New York City Real Estate News

Neuberger Berman Real Estate Securities Income Fund Announces Monthly Distribution

2012-03-31T19:59:00.002+03:00

NEW YORK, Mar 30, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Neuberger Berman Real Estate Securities Income Fund Inc. (nyseamex:NRO) has announced a distribution declaration of $0.02 per share of common stock. The distribution announced today is payable on April 30, 2012, has a record date of April 16, 2012 and has an ex-date of April 12, 2012.

Under its level distribution policy, the Fund anticipates that it will make regular monthly distributions, subject to market conditions, of $0.02 per share of common stock, unless further action is taken to determine another amount. There is no assurance that the Fund will always be able to pay a distribution of any particular size, or that a distribution will consist of only net investment income. The Fund’s ability to maintain its current distribution rate will depend on a number of factors, including the stability of income received from its investments, availability of capital gains, the cost of leverage and the level of other Fund expenses.

The distributions announced today, as well as future distributions, may consist of net investment income, realized capital gains and return of capital. In compliance with Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, a notice would be provided for any distribution that does not consist solely of net investment income. The notice would be for informational purposes, and would disclose, among other things, estimated portions of the distribution, if any, consisting of net investment income, capital gains and return of capital.

New York City Property Tax Bill Appeals Surge

2012-03-30T17:52:00.000+03:00

Some 2,723 homeowners have challenged their increased tax assessments with the city Tax Commission this year. That's up 18% from the 2,295 who did so in 2011, and represents the highest figure in more than a decade.

The increase is due in part to the bad economy, tax experts say.

"With the economy still a bit slow, people are looking to save," said Tax Commission President Glenn Newman.

Homeowners are also reacting to the perception that the real estate market remains weak, despite incremental improvements that have raised the value of their properties slightly, he added.

In the past, many homeowners have reported being confused by the format of the tax bill.

City lawmakers have long complained that the forms do not include a detailed breakdown of how the new rates were calculated. They contend the city Finance Department has not done enough to educate homeowners on the process.

"Property taxes are highly complex," agency spokesman Owen Stone said when questioned by the Daily News on the matter.

"We appreciate the frustration of some property owners and are always working to make our notices as clear as possible."

Bad News For NYC Real Estate: Lower Risk = Lower Compensation = Lower Demand For Housing

2010-07-05T20:42:00.000+03:00

Ok, eggs not a great analogy but I needed to squeeze one of my favorite quotes of all time in somehow. Lower leverage is in the future of Wall Street. Take lower risks and there are lower returns to firms eventually translating into lower compensation, translating into tempered housing demand.

This Monday federal regulators finalized guidance on a hot topic as of late: executive compensation:

The final guidance is similar to what the central bank proposed in October, but would now apply to the entire banking industry. Previously, its efforts targeted only holding companies and state-member banks…

The final guidance did not change the three initial goals of the Fed’s proposal: providing incentives that appropriately balance risk and financial results and discourage risk taking; matching “effective controls and risk management”; and supporting corporate governance.

Risk, risk, risk

Senior Economist David Belkin of NYC’s Independent Budget Office received a flurry of media coverage for his post titled “Wall Street Wages: A Rough Ride on Easy Street:”

5 Million NYC Property Records Available Via Startup's API

2010-01-14T22:58:00.000+02:00

Back in the fall, we told you about NYC's BigApps competition, which encouraged technological innovation to benefit government and civic engagement. Public voting for the submitted applications opened this week.

One of the submissions to come out of this competition is Blocks and Lots, an interesting app and API that essentially expose all the property records - more than 5 million records, total - for New York City. For site owners, there's a customizable widget that can be embedded in just about any kind of site.

Blocks and Lots' API allows developers to integrate detailed property information into any web or mobile application. Sample code is available in PHP and JavaScript.

Blocks and Lots comes from BlankSlate, an NYC startup offering a web platform and set of read/write APIs for making, sharing, monetizing, and monitoring web apps. The company provides capabilities such as data, file, user and payment management through REST APIs.

