As the years go by

In the 17 years that The Real Deal has covered New York real estate, both the market and the magazine have experienced big changes. Here are some of them.

2003

APRIL

The Real Deal publishes its first issue, weighing in at a slim 24 pages.

JUNE

TRD launches its website, which now has 2 million unique visitors a month.

JULY

Financier David Martinez buys a penthouse in the Related Companies’ new Time Warner Center for $42 million, the most ever for a NYC residence.

AUGUST

Harry Macklowe buys the General Motors Building for a recond $1.4 billion.

OCTOBER

Investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, who owned the Deal, sues TRD for trademark infringement, but TRD prevails in federal court the next year.

DECEMBER

Forest City Ratner announces its Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

2004

FEBRUARY

TRD opens its first office in a former psychic’s space on East 23rd Street.

FEBRUARY

Fed Chair Alan Greenspan says Americans could have saved a fortune if they’d had adjustable rate mortgages.

APRIL

The average price for a Manhattan apartment tops $1 million for the first time.

MAY

Downtown Brooklyn  is rezoned, setting off a development gold rush that continues to this day.

2005

MAY

Williamsburg and Greenpoint are rezoned, triggering a boom of waterfront towers. Affordable units are incentivized, but not mandated.

JUNE

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan for a West Side Stadium for the Jets and 2012 Olympics gets sacked, freeing up the site for Hudson Yards.

NOVEMBER

Fulton Fish Market moves to the Bronx after two centuries in Manhattan.

NOVEMBER

U.S. home prices rise to 42 percent higher than in 1999.

2006

FEBRUARY

StreetEasy launches its site to search for rentals and condos, bringing tech disruption to New York City real estate.

APRIL

Construction of One World Trade Center begins. A month later, 7 World Trade Center is completed.

JULY

Brooklyn Bridge Park is approved, creating a controversial hybrid of high-end development and public space.

OCTOBER

MetLife sells Stuyvesant Town to Tishman Speyer and partners for a record $5.4 billion.

DECEMBER

New York City agrees to expand the area in which new apartment buildings must include affordable units to get the 421A property tax abatement, recognizing the hot Brooklyn resi market.

2007

JANUARY

Kushner Companies pays a record $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Avenue — a move it would regret.

JANUARY

Harry Macklowe buys a Midtown office portfolio from the Blackstone Group for $7 billion.

JULY

Bear Stearns reveals that two of its hedge funds specializing in securitized subprime mortgages have lost nearly all their value, signaling the start of the mortgage crisis.

AUGUST

The interest rate on interbank loans spikes, signaling distrust of banks’ mortgage-backed assets. A nervous Fed injects $38 billion into the economy.

NOVEMBER

With the housing market at a 14-year low, president George W. Bush says, “The underpinnings of the economy are strong.”

2008

FEBRUARY

Unable to refinance as the economy retrenches, Macklowe defaults on roughly $7 billion in debt.

FEBRUARY

TRD launches a South Florida print edition and website in the thick of the recession.

MARCH

Eliot Spitzer resigns as governor after a prostitution scandal. He would later take over his father’s real estate business.

MARCH

Bear Stearns crashes and burns after 85 years, sowing panic on Wall Street.

MAY

Harlem’s iconic 125th Street is upzoned.

SEPTEMBER

Lehman Brothers collapses as the financial crisis accelerates and banks seize up.

SEPTEMBER

The federal government takes over mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

2009

JANUARY

Residential sales plummet as buyers scurry to back out of their contracts.

APRIL

General Growth Properties declares bankruptcy in what Reuters calls “the biggest real estate failure in U.S. history.”

JUNE

The High Line park opens, spurring a slew of residential projects on the West Side.

DECEMBER

Related’s Kingsbridge Armony mall project dies as Bronx politicians demand its jobs pay a “living wage” — a prelude to the battle over Amazon’s HQ2.

2010

JANUARY

Tishman Speyer and Blackrock default on their $4.4 billion debt on Stuyvesant Town after the housing market crashed and their plan to raise rents failed.

MARCH

Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal is declared a Superfund site, but fears that development in the area would be poisoned prove unfounded.

APRIL

Adam Neumann (right) and Miguel McKelvey open WeWork’s first space, in SoHo.

DECEMBER

Google buys 111 Eighth Avenue for $1.8 billion, helping resuscitate the Manhattan commercial market and setting off the Midtown South tech craze.

2011

JANUARY

Andrew Cuomo takes office as governor of New York

MAY

Media giant Conde Nast agrees to take 1 million square feet at One World Trade Center, a game changer for Lower Manhattan’s commercial market.

