A trio of developers in South Florida are unveiling fresh renderings of their luxury condo developments in Sunny Isles Beach, Sunrise and Palm Beach.

Muse

Property Markets Group and S2 Development just released new renderings of the entrance and drop-off area and the residents’ lounge at Muse Residences in Sunny Isles Beach.

Architect Carlos Ott, along with Sieger Suarez Architects, designed the 68-unit, 49-story tower at 17141 Collins Avenue. It’s slated to open next year. The luxury condo project is about 76 percent sold with 16 units remaining, according to a spokesperson.

Condos at Muse range from $4.8 million to $17.5 million. Earlier this year, the developers partnered with alternative medicine advocate Dr. Deepak Chopra to sell “wellness packages” for some unit owners starting at $500,000 per unit.

Other amenities include a gym on the third floor, sauna, children’s play room, a “farm to table” lounge for residents, outdoor pool cafe and pet services. Antrobus & Ramirez is designing the interiors of the common areas, and Troy Dean Interiors will handle the units’ interiors. Custom artwork by Helidon Xhixha is also available to residents.

3550 South Ocean

Developer DDG is building 3550 South Ocean, a seven-story, 30-unit condo development in South Palm Beach.

The project, designed by Garcia Stromberg and Kobi Karp Architecture, is about 20 percent presold since launching sales last year. Units start at nearly $1.9 million, and presales are being handled by Douglas Elliman.

Condos will range from 2,500 square feet to 3,400 square feet, according to a press release. The penthouses have rooftop terraces, while all unit owners will have access to a beachfront swimming pool, sundeck with a fire pit and outdoor kitchen, plus a fitness center.

Metropica

Metropica One just released a new rendering of its spa.

Developer Joseph Kavana is building the 263-unit, 28-story tower at 1800 Northwest 136th Avenue in Sunrise. It’s the first of eight residential buildings planned for the master-planned community in west Broward.

Metropica One, previously called Yoo at Metropica, will have units ranging from 740 square feet to 1,369 square feet with prices ranging from $380,000 to $1.25 million. One Sotheby’s International Realty is handling sales for the condo tower.

Kavana secured a $64.5 million construction loan for the building earlier this year. In all, the $1.5 billion, 4-million-square-foot development will have more than 1,400 residential units, retail, dining and entertainment space, a wellness and fitness facility, a Central Park, public spaces, and recreational amenities.

Homes

A new survey by Realtor.com reveals that residential housing inventory for sale has hit a 20-year low.

Baby boomers, content with their homes, don’t seem to be putting their houses on the market anytime soon, USA Today reported. Realtor.com’s survey showed that 85 percent of baby boomers said they had no plans to trade homes in the next year. The survey gathered data from 1,054 homeowners throughout the country between July 6 and July 13. Overall, 59 percent of those surveyed said they had no plans to sell their homes.

That reluctance has contributed to the inventory slump. The National Association of Realtors reported a 4.3 month supply of homes in the United States in June. That compares to a 4.6 month supply in June 2016. Six months is considered a normal inventory, according to USA Today.

“The housing shortage forced many first-time homebuyers to consider smaller homes and condos as a way to literally get their foot in the door,” Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale told the newspaper. “Our survey data reveals that we may see more of these homes hitting the market in the next year, but whether these owners actually list will depend on whether they can find another home.”

New inventory is also unlikely to emerge. Earlier this week, the U.S. labor department announced that construction job openings had increased from 163,000 in May of this year to 225,000 in June. The labor shortage will likely make it harder for developers to find workers to build new housing. [USA Today]  — Grace Guarnieri

Renderings and photos of the warehouse and broker Carlos Fausto Miranda

UPDATED, Aug. 11, 1:10 p.m.: The owner of a popular Miami Beach restaurant is looking to sell a development site in Allapattah for $21 million.

A company led by Tonino Doino, who owns Rosinella Italian Trattoria on Lincoln Road, is listing the 101,000-square-foot building at 1109 Northwest 22nd Street in Miami’s Allapattah neighborhood. It can also be split into four sections and sold individually, listing broker Carlos Fausto Miranda said. The land totals about 80,000 square feet.