NYC sues Nigeria for up to $16 million in unpaid real estate taxes on Manhattan building

2010-01-13T22:25:00.001+02:00

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City says the government of Nigeria owes it millions of dollars in unpaid taxes on the Manhattan building that houses the Nigerian Consulate.

According to a city lawsuit filed late Monday in federal court, Nigeria owes $4.1 million to $16 million in real estate taxes and interest.

Diplomatic offices are tax exempt. But New York City says parts of Nigeria's 22-story building near the United Nations have been used for commercial purposes, including for Nigeria Airways offices. Those uses are taxable.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday that the city will go after every dollar that is owed to taxpayers.

Consular officials did not immediately respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.

Manhattan Residential Real Estate Now 'Reasonable'

2010-01-11T00:22:00.000+02:00

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The weather in Manhattan may be in deep freeze, but the real estate market continues to thaw. With prices falling--co-ops have hit 2005 levels--buyers are pounding the (frozen) pavement hunting deals.

Median prices in the fourth quarter were down nearly 15% from a year ago. The average price per square foot fell 17%. Buyers defied the typical seasonal slowness and pounced, sending closings soaring by nearly 50% from a year earlier, according to fourth-quarter data from brokerage The Corcoran Group and PropertyShark.com.

Several market reports expected Tuesday detail a once high-flying market trying to recover from a housing crash and credit-crisis paralysis. While homes are taking longer to sell, there are early signs of improvement: Properties are receiving multiple bids, less inventory is hitting the market and, in the latest quarter, fewer sellers cut prices. International buyers, absent for much of last year, are returning.

"I just can't deny the improvement that we've had," says Noah Rosenblatt, a broker and publisher of UrbanDigs.com, a blog focused on Manhattan real estate. "There's been so much action...The risk of systemic failure has been priced out of the market."

Guilty plea on tax charge in $1.8 billion NYC property sale

2010-01-09T11:25:00.000+02:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A project director who helped broker the 2005 sale of Riverside South Properties, one of New York City's largest real estate transactions, has pleaded guilty to a tax evasion charge but is not expected to face prison time.

U.S.

Barry Gross, 46, on Wednesday admitted to failing to file unincorporated business taxes, a Class A misdemeanor, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said.

The Lawrence, New York resident will be sentenced on February 16, 2010 to a conditional discharge if he pays an estimated $119,000 to $135,000 of state and city taxes, interest and penalties on his $1 million bonus for the transaction.

Prosecutors said Gross had disguised the bonus as a fee made payable to a shell company he controlled, Itamar Capital.

A condition of the plea is that a Hong Kong finder involved in the transaction pay $5 million in state and city taxes on a $17.5 million finder's fee.

Benjamin Brafman, a lawyer representing Gross, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Manhattan’s Apartment Market Stabilizes

2010-01-07T23:29:00.000+02:00

EW YORK CITY-As a gauge of the multifamily sector’s health, a trio of new reports on Manhattan apartment-unit sales offer some encouraging indicators and dovetail with a recent report on the island’s rental market and Real Capital Analytics data on apartment property transactions nationwide. The fourth-quarter 2009 Prudential Douglas Elliman Manhattan Market Overview shows volume up 10.9% over the prior quarter, while both Brown Harris Stevens Residential Sales and the Corcoran Group say Q4 closings showed a year-over-year gain. Inventory levels have also dropped, says the Douglas Elliman report, which is prepared by Miller Samuel.

“This quarter, there is reason to be hopeful that the significant devaluation we have tracked since the demise of Lehman Brothers is coming to an end,” writes Corcoran CEO Pamela Liebman in her firm’s report, prepared in partnership with PropertyShark.com. Although Q4 prices ebbed on both a year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter basis, “the rate of decline has slowed,” says Hall F. Willkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens, in a release.

the manhattan bleeding slow!