DECEMBER

Gary Barnett launches sales at One57

DECEMBER

The city’s Economic Development Corp. approves the Cornell Tech campus for Roosevelt Island.

2012

SEPTEMBER

Barclays Center opens in Brooklyn as a centerpiece of Bruce Ratner’s controversial Atlantic Yards project (which was later rebranded as Pacific Park).

OCTOBER

Hurricane Sandy submerges much of Lower Manhattan and inflicts an estimated $8.5 billion in property damage on private landlords citywide.

OCTOBER

Compass launches and opens its first office at 155 Sixth Avenue

DECEMBER

The Related Companies and Oxford Property Group break ground on the 28-acre Hudson Yards project.

2013

MAY

Larry Silverstein’s $3.8 billion One World Trade Center tops out.

JUNE

Zhang Zin, CEO of Beijing-based Soho China, and M. Safra & Company pay $1.4 billion for a 40 percent stake in the GM Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, making it the most valuable office tower in the country at $3.4 billion.

AUGUST

Zillow buys NYC listings portal StreetEasy for $50 million.

NOVEMBER

Bill De Blasio is elected mayor, rattling real estate players who had thrived under Bloomberg.

2014

JUNE

Steven Spinola, the longest-serving president in the history of the Real Estate Board of New York, announces that he will step down.

AUGUST

Extell Development pioneers the so-called “poor door,” a separate entrance for affordable housing tenants, at 40 Riverside Boulevard.

OCTOBER

Anbang Insurance Group buys theWaldorf Astoria for $1.95 billion.

NOVEMBER

WeWork becomes a unicorn by booking a $1.5 billion valuation, which would soar to $47 billion in January 2019, only to plunge to $8 billion months later.

DECEMBER

The luxury condo market hits a whopping $11.3 billion in sales contracts for the year, according to Olshan Realty.

2015

JANUARY

One57 breaks a record with a $100.5 million penthouse sale to a buyer later revealed to be Michael Dell.

FEBRUARY

Sheldon Silver steps down as Assembly speaker after his arrest in January on corruption charges.

SEPTEMBER

TRD heads to Shanghai for its first event in China.

OCTOBER

Blackstone and Ivanhoe Cambridge buy Stuy Town out of foreclosure for $5.3 billion.

DECEMBER

The median Manhattan home price hits $1 million for the first time.

2016

JANUARY

This year, Chinese buyers pour a record $14.3 billion into New York real estate before Beijing’s capital controls and corruption crackdown start to close the tap.

JANUARY

TRD launches its L.A. website and prints a quarterly magazine on the L.A. market. A Chicago website follows in 2018.

MARCH

The $4 billion Oculus transit hub opens at the World Trade Center, $2 billion over budget and seven years late.

JUNE

After a six year run, commercial rents peak and the retail market starts to crack.

AUGUST

TRD moves to Hudson Yards, doubling its office footprint.

NOVEMBER

Donald Trump is elected U.S. president.

2017

JUNE

Anbang Insurance Group Chair Wu Xiaohui is detained in Beijing, prompting other Chinese real estate investors to start dumping assets.

AUGUST

The City Council rezones Midtown East — four years after an initial proposal.

SEPTEMBER

Harry and Linda Macklowe’s divorce trial begins, deciding the fate of an estimated $2 billion fortune.

DECEMBER

Newmark Knight Frank goes public, but sells fewer shares at a lower price than planned.

2018

JANUARY

Federal tax reform takes effect, capping deductibility of state and local income taxes and depressing home sales in the tri-state area.

JUNE

TRD launches digital subscriptions for its website.

AUGUST

Cushman & Wakefield goes public at $17 per share, raising $765 million. Post-IPO, “CWK” has mostly traded between $16 and $20, giving the company a market capitalization of $4.5 billion.

NOVEMBER

Democrats capture the state senate in a progressive wave, and Albany turns against the real estate industry.

DECEMBER

The median Manhattan home price dips below $1 million for the first time in three years.

2019

FEBRUARY

Amazon cancels plans for a Long Island City campus after opposition by activists and the state Senate.

MARCH

Related Companies cuts the ribbon at Hudson Yards, the largest private development in the U.S.

JUNE

New York enacts a permanent rent law,  severely limiting rent increases for about 1 million apartments.

JULY

James Whelan replaces John Banks as president of REBNY.

SEPTEMBER

WeWork cancels its IPO. SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son later publicly apologizes for investing in the co-working company.

SEPTEMBER

Leaked documents reveal broker splits, marketing budgets and gross commission income for all Corcoran Group agents.

DECEMBER

REBNY files a brief supporting a federal lawsuit challenging the new rent law.

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