Doino, an Italian restaurateur who also owns the Sunset Juice Cafe, Rosinella Market and Due Baci in the Sunset Harbour neighborhood, planned to hold onto the site as a long-term investment but instead will invest proceeds from the sale into a business in Italy, according to Rosinella general manager Peter Saliamonas.

Property records show Doino’s Miami Avenue Holding Company LLC paid $950,000 for the 87,300-square-foot warehouse in 2012 and $700,000 for the smaller, adjacent nearly 6,000-square-foot building at 1101 Northwest 22nd Street last year, which comes out to a combined $1.65 million. That means the restaurateur wants to sell it for $19.35 million more than he paid between 2012 and 2016. Miranda said the owner invested at least $3 million rehabbing the warehouse.

The building is in the heart of Allapattah, near Robert Wennett’s assemblage and the Rubell Family Collection’s new art museum at 1100 Northwest 23rd Street, which is slated to open in time for Art Basel next year. Wennett, who recently sold 1111 Lincoln for $283 million, paid $16 million for a combined 9.72 acres of land that made up the old Miami Allapattah produce market, which includes two large warehouses. He has yet to release his plans for the properties.

Doino’s building could be converted into a creative arts, food and beverage complex, Miranda said. It’s zoned D2 for industrial development.

Other investors in the Miami neighborhood include Michael Simkins, and commercial broker Lyle Stern, who now owns three warehouses in Allapattah. The city of Miami recently rezoned much of Allapattah T6-8, which allows for mixed-use buildings to be built up to eight stories with 150 units per acre. 

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the Rubell Family Collection plans to open its new art museum this year. It expects to open the museum in December 2018. 

1680 Meridian Avenue and Michael Schwartz

Michael Schwartz is grabbing a slice of Meridian Center.

The chef’s popular Harry’s Pizzeria just signed a lease to open a new eatery at the building, just off Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, The Real Deal has learned.

The pizzeria will occupy 2,500 square feet at 1680 Meridian Avenue, according to Koniver Stern Group’s Lyle Stern, who represented Market Street Real Estate Partners, the owners of the ground-floor units. The space is one of two formerly occupied by Keller Williams Realty and South Beach International Realty.

Stern declined to disclose financial terms of the lease. Gary Rosenberg of Rosenberg Realty represented Harry’s Pizzeria.

Harry’s has been looking for a location near Lincoln Road for some time, Stern said. It currently has three locations, in the Miami Design District, Coconut Grove and at Downtown Dadeland. Schwartz plans to expand to Aventura, Sunrise, Atlanta and Cleveland.

Sara Wolfe of Koniver Stern said Miami Beach has approved opening the storefront at 1680 Meridian Avenue and creating a raised patio for outdoor seating. The restaurant is slated to open in a year.

Shops and restaurants have been increasingly expanding to the side streets off Lincoln Road in recent years, attracted in part by lower rents. Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn opened this spring at 1691 Michigan Avenue. Marshalls also launched its new store at Terranova Corp.’s 723 Lincoln Lane, above the future site of a ground-floor food hall. And Anthropologie is expected to open its new store at Terranova’s 801 Lincoln Road later this month.

Also in the works: an extension of 1111 Lincoln Road along Lenox Avenue that has been fully leased to five tenants: Rosetta Bakery, the coffee shop La Colombe, the apparel retailer Alchemist, the gift shop Jo Malone — which just opened — and Chotto Matte, a restaurant chain based in London.

Lincoln Road is set to receive a facelift that will include enlarging sidewalks and planting trees along the pedestrian promenade and enhancing the adjoining streets — all part of the Lincoln Road Master Plan designed by James Corner Field Operations. The Miami Beach Convention Center is also undergoing a renovation and an expansion.

FHFA Director Melvin Watt

If you’ve been waiting for the long-anticipated news that the two dominant players in the home mortgage arena — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — finally have decided to overhaul their outdated credit scoring systems to expand homeownership opportunities for a broader range of consumers, sorry. Your wait just got a lot longer.