2010-01-05T21:52:00.000+02:00

The aughts are in the past, but it's not time to close the book on one of the craziest decades in New York City real estate history quite yet. The major brokerages have issued their fourth-quarter Manhattan sales reports, and at first, things look predictable: Elliman, Corcoran and sibling brokerages Halstead and Brown Harris Stevens all pegged the average price of a Manhattan apartment at around $1.3 million, and the median price at around $800,000, both down from last year. But the pace of the market's free fall in the wake of Wall Street's apocalypse has slowed, according to the brokerages, when comparing those numbers to the third quarter of '09. In fact, Halstead/BHS even showed increases in average and median sales prices in Q4 when compared to the prior quarter. We certainly didn't see that one coming. Other encouraging signs for our frienemies in suits: All of the brokerages reported increases in sales over both last year and last quarter. In essence, when compared to recent market history, the fourth quarter saw more sales for less money. A stabilization, or a plateau before a double-dip? That's the $64,000 question, which, by the way, still won't buy you anything on this dastardly island

What NYC Real Estate Can $1.2M Buy?

2010-01-03T21:28:00.001+02:00

With a budget of $1.2 million, space and amenities are on the increase as we continue our search of properties currently on the market in New York City. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report.

As we continue to house hunt across the five boroughs, our first stop is in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

664 West 232 Street
Riverdale, Bronx

One of six red brick Georgian style townhouses, this property offers a good deal of space with modern amenities.

"This house is huge. It's 3,664 square feet and its arrayed over five floors," said Brad Trebach of Trebach Realty.

Boies Buys $7.8 Million Manhattan Apartment After Cut

2009-12-31T10:29:00.000+02:00

David Boies, the antitrust lawyer who took on Microsoft Corp. and represented Al Gore in the contested U.S. presidential election of 2000, bought a seven room apartment overlooking New York’s Central Park for $7.75 million after the price was reduced by more than 20 percent.

Boies, chairman and founder of New York-based law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, purchased a two-bedroom unit at the Sherry-Netherland hotel on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, according to city property records. The original asking price was $9.95 million, according to listing service StreetEasy.com.

Sales of luxury Manhattan apartments, defined as the top 10 percent by price, declined 16 percent in the third quarter as the median price of a four-bedroom co-operative or condominium plunged 49 percent to $5.18 million, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Boies is buying into a property where residents are entitled to daily maid and laundry service.

Commercial Real Estate: Now Is the Perfect Time to Invest

2009-12-30T21:21:00.000+02:00

A Contrarian Bet Worth $9.5 Billion

I’m in good company with my projection here.

During last February and March, a hedge fund called Appaloosa Management was busy buying up shares of Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE: C).

And the guy calling the shots was a man named David Tepper, who runs the fund.

At the time, investors, colleagues and even his friends thought he was nuts – a move akin to lounging on the deck of the Titanic while everyone else was abandons ship.

But in yet another example of how it’s often wise to take a contrarian investment stance, the bet not only paid off handsomely for Tepper’s firm, but for Tepper personally. Appaloosa is up nearly $7 billion on the trade, while Tepper stands to pocket a very cool $2.5 billion in profit for himself.

Tepper’s no one-hit wonder either…

His track record includes huge payouts for his investors in Korean stocks, Russian debt, junk bonds and commodities over the last decade.

We should all be so astute…

Perhaps we can be, because there’s still time to get in on his next big idea

GLOBAL HOTEL ROUNDUP

2009-12-29T19:14:00.000+02:00

* apan Airlines subsidiary plans to open 7 inns totaling 2,848 rooms in China, Vietnam and United Arab Emirates over next 2 years.
* Accor opens 400th lodging in Europe.
* Extended stay hotels outperforming big-name inns.
* Occupancy and revenue down worldwide, STR notes.
* Industry's decline may have hit bottom, Hotel Pulse Index hints.

(TOKYO, JAPAN) -- JAL Hotels Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Japan Airlines plans to open seven hotels totaling 2,848 rooms in China, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates over the next two years.

