LA-based Milbank Real Estate “wrecked havoc” with city real estate purchases

509 West 212th Street (source: PropertyShark)

Milbank Real Estate defaulted on the mortgage for its $4.79 million, 45-unit, rent-stabilized building on 212th Street and the property is set to be auctioned off, according to the Wall Street Journal. The building, like other properties owned by the firm, has some of the worst conditions in the city, according to the Department of Preservation and Development, and has collected 214 violations since 1998, records show. If there are no bidders for the apartment, LNR Property, which represents investors in the commercial mortgage package, will retain the property. The Inwood apartment, purchased by Milbank in 2007, is one of many troubled properties in the portfolio the firm put together at the height of the housing bubble. In 2009 Milbank defaulted on a $35 million mortgage for 10 apartment buildings in the Bronx. “They are the perfect representation of what went wrong during the housing boom,” said Dina Levy, the director of housing advocacy group Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. “They wrecked havoc and left a lot of turmoil in their wake and [a] lot of us are struggling to clean it up.” [WSJ]