There will be no modernization of the mortgage giants’ controversial scoring systems before mid-2019 at the earliest, according to Fannie’s and Freddie’s top government regulator.

Melvin Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, disclosed last week that despite intense pressure from Congress and homeownership advocacy groups, he plans no changes in the next two years. This means retention of the existing system that uses FICO scoring models that are widely considered out of date, and a continued requirement that mortgage lenders underwrite homebuyer applicants exclusively using scoring versions that even their developer, FICO, would prefer to replace.

Some quick background: FICO scores, which range from 300 to 850, predict the relative risk of default on loan applications, based on information from consumers’ credit files. Low scores indicate greater risk; high scores less risk.

Since the adoption of credit scoring by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in the mid-1990s, FICO (formerly known as Fair Isaac Co.) has introduced a series of newer versions designed to improve the predictive accuracy of its scores.

Fannie’s and Freddie’s models date to the early years of the past decade and have long been superseded by more consumer-friendly versions. For example, the latest FICO model ignores score-depressing items found in many consumers’ credit files such as paid-off collections, and is more lenient on medical bill collection accounts.

Several years ago, members of Congress and a coalition of housing advocacy groups began complaining that Fannie’s and Freddie’s reliance on outdated scoring models is harmful, and urged the two companies to upgrade their systems.

They also noted that at least one major competitor to FICO, VantageScore Solutions, offers a model that claims to score 30 million-plus consumers with minimal data on file at the credit bureaus who currently are “unscoreable” or invisible to older FICO models. VantageScore says if added to Fannie’s and Freddie’s menus, its model could “expand mortgage lending to Hispanics and African-Americans to purchase homes by 16 percent.”

Under the direction of Watt, Fannie and Freddie have studied the possibility of updating and expanding their scoring technologies for the past two years, but have continued to insist that all lenders use only the older FICO models they prescribe. They have also declined to upgrade to any of FICO’s more advanced versions — a move that FICO itself supports. Part of the reason for the reluctance to change, according to industry experts, is the substantial cost of retooling underwriting systems and potential complications for bond investors.

Watt said that while he endorses the goal of expanding access to mortgage credit for more people, any abrupt departure from Fannie’s and Freddie’s current technologies would be “a serious mistake.” Watt said the earliest practical time for any change would be in two years, when the two companies plan jointly to introduce a new platform for mortgage bond market offerings. Watt also expressed concern that using “competing credit scores” could lead to “a race to the bottom with competitors competing for more and more customers.”

Reaction to Watt’s disclosure was swift and generally critical. Lisa Rice, executive vice president of the National Fair Housing Alliance, said “this delay will further deny the opportunity of middle and moderate income families, and in particular families of color, to access credit in the financial mainstream.” Barrett Burns, president and CEO of VantageScore Solutions, told me “we’re disappointed there isn’t more enthusiasm about getting into competing scoring models … no sense of urgency. Where’s the consumer in all this? The consumer is being left out.”

FICO had a different perspective. Though the company would prefer that clients use its most advanced scoring models, “we applaud the fact that they are doing this due diligence” before radically changing their systems, said Joanne Gaskin, FICO’s senior director of scores and analytics, because the process “really is more complex than most people realize.” Plus the costs are daunting. “We’ve heard price tags of hundreds of millions” of dollars for some large players in the mortgage market. “It’s not a small undertaking.”

Bottom line: For the next two years at least, when it comes to credit scoring, Fannie and Freddie are sticking with what they’ve got. Outmoded or not.

The Oasis Terraces housing complex in Singapore and the original cast of “Rent”

From TRD New York: How to tell if one has made it in America? See if they own a home. For decades, homeownership has been one of the cornerstones of the American dream, and the U.S. housing market was the envy of the world. But that’s changed.

The federal mortgage subsidy complex, which turned (white) America into a nation of homeowners in the postwar decades and helped build the world’s largest middle class, is no longer doing what it’s supposed to. Faced with stagnating wages and ballooning property prices, fewer Americans can afford to buy their own homes. The mortgage interest deduction and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are turning into regressive subsidies, channeling taxpayer money to rich homeowners and driving up housing costs while a growing group of middle-income renters must fend for themselves. Rent-stabilization laws have become weaker over time. And New York is dealing with a crumbling public housing infrastructure.