Nikko Hotels International, operated by JAL, is developing the properties.

Hotel-Nikko-Shanghai.jpg

Hotel Nikko Shanghai
Hotels scheduled to open in 2010 are 471-room Hotel JAL Tower Dubai; the 388-room Hotel Nikko Shanghai and the 500-room Hotel Nikko Wuxi.

Heading the 2011 opening list is the 443-room Hotel Nikko Xiamen in Xiamen, a city with a population of three million located in the southwestern province of Fujian overlooking the Taiwan Strait.

Other hotels with 2011 opening dates include the 300-room JAL Bahrain Resort & Spa in Bahrain; the 335-room Hotel Nikko Saigon in Vietnam; the 411-room Nikko Guangzhou.

City Real Estate May Face Smoother Ride In 2010

2009-12-27T23:55:00.000+02:00

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With 2009 coming to an end, real estate experts are trying to forecast what may be in store for both property owners and property seekers in the new year. NY1's Shazia Khan filed the following report.

The city's residential sales market waded though uncertainty, panic and dramatic price drops in 2009 -- so what's in store for 2010? Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York is cautiously optimistic.

"Well 2010 is going to follow basically the last quarter of 2009 and the last quarter according to the first two months of the last quarter are doing pretty well -- sales are up dramatically from a year ago, city-wide condo sales are up 64 percent, co-op sales are up 30 percent versus where they were a year ago," Spinola said.

Manhattan Real Estate Mogul, Elie Hirschfeld: Real Estate Will Continue to Dip in 2010

2009-12-26T10:13:00.000+02:00

New York real estate tycoon, Elie Hirschfeld, President of Hirschfeld Properties, LLC released the following commentary regarding the 2010 Manhattan NYC real estate market.
"Difficulties will continue in the year to come. While I don't foresee a double dip, values will continue to erode modestly," says Elie Hirschfeld, President of Hirschfeld Properties, LLC. "The capital market will slowly come back into real estate, but sellers will need to soften a bit to achieve the realistic sales prices that will persuade investors to invest. That being said, the market is loosening up. Although investors are concerned, there is huge opportunity to benefit from the depreciated property pricing, so many investors are scouring the New York market to scoop up the good deals. Personally, I see opportunities in both commercial and residential."

Stalled condo projects dot NYC

2009-12-25T13:59:00.000+02:00

Stalled condo projects dot NYC

New York City's construction boom went bust so fast some of the condominium buildings are standing unfinished. But proposals to turn them into affordable housing units have been a tough sell. Alisa Roth reports.

Chipotle Owner Pays Extra for the Guacamole of West Village Real Estate

2009-12-12T19:56:00.000+02:00

Chipotle founder and co-CEO Steven Ells made his fortune in other lucky parts of the country before finally slowly introducing his Mexican-burrito chain to New York. But he's taking on personal real estate at the heart of the city, in Manhattan's West Village, in a veritable full-court press. Curbed discovered that Ells has purchased, in the last two years:

• 92 Jane Street: A 5,000-square-foot landmark with a minimalist interior that set him back $13.4 million.
• The penthouse at 40 Fifth Avenue: This four-bedroom, four-bathroom palace with a killer view, which he purchased from Village Voice founding publisher Ed Fancher, only cost him $11 million.

In East Harlem, More Rental Deals, but Smaller Fees

2009-12-08T09:08:00.000+02:00

It was the rhythm of the real estate boom: As apartment rents throughout the city soared, more New Yorkers flooded East Harlem, formerly dominated by Italian and Hispanic residents, looking for affordable apartments. Soon developers eager to cash in on East Harlem’s revival followed, building thousands of new apartments. Then small-business owners like Andre Mauro, 27, and his brother, Matthew, 23, profited as they rented out more of the neighborhood’s old and new spaces.

Now the Mauro brothers — along with the developers they worked for and the tenants they rented to — are feeling the pinch of the recession. Andre Mauro described how the neighborhood where they live and work is suffering.

