There’s no place like New York. And there’s certainly no business like New York City real estate.
In seven years on this beat, I’ve seen massive changes in the market, the city, and the way the industry works. Every year our team takes a look at those changes and tries to weave them all into a program for our New York City Forum.
So, with that in mind — here’s where we at The Real Deal see the market right now, and everything you need to know to get the most out of the sessions at the Forum.
New mayor, new message, new development
The Mamdani admin is up and running. Whether they can get on pace with real estate is still an open question. The administration’s housing plan is underway, and that will tell us a lot about how the new mayor and his team are going to work alongside — or against — the industry.
The mayor’s real estate-focused teams seem primed to work with housing developers, especially those who are able to produce low-income and subsidized apartments. But that’s always been a challenging task in New York, and increasing capital, construction and insurance costs, plus the myriad issues with 485x, aren’t making it easier.
The administration needs to get on the same page as the private industry if they’re going to make a dent in our housing crisis. How they do that is a trickier question. We’ll have Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg speaking alongside Monadnock Development’s Kirk Goodrich to try to figure it out.
The start of a new administration can be the start of a new relationship between the public and private sectors — if it’s handled right. That’s why I spoke with HPD Commissioner Dina Levy and her team earlier this week. HPD runs a huge host of programs that impact building owners every day, from housing code violation enforcement to Section 8 voucher programs to financing for new affordable housing and housing preservation. Now’s your time to make yourself heard — you can post a question for Dina Levy, and I’ll ask her on stage at the Forum.
Affordable housing isn’t the only game in town, of course. But in Manhattan there are fewer true ground-up sites than ever, and the pipeline for luxury is dry. There are still market-rate and luxury developers who are active today — but they’re looking past the classic Manhattan avenues to make it work. We’ll hear from Sam Charney, ZD Jasper’s Jasper Wu, and Elliman’s Susan de Franca about creative strategies for reviving the new dev pipeline across all five boroughs.
Turning the office market around
The office market looks different from one avenue to the next. The high streets have come around, with much improved leasing velocity and rising prices. As we talked about at our recent office market roundtable, conversion is also cutting into the amount of space available in Class B and C assets too, which could improve the picture for those landlords looking to stay in the office game.
But there’s no silver bullet, and discounts and distress still trouble the waters. We’ll talk to office experts Liz Hart from Newmark, Glen Weiss from Vornado, and Stephen Siegel from CBRE to find out which issues threaten to sink the market, and where the tides are rising.
Resi brokerages brave new world
Consolidation is the word of the year for the residential brokerage business. With Compass scooping up Anywhere Real Estate, heavyweight Corcoran comes under the Reffkin umbrella. New York’s market of boutique brokerages has been shrinking for years, but a few stand-outs still make our rankings, suggesting it’s still possible to compete as an independent.
Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman is inside the room as the latest merger gets underway. Meanwhile Brown Harris Stevens boss Bess Freedman has grown her firm, but still stands out as an independent in a world of resi brokerage overlords. They’ll talk brokerage growth and whether big firms strengthen or weaken the competitive market, plus the unique challenges in New York City right now — from the threat of a pied-à-terre tax to the dearth of new dev.
Money matters
Of course, nothing in real estate moves without money. Access to capital has been a pain point for the last few years, with institutions drawing back. But where one door closes, others open — and the door has been wide open for firms like Adi Chugh’s TYKO which, in just a few years of operation, has become a go-to lender for NYC development. Josh Zegen’s Madison Realty Capital, meanwhile, is a longtime pro for the city’s builders — and one of the OG private credit lenders, as some in the industry look to that sector for salvation. They’ll talk us through the lender’s perspective at 2:30.
Can we still do big things?
This is a question our editor-in-chief loves to ask of the industry. In an era where everything seems expensive, or logistically complicated, or unsellable, or politically impossible, or a mix of all, what does it take to get a new megaproject off the ground and really reshape the city?
Hudson Yards was the last project that truly remade a neighborhood. (TRD’s Hudson Yards office was a great place to watch it happen.) Jeff Blau still has incredibly ambitious plans, and a powerful vehicle to execute them in Related Companies. Our founder Amir Korangy will sit with him for a special fireside chat to find out what we can expect next.
Meanwhile, the megaprojects that captured the city’s attention in the last year were the proposed casinos. Soo Kim’s Bally’s Corporation was a winner in that race. He’ll sit with columnist Erik Engquist to take us through their plans to get it done, now that the permits are in place.
Getting to know you
More than anything, TRD’s Forums are a chance to get to know your fellows in real estate. And this is a business where who you know matters. There will be networking opportunities everywhere — we hope you’ll take advantage of them.