“I wish it were triage,” NYCHA head Shola Olatoye told the New York Times in 2014. “It’s beyond triage.”

If the American dream is all about using homeownership to give more citizens a crack at the country’s wealth, that dream is drowning. What can save it?

It’s worth looking to other countries for solutions. This may be a hard concept to stomach: Pride aside, there’s always been the argument that the U.S. is just so different that foreign concepts won’t work here. Here’s the thing though: this country has successfully adopted foreign models in the past. It can do so again.

The German model: embrace the rent

There are two ways to respond to falling U.S. homeownership rates. Either you try to get them up again (more on that below), or you embrace the trend. And why not? There’s no economic law that says real property is always the best investment. In fact, there’s an argument to be made that most Americans would be better off renting and putting their savings into stocks or bonds. That, at least, is the German model.

At 51.9 percent (as of 2015), Germany has one of the lowest homeownership rates among developed countries, according to Eurostat. Forty percent of German households live in private-sector rental apartments, according to a recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research. There’s a reason: tenant-protection laws are a lot stronger than in other countries. Landlords are required to keep rents flat for the first year of a lease and can raise them by no more than 20 percent over a three-year period thereafter. Evictions are virtually impossible unless the tenant fails to pay rent or the landlord wants to move into the apartment herself.

In the U.S. “If you rent, you’re looked down on,” said Michael McKee of advocacy group TenantsPAC. But as more Americans resign themselves to renting, that sentiment becomes harder to justify. Germany’s model of a tenant-friendly rental market could conceivably work well in the U.S., in part because some of its features already exist here. New York, for example, had a vaguely similar system of rent stabilization until the 1990s and Alameda’s city council recently passed a “just-cause” bill to protect tenants from evictions. “I don’t buy the argument that only people who own their own homes are responsible citizens,” McKee said.

The common knock against stronger tenant-protection laws is that it can make it harder for landlords to make money, which could discourage new construction and create a housing shortage. But Germany found a way to avoid that by keeping rent caps fairly flexible. And when it passed a so-called rent brake for the country’s largest cities in 2015, which caps the rent for new leases at 10 percent above a neighborhood’s median rent and limits three-year increases to 15 percent, it excluded new developments.  This helps explain why housing in Germany is still highly affordable: a mere 23 percent of renting households pay more than 40 percent of their income in rent, compared to 33 percent in Britain, according to the IPPR study. In the U.S., 48 percent of renting households pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing and 25 percent pay more than 50 percent, according to 2015 data collected by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Low homeownership rates and a well-regulated rental market have also helped keep German home prices fairly stable over the past decades and help the country avoid the foreclosure crisis that hit other countries a decade ago.

The Singaporean model: American Dream, supercharged

The U.S. could also bet the farm on homeownership, and the most extreme role model of that is Singapore. Its homeownership rate is an astounding 90 percent, thanks to a government entity called Housing Development Board. Founded in 1960, HDB owns the vast majority of land in the city state and used much of it to build public housing. Most public apartments are sold off to citizens in the form of 99-year leaseholds, subsidized by a government fund that employees and employers contribute to (not unlike a 401K). Means-tested government grants go to low-income buyers, who pay about two-thirds less than what they would in private markets. Once Singaporeans own a unit, they can choose to resell it. HDB home prices in Singapore “were remarkably resilient and continued to increase while private housing prices fell” during the 2008 financial crisis, according to a 2016 paper by the Asian Development Bank Institute.

In a sense, Singapore achieved what the U.S. attempted to: building a country of homeowners. Joseph Stiglitz, an economist at Columbia University, cited the homeownership program as one of the ways in which Singapore offers “lessons for an unequal America.”

It’s clear the HDB model would not fly in the U.S., given its aversion to public ownership of anything and the legal challenges of eminent domain. But it offers lessons on how to improve housing policy here. One is to cap benefits like the mortgage-interest deduction and Fannie/Freddie backed mortgages at a certain income level to make sure subsidies go to those actually in need. Another is to rethink the purpose of public housing.