Record NYC real estate deal now on the rocks

2009-11-04T15:53:00.000+02:00

It was the most expensive real estate deal in U.S. history. Now it's poised to become one of the biggest flops.

At the height of the real estate bubble in 2006, an investment group led by New York City real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty Advisors paid $5.4 billion for a pair of gigantic Manhattan apartment complexes known as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

The price seemed outrageous to many, but the company believed it had a winning strategy: It would aggressively convert thousands of rent-regulated apartments occupied by middle-class families into luxury units that would fetch top dollar.

State lost $250 million on NYC real estate deal

2009-09-06T08:29:00.000+03:00

Florida lost $250 million on a 2007 investment in a Manhattan apartment building, the head of the State Board of Administration told the panel overseeing the board this morning.

Peter Cooper Village in NYC is part of the state’s $99.6 billion portfolio that makes up the state’s pension plan.

The state invested $250 million in the apartment complex, where monthly rents range from $2,625 to $8,333, according to the development’s website.

Less than two years later, the value of the investment is zero, Williams told Gov. Charlie Crist, CFO Alex Sink and AG Bill McCollum, who oversee the SBA.

Manhattan apartment rents down as much as 18% in second quarter

2009-08-06T01:53:00.001+03:00

Tenants are pressing hard for rent discounts in the troubled Manhattan apartment market and they are getting them, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. Rents have dropped as much as 18% in the second quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier, he said. "Unemployment has had a much more immediate impact on the rental market than the purchase market," Miller said. Bloomberg (07/09) ClipSyndicate (07/09)

Rich Russians Returning to U.S. Property Lured by Lower Prices

2009-07-15T10:44:00.000+03:00

July 15 (Bloomberg) -- Russian millionaires are returning to the U.S. property market, lured by distressed sales and the ruble’s rise against the dollar, lawyer Edward Mermelstein said.

“The way many look at the U.S. right now is that it’s a bargain,” said Mermelstein, who has arranged about 300 real estate deals for buyers from the former Soviet Union since 2007.

Mermelstein, 41, closed two purchases and bid for 20 more residential and commercial properties in New York and Miami for Russian and central Asia clients in the past three months, he said. That compares with no deals or offers in January, he said.

Manhattan taking office rents off 40% in 2Q

2009-06-29T22:26:00.000+03:00

Manhattan office taking rents have fallen by as much as 40 percent from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period in 2009, commercial real estate firm FirstService Williams says in a new report issued today.

While the survey showed average asking rents in Manhattan were down 26 percent quarter-over-quarter, to $58.52 per square foot from $79.39 per square foot, the taking rent fell even more.

"Our measures of taking rents indicate that the average may be down in the range of 35 percent to 40 percent over nearly the same time period," the report says.

The Plaza Stirs

2009-06-20T17:15:00.000+03:00

FEW developments rode the wave of high prices in the Manhattan residential real estate the way the 181 condominium apartments at the Plaza Hotel did, and few have chilled as much in the downturn.

As it happened, the financial panic on Wall Street last September came just as the Plaza, the city’s most expensive condominium conversion ever, per square foot, was hit by a wave of bad publicity.

There were complaints that the finishes and details did not live up to the building’s luxurious image. A lawsuit by a Russian billionaire who signed up for a $53.5 million penthouse alleged “bait and switch” tactics. The suit and a countersuit by the Plaza were later settled.

Big Deal The Undeterred

2009-06-14T17:23:00.000+03:00

THERE are many condominium owners and residential brokers around who remember the downturn in the 1980s, when the only work for brokers seemed to be helping banks with their inventories of unsold apartments. And in the last few months, after sales had fallen off a cliff once more, a handful of weakened small firms closed or were absorbed by larger firms.

But not everyone remembers those bad times, and two young brokerage firms, one specializing in new developments in Brooklyn and the other on Manhattan rentals and resales, have merged in the last few weeks, hoping to use the real estate recession to take on their older, larger and more experienced rivals. Two of the principals are only 32.