Just before Manhattan rents started soaring at the start of the year, Blackstone Group agreed to buy a Frank Gehry-designed apartment tower in the Financial District for $930 million.
Today’s big multifamily buys, however, look different from the high-juice deals of yesterday. Instead of buying older properties with heavy rent-stabilized components and banking on the fix-and-flip model, private equity appears focused on free-market buildings with cash flow.
Blackstone’s purchase of the roughly 900-unit Gehry tower at 8 Spruce Street is the city’s biggest multifamily deal so far this year, and it helped push the market close to a record high.
Manhattan multifamily sales totaled $4.4 …
by Riccardo Ravasini
With this report, we are going to tell you at what prices luxury properties are actually closing and what was their actual negotiability factor, anybody interested in getting a discount?
There were 83 closings at $4 million and above in July 2022, 57 less than June. The Average Closing Price was $8,478,817 up +15%, meanwhile, the Median Closing Price was $5,867,000 down -3.8%. The Negotiability Factor, that is the average discount from the last asking price, was 3.16% practically unchanged from the 3.19% registered during the previous month. The pace of the market was faster since the Average Days On the Market were 108 compared to 220 for the properties …
by Riccardo Ravasini
Miami-Dade County opened the bidding process for a massive 23.7 million square foot Downtown Miami development project called Metrocenter.
One of the main priorities in evaluating bids will be whether the proposals are of world-class urban design, including excellence in architecture, walkability, and if they are transit-oriented (Metrorail, Metromover, Brightline and others are either at or adjacent to the properties). The county will also evaluate whether proposals are of the highest and best use, with uses such as housing, commercial, hospitality, and retail that contribute to the economic base of the area.
The historic Dade County Courthouse is not included in …
by Riccardo Ravasini
The net effective median rent (face rent minus landlord concessions) surged +33.4% year over year to $4,100, exceeding the $4,000 threshold for the first time and reaching a new high for the seventh consecutive month. While the net effective average rent, up +31.5%, reached $5,051, exceeding the $5,000 threshold for the first time ever.
As a result, the market share of landlord concessions fell to 12.8%, down -26.3% from the same period last year, the lowest level in nearly six years.
New signed leases expanded month over month for the fifth straight time to 5,318 but were still down 30% from …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
David Beckham’s proposed Major League Soccer stadium and surrounding mixed-use development just cleared another hurdle.
The Miami Urban Development Review Board approved designs for the 25,000-seat stadium and nearly 5,000-car parking garage, as well as the master plan for the broader project, which includes a hotel, offices and a public park.
The decision is another milestone for the Miami Freedom Park project, a permanent home for the Inter Miami CF soccer club that’s been nine years in the making and …
by Riccardo Ravasini 
Finally, good news for New York City’s office landlords as office occupancy pushed past 40 percent for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The Kastle Back to Work Barometer increased to 41.2 percent; Kastle Systems measures office occupancy by entry into office buildings.
“This is good news for our city’s recovery as the presence of office workers in the central business district is critical for retail, restaurants and other storefront businesses hit hard by the pandemic,” James …
by Riccardo Ravasini