CEO of residential brokerage the Real Estate Group New York, at 230 East 44th StreetRental brokers who lost exclusive contracts with building owners after the market crash are now re-auditioning for those roles as the market picks up. Still, some say the economic downturn has permanently altered landlords’ reliance on exclusive relationships. [more]
Is the Federal Housing Administration losing some of its post-boom, post-bust oomph? Is the Obama administration’s plan to gradually throttle back FHA’s home mortgage insurance volume already having effects — and if so, what might this mean to buyers? [more]
State pushes back bond sale at WTC site
The planned construction of 4 World Trade Center saw a setback last month when the state entity funding the project delayed a $900 million bond offering. Crain’s reported that the Liberty Development Corp., an arm of New York’s Empire State Development Corp., which had planned to issue the debt for Silverstein Properties and the Port Authority, decided to wait until the economy improves to sell the bonds. But Christopher Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, told The Real Deal that the 4 World Trade Center bonds need to be sold by the end of this year for construction to be completed by 2013. [more]
The Eastern Queens, Northern Staten Island and Central Brooklyn neighborhoods decimated by the housing downturn may be facing fresh waves of misery from homes that were in foreclosure and are now ending up owned by the bank. The latest data from New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy prepared for The Real Deal show several troubling trends for REO homes, the shorthand for real estate owned by the bank — foreclosed properties that fail to sell at auction and are taken back by the mortgage lender. [more]
From left to right: Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern, Michele Kleier and (a pregnant) Samantha Kleier Forbes.In the current landscape of Manhattan’s boutique real estate firms, it’s all about the haves and the have-nots: those who have reality TV shows, and those who have not. As real estate junkies know, boutique brokerages Core and Gumley Haft Kleier last year began starring in HGTV’s “Selling New York.” The hit reality show follows brokers as they shepherd wide-eyed clients through cavernous lofts, and badger obstinate sellers into dropping their prices. [more]
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The land grab is on in Brooklyn. With prices and sales activity rebounding, the borough’s major real estate firms are competing for market share as smaller mom-and-pop firms disappear. The borough’s three largest firms — Fillmore Real Estate, the Corcoran Group, and Prudential Douglas Elliman — have all added more Brooklyn agents in the past year. [more]
As New York’s rental market begins to recover, landlords and tenants are once again at loggerheads about a controversial method being used to weed out some applicants: blacklists. Some say tenants are being unfairly blacklisted from renting apartments if they’ve ever tangled with a landlord in court. [more]
J. Clydesdale Cushman
1979: CITY’S LARGEST OFFICE REHAB PROJECT PUT AT RISK OVER TAX BREAK
1930: BUILDING MANAGERS’ TRADE GROUP FOLDS INTO REBNY
1912: YOUNG WILLIAM VINCENT ASTOR INHERITS $87M FORTUNE [more]
It looks like sovereign wealth funds — which are made up of pools of money derived from a country’s reserve — are slowly returning to invest in commercial real estate in the United States. Since the economic crisis of 2008, SWFs had decreased their investments in commercial real estate by at least 20 percent. [more]
Click to expand the timeline
With 7.6 million square feet of commercial space under construction at the World Trade Center site, the New York City skyline may appear to be adding an unprecedented amount of office space. But a closer look shows that office builders were far busier in the previous periods of Manhattan history. [more]
Usually when I return home from JFK, the taxi driver takes me into Manhattan across the Triborough Bridge (or, if you insist, the newly rechristened Robert F. Kennedy Bridge). But a few weeks ago, as I left the airport, my driver took the 59th?Street Bridge (or, if you insist, the newly rechristened Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge). [more]
Brokers say there is a lack of clarity surrounding the Agency Disclosure Form, for brokers and buyers alike.
