Massey Knakal shrinks agent pool by 25 percent
In the midst of the financial crisis, commercial real estate firm Massey Knakal Realty Services has reduced its number of agents by a quarter to 46 from 63 in order to increase its brokers’ territories, the company’s chief executive officer said.
Paul Massey Jr., CEO and co-founder of Massey Knakal, said the reductions were not made
in reaction to the weak marketplace, but to increase the potential sales volume for the remaining brokers.
“Everyone will think this is in reaction to economic externalities, but the planning for the growth in territory size has been going on all year,” he said in an interview.
The latest round of cuts came in September. Compared to the start of the year, the number of agents in Brooklyn and Staten Island dropped to 14 from 21; and Queens and Nassau declined from 15 to eight, Massey said. Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester fell by three to 24 brokers.
Massey said discussions to reduce the number of brokers began in January, and the final decision was made in the spring. Overall employment at the brokerage has dropped to 146 from 191 at the start of the year, he said.
Still, John Falco, a former Queens broker with Massey Knakal who lost his position in the reshuffle, attributed the job reductions to the tough economy.
“All the real estate firms are feeling the pressure from the credit crunch,” said Falco, who is nevertheless upbeat about opening his own brokerage firm.
He and broker Rubin Isakharov, who worked together in the Queens office, opened their firm, Falco and Isak Realty Services, about two months ago. The firm has four listings in western Queens.
“It is a great time to build your name. Obviously the volume and transactions will not be the same as the previous year, but some of the best companies have started in hard times,” he said. By Adam Pincus
Edge scores priciest condo sale in Williamsburg
The Edge recently sold one of its duplexes for $5.145 million, marking the most expensive condo sold in Williamsburg, and the seventh most expensive condo ever sold in Brooklyn, according to an analysis by The Real Deal. The buyer combined two penthouse units to create a 3,969-square-foot apartment with six bedrooms and six bathrooms. The apartment also has two roof decks and two balconies. The Edge is on Kent Avenue between North Fifth and North Seventh streets, and the Developers Group is the condo’s exclusive sales and marketing team. TRD
More Brooklyn renters from out of state, report says
The number of incoming Brooklyn home hunters from outside of New York State increased over previous quarters, according to a third-quarter Downtown Brooklyn report looking at prospective renters.
Twenty-six percent of Brooklyn apartment hunters in the third quarter were from out of state, compared to 20 percent in the second quarter, according to the report from Ideal Properties Group, a small, local residential firm.
Of the 26 percent of out-of-state apartment seekers, 23 percent were from New Jersey, 12 percent from Massachusetts and 12 percent from California. Forty-two percent of people looking to rent in Brooklyn already lived in the borough and another 21 percent came from Manhattan, according to the report, based on information from 1,211 client registration forms. The rest hailed from elsewhere in New York State or did not disclose their home addresses.
Park Slope, where 47 percent of aspiring renters were apartment-hunting, remained the most popular Brooklyn neighborhood, but Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights and Red Hook also attracted a fair amount of interest, at 36 percent combined, according to the report. Interest in Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights and Red Hook increased over the second quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, Fort Greene did not attract the same level of activity compared to a quarter earlier, with a 1 percent drop to 11 percent. By Sara Polsky
Former Henson house sells for $28 million
The Lenox Hill mansion at 117-119 East 69th Street that was once owned by Muppets creator Jim Henson sold for $28.5 million. The 12,000-square-foot townhouse went into contract on June 23, and the sale closed September 25, according to city records posted last month. The buyers’ identities were concealed by a limited-liability company. The sellers are Brian Brille, Bank of America’s global head of investment banking, and his wife, Leslie Simmons Brille, according to reports. They were asking $32 million for the property in April. They paid $12.4 million in May 2005 for the neo-Georgian mansion. Henson’s company bought the property for $600,000 in 1977, and his children and heirs sold the building to the Brilles in 2005, property records show. By Adam Pincus
Retail brokers expect sharp vacancy rise in new year
The weak economy has New York City retail experts anticipating a larger-than-normal rise in store vacancies in the first quarter of 2009 after what is expected to be an anemic Christmas shopping season.
Robin Abrams, executive vice president of the Lansco Corporation, said she expects more retail vacancies in the months immediately following the holidays.
“I think there will probably be more,” she said, citing the recent stock market pummeling and the bleak economic news as the key factors that will drive up store vacancies.
Gary Trock, senior vice president of the New York tri-state region retail services team at CB Richard Ellis, said he believes the financial sector layoffs will hurt retailers in the city.
The job cuts “will severely affect the Christmas season. That will have a strong effect on the nationals,” he said. He also said, locally, “Mom-and-pops are getting hammered.”
Retail reports showed a widespread drop-off in consumer spending nationwide in September at stores ranging from Nordstrom to Target.
Historically, store vacancies tend to increase in the first quarter as weak retailers close shop after the holiday season. That phenomenon even holds true when the economy is solid.
In the first quarter of 2007, for example, availability rose in three of the top five submarkets in Manhattan: Fifth Avenue from 42nd to 49th streets; Fifth Avenue from 49th to 60th streets; and in Soho, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield. In the same period, vacancies fell on Madison Avenue and on the Upper West Side.
In the first quarter of 2008, retail vacancies rose or
remained the same in all the submarkets, according to the data.
Trock said the emerging retail markets in Manhattan are especially vulnerable.
