Editor’s note: Hot Mess Summer
Chaotic is the new normal. The dog days of summer have gone feral in our newsroom.
It’s not just the presidential election — a.k.a. the season’s “weird roller coaster ride,” as the Washington Post put it. In which Donald Trump became a felon. A gunman tried to assassinate him. President Biden ended his campaign. And Vice President Harris started hers.
Buried in all the drama is the impact on real estate — and it’s not tiny.
“The debate between Biden and Trump was memorable for a number of reasons, but real estate policy was not one of them,” writes senior reporter Kathryn Brenzel in our package on the race. “Biden, however, briefly mentioned a concept denounced by landlords and economists, and hotly debated in blue states … national rent control.”
The concept is a 5 percent annual cap, lasting two years, for landlords who own more than 50 units. Since it’s likely that Harris would continue her predecessor’s policies, it’s something to watch, even if it’s unlikely to come to fruition.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters, including those who salivate over expected tax cuts, would do well to remember that the former president ended deductions for state and local taxes, or SALT, which disproportionately affected liberal states.
“I think that for our industry, anyone supporting the Republicans must have a short memory because when Trump first came to power … he passed a tax bill that was designed to harm New Yorkers,” said developer Jeff Gural, who has given more than $500,000 to the Democrats this time around.
“I think the only people who will support Trump are simply wealthy people who want their taxes lowered,” he added. “The rest is nonsense.”
We are working on more investigative stories than ever. Either there is more to dig into, or we are uncovering more of what’s out there.
Judging by a fundraising event for Trump held in the Jersey Shore enclave of Deal last month, which drew many big-name developers, that could be enough.
Check out the series of stories on policy, campaign platforms and who’s forking over the biggest donations.
Meanwhile, we are working on more investigative stories than ever, part of our busy newsroom this summer. Either there is more to dig into, or we are uncovering more of what’s out there: I honestly don’t know which.
We found new lawsuits filed in the Alexander assault case, as the shocking story about star brokers Oren and Tal Alexander continues to unfold. The brothers have been accused of raping and sexually assaulting women in what one industry expert called the “worst-kept secret” in the business, and the number of alleged victims is now in the dozens.
We’re continuing to follow the story of a national mortgage-fraud scam in which investors flipped properties to collaborators in order to score larger loans.
Riverside Abstract has not been accused of wrongdoing, but it was the title agency in several of these deals.
In this issue, we go deeper into the backstory of Riverside, where a culture of “anything for the client” ruled. In addition to title services, Riverside would allegedly do things like provide a $30 million one-week bridge loan to clients, so those clients could (misleadingly) show they were capitalized to borrow even more money from banks like JPMorgan. Senior reporter Keith Larsen portrays a company that appears to have crossed the line.
And in the syndicator space, which we’ve covered extensively, we look at how a favorite fundraising tool — Regulation D — could open syndicators up to fraud suits for the first time, as losses and defaults rise.
Not to mention the commercial real estate crisis, where building losses mount and bank failures loom. Failing investments seem to have played a role in a prominent death by suicide last month.
Finally, elsewhere in the issue, we’ve got another reality TV star. This one hasn’t leveraged his stardom to become president of the United States, but he isn’t doing too badly.
Our cover story picks up Ryan Serhant just four years after launching his eponymous firm, with the celebrity broker-turned-CEO and his team among the top brokerages in the Big Apple, as reporter Sheridan Wall writes.
The brokerage’s latest venture, a new reality show called “Owning Manhattan” featuring Ryan and others at the firm, made headlines when it premiered on Netflix in June and was one of the platform’s 10 most-streamed shows in the United States a week after its debut, Wall notes.
But can Serhant continue to scale a brokerage centered around a cult of personality? Should a CEO step back from being a dealmaker himself at some point?
Check out the story and enjoy the issue.