It’s been four months since New York State amended its disclosure law for real estate agents, aiming to help consumers understand the sometimes murky world of commissions. But ironically, brokers say the well-intentioned new law has created even more confusion for both clients and brokers — in the short term at least. The problem, they say, is the complicated two-page form, which clients are required to sign stating that they understand who their broker represents: the buyer, the seller or both. [more]
Stephen Kliegerman
If there’s one thing that residential real estate experts agree on, it’s that there’s demand for new development condos in New York City. But that demand doesn’t mean that everything is hunky-dory in the new condo market again. In this month’s Q & A, The Real Deal talked to new development brokers, heads of new development marketing companies and industry analysts about the strength of the new development market and the challenges that still exist. [more]
The embattled insurance giant American International Group has sold over 2,000 residential units for $245 million in New Jersey in one of the largest apartment sales in the metro area, according to the Wall Street Journal. The buyers — New York-based investment firm Angelo, Gordon & Co. and developer Vantage Properties — have signed a contract for the Pheasant Hollow apartment complex in Plainsboro, N.J., near Princeton. [more]
The Chicago lakefront
Home prices in the greater Chicago region dropped to their lowest point since the market peak, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which was reported in the Chicago Sun-Times last month. Prices dropped 1.8 percent month-over-month and 3.1 percent year-over-year, the most recent report showed, marking the third month in a row that prices reached a post-peak low. But Case-Shiller isn’t the only one with bad news for Chicago housing. The Sun-Times also cited data from the Illinois Association of Realtors, showing that the median sales price for a home in the Chicago area dropped to $165,750 in February. That marked a 41.8 percent decline from the market high in July 2006, and the lowest level seen since February 2000. [more]
From left: 747 Madison Avenue, 198 Varet Street, 403 Greenwich Street and 3146 Steinway Street
The corner retail space at 747 Madison Avenue currently occupied by Valentino is up for sale or lease. The designer, a Madison Avenue tenant for 15 years, is likely to vacate the space at East 65th Street when its lease is up this fall, the New York Post reported. Ownership expects a sale of the retail condo to command at least $70 million, while the asking rent for a lease would be $1,000 per square foot. Newmark Knight Frank’s Robert Emden, Ken Zakin and Randall Liberman are fielding purchase offers; the leasing team consists of Emden along with Jeffrey Roseman and Ken Hochhauser, also of Newmark. Comments
Click here to see this month’s crossword puzzle from The Real Deal online.
Sales update
Harlem
Gateway Tower
2098 Frederick Douglass Boulevard
The 11-story, 88-unit residential development by the Gaetano Development Corporation has launched its second phase of sales. The 55 condos being sold as part of the second phase range from one- to five-bedroom apartments and are located in seven new stories that were built on top of the original building. [more]
Upper East Side
$480,000
333 East 66th Street
1-bedroom, 1-bathroom, 800 sf co-op in a postwar elevator building; 24-hour doorman; unit has northern exposure, city views and hardwood floors; building has pool, sauna, health club and roof deck; maintenance $1,148 per month; 50 percent tax-deductible; asking price $490,000; 20 weeks on the market. [more]
Town and Country’s Westhampton officePatrick Galway, managing director of Town & Country Real Estate’s Westhampton Beach office, had a lot of empty office space on his hands when he casually strolled into Phillips Beach Realty with a proposal last October. He wanted the 30-year-old Westhampton brokerage to bring its 14-agent team to Town & Country. [more]
Brooklyn Home Company’s 225 15th StreetLate in 2008, when the housing market was in the depths of the recession, Patricia Neinast, a Corcoran broker in Brooklyn, set a Fort Greene record by garnering $1,000 per square foot on the sale of a 1,400-square-foot condo unit at 122 Fort Greene Place. [more]
Jeff-Wolk, left, Ron AnzaloneWhen Fenwick Keats Real Estate merged with Marty Goodstein’s brokerage four years ago and took on an extra last name, it hoped to benefit from access to Goodstein’s other business: a 9,000-unit New York City property management firm known as Goodstein Management. [more]
Residential
A.C. Lawrence
Denise Salizzoni was promoted to senior vice president from managing director. Cammy Cutler was promoted from executive assistant to closing director and assistant manager. Rebecca Wolfson, Tawn Jefferson, Nikolaya Todorova, Nelly Narvaez, Dina Capobianco, Daniel Jaeger, Meza Eythel, Hans Desil and Inanna Moreni joined the firm as residential agents. [more]
Three bedrooms, meet three courses: Welcome to the Internet TV marriage of cooking and real estate. Later this month, Judy Sahagian, who heads up the real estate networking company Judy Networks, will debut the first of five Web shows that will air on a rotating schedule once a week on LiveOpenHouse.TV, a real estate video production and hosting site. The show is called “What’s Cooking in Real Estate?” [more]
What a dog at Related’s spa might look like after pampering.Those who thought that pet spas went out with the economic bust can think again. Residents in the luxury apartments at the Related Companies’ new residential building, MiMA, at 450-460 West 42nd Street, can now have all of their doggie needs met by Dog City, a full-service dog spa located on MiMA’s third floor. [more]
Real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey’s debut book, “Finding the Uncommon Deal,” doles out advice on all stages of buying a house, condo or co-op. Yet the author’s ambitions are broader than just a how-to guide to homeownership. “My life, my business and my legal practice have been dedicated to real estate and attempting to make the United States a better place to live by advocating for better real estate decisions,” Bailey, the energetic and frenetic founder of Manhattan-based residential and commercial law firm Adam Leitman Bailey, PC, writes in the preface. [more]