“The Singapore model is based on a premise that deep public investment in housing is going to support a country’s economy and create a sense of belonging” among citizens, said Solomon Greene, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. In Singapore, public housing is seen as a tool for wealth creation. In the U.S., it’s a crutch. “Maybe there is a role for expanded government support for affordable housing to promote economic development,” Greene added.

Most U.S. public housing programs peg rental payments to income, meaning residents face rent hikes or even the threat of losing their units if they rise up the ladder. And the danger of losing benefits once they move out of their unit is a powerful disincentive to move to new cities in search of jobs, which hurts the economy.

So why not grant public housing residents ownership of their apartments and give them the choice over whether to stay, sell or lease out? Perhaps the biggest argument against the model is that it creates a wealth lottery: those lucky enough to be in a public housing unit suddenly own an apartment, while everyone else would be shit out of luck. But public housing is already a benefit lottery anyway, and at the very least this would be an argument in favor of building more public housing.

The best approach for the U.S. might be to combine the two. Couple German tenant protection and rent-stabilization laws (while learning from the country’s failure to strictly enforce the rules) with the Singaporean way of using public housing as a wealth-redistribution tool. And why stop there? Chile, for example, offers a 5-year flat-rate housing voucher program to young families with household heads aged 18 to 30 who are trying to find a financial footing. In the U.S., this happens to be the demographic struggling most with the sober reality of the new housing market.

Looking to countries that have got it right might help the U.S. tackle its own crisis. But step one will be accepting the idea that it’s okay to rent.

Enrique Bernoldi and his former Continuum unit

Eddy Martinez and Roland Ortiz

Former Formula 1 driver Enrique Bernoldi just sold his Miami Beach condo for $6 million, a 24 percent discount off the original asking price.

The Brazilian professional race car driver sold the three-bedroom, 2,508-square-foot unit to an undisclosed Canadian buyer, said listing agent Eddy Martinez of Worldwide Properties. Martinez and Roland Ortiz co-listed unit 1006 in the south tower of the luxury condo development at 100 South Pointe Drive. It hit the market in January for $7.9 million and was reduced to $7.25 million.

Sorah Daiha of Douglas Elliman represented the buyer, who owns other properties in Miami and was looking to purchase a unit in the Continuum. It sold for nearly $2,400 per square foot.

Bernoldi’s MBRB Investments LLC paid $5.55 million for the condo in 2014, property records show. He  invested more than $1 million into the unit, including its design, floor plan, media, technology and furnishings. The unit, which includes a 718-square-foot wraparound terrace, sold furnished.

The Continuum, completed in 2001, sits on a 12.5-acre waterfront site with three tennis courts, an 18,000-square-foot gym and spa, a private beach club and restaurant.

Bernoldi is in the process of buying another home in South Florida, Martinez said. He’s among a handful of professional drivers to call the Miami area home, including IndyCar driver Helio Castroneves, F1 driver Eddie Irvine and IndyCar racer Milka Duno.

From top, clockwise: Developer Larry Silverstein, Mort Zuckerman, Jeff Greene, Harry Macklowe and wife Linda, Sheldon Solow, Gwen Stefani, Stephen Schwarzman and Rod Stewart

From TRD New York: There were live camels, trapeze artists, a 12-minute fireworks display and an enormous birthday cake carved in the shape of a Chinese temple.

Blackstone boss Stephen Schwarzman’s 70th-birthday party, hosted at his Palm Beach mansion in February, drew dozens of high-profile guests including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, art dealer Larry Gagosian and billionaire businessman David Koch. Many of them cheered as Gwen Stefani crooned “Happy Birthday” at the end of the night.

The party, which may have cost upwards of $10 million, per some estimates, was a blatant show of exhibitionism, and not Schwarzman’s first. For his 60th birthday in 2007, he paid to have Rod Stewart — who reportedly commands up to $1 million for a private show — perform at his bash. Gawker cheekily referred to that party as a giant “grown-up bar mitzvah.”

Schwarzman, of course, ranks as one of private equity and real estate’s wealthiest players, having earned $425 million last year from his salary and dividends tied to