“The growing markets we see in the Lower East Side, the Bowery, the West Village … Washington Heights, those markets are the ones that are going to get hit the most. They will get more vacancies,” he said. By Adam Pincus
Art dealer buys Yorkville condo for $12 million
Art dealer Dominique Levy and her partner Dorothy Berwin paid $12 million for a six-bedroom, 5,002-square-foot duplex at 170 East End Avenue in Yorkville, according to city records. The sale went into contract in May 2007 and closed on Sept. 24, city records from last month show. Levy is a co-director of contemporary art gallery L&M Arts on the Upper East Side and Berwin is a film producer. By Adam Pincus
Wall Street crisis hits Hamptons
As the chaos on Wall Street has unfolded recently, observers have waited for the Manhattan real estate market, with its close ties to the financial sector, to show signs of a slowdown. But it’s the East End where the Wall Street meltdown has led to immediate aftershocks, brokers say.
Sales activity in the Hamptons — the popular weekend destination for Wall Street tycoons — has all but stopped, prices have plunged and deals are disintegrating, brokers on the East End said.
“We’re so Wall Street-focused out here,” said Michael Daly, principal broker at True North Realty Associates. “In the past week, it’s like everyone is holding their breath.”
Fashion designer Adrienne Vittadini’s five-bedroom waterfront home in Water Mill, listed with Sotheby’s International Realty, was recently reduced from $6.95 million to $6.495 million, down more than $1 million from its original listing price of $7.6 million, according to an Internet-based listings exchange system. An eight-bedroom home on Parsonage Lane in Sagaponack, originally listed at $9.995 million, is now $8.495 million, while a Bay Avenue home in Water Mill first priced at $4.995 million is now available for $3.995 million.
Despite the perception that good prices are available, many buyers are afraid to act
because they’re waiting for the market to bottom out, said True North Realty’s Daly, author of the Hamptons Real Estate Blog.
“Anyone who is in the process of negotiating or moving on a property just appears to be taking a let’s-wait-and-see attitude,” he said. “When we do see a bottom, we’ll see some good activity.” By Candace Taylor
Chuck Close buys $6 million Bond cond-op
Portrait artist Chuck Close and his wife Leslie paid $5.95 million for a cond-op unit at the Deborah Berke-designed 48 Bond Street in Noho. The sale by photographer Gary J. Cooper closed on Oct. 6, according to property records. The couple also owns a 2,500-square-foot cooperative nearby at 20 Bond Street. Close, 68, was critical of development on Bond Street, which he said threatened to shut out sunlight, rendering his studio unusable. Cooper and his wife bought the apartment in the 17-unit building in April for $5.25 million but never moved in, Cooper said. By Adam Pincus
Newly formed GSLM closes first deal
GSLM Capital Partners said it recently completed financing on the proposed $55 million Columbia Hicks apartment complex in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, marking the first development under GSLM’s recently launched urban investment fund.
GSLM, a partnership of L&M Development Partners and Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, established an $100 million urban investment fund in April to develop mixed-income housing in New York and other cities.
“We’ve been committed to rezoning and redeveloping this site with L&M into much-needed mixed-income housing since January 2006,” said Carrie Van Syckel, a vice president at Goldman Sachs Urban Investment Group. “This particular area of Cobble Hill is a unique community, and the sites were prime to be redeveloped, having been underutilized with light industrial activity.”
Columbia Hicks is a 149-unit rental complex on Columbia Street, just south of Atlantic Avenue on the Brooklyn waterfront, which includes 50 affordable units. The project, originally proposed in 2007, was scaled down after a series of contentious meetings with community members near the waterfront site.
Community activists were initially concerned about the height of the building and potential zoning changes in the area. Part of the project sits on land that the developer acquired from the city, according to Seth Donlin, spokesperson for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Citibank is providing the permanent and construction financing for Columbia Hicks. The city Housing Development Corp. provided about $20 million in bond financing and $6.4 million in low-interest subordinate debt.
Ground-breaking was scheduled to begin last month, with completion expected by late 2010. Pre-sales are expected to launch by mid-2009.
Goldman Sachs and Westchester-based L&M previously teamed up on several development deals, including the Aspen, a rental building at 1955 First Avenue, and the Kalahari, a luxury condominium at 40 West 116th Street. By David Jones
It’s all in the family at Houlihan-Parnes
The fifth generation of Houlihans recently joined the ranks at Houlihan-Parnes/iCap Realty Advisors. Christie and Kelly Houlihan, daughters of James Houlihan, managing partner, joined the family business started by their great-great-grandfather.
Before coming on board, Christie, 25, spent three years working in Washington, D.C., as a policy researcher for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and was involved in the re-authorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
“The story of how our company has grown is remarkable. It started with our great-great-grandfather coming over from Ireland and working as a carpenter,” Christie said. Houlihan, based in White Plains, is a real estate services firm with departments in commercial leasing and management, residential management and mortgage servicing.
Christie started working in January, and her sister Kelly joined her at the company in August.
Kelly, 23, graduated from New York University in May with a degree in early childhood education and psychology, but said she knew early into her senior year that she wanted to join the family business after interning at Houlihan-Parnes throughout college.
Both Kelly and Christie said their father never pushed them to work for the company, but they were interested in real estate from an early age.
“When we were little, we would play games writing up deeds,” Christie said. “One time, we wrote up a deed to our little brother.”
The sisters don’t have a permanent home at Houlihan yet, and are testing out all of the departments before settling on one. Christie said she is leaning toward commercial financing, and Kelly is interested in the marketing side. Christie is also attending law school at Fordham University.
She said she doesn’t intend to leave Houlihan to join a law firm after graduation.
“Kelly and I both intend to be here forever and one day to be the next generation that runs the company,” she said. By Jovana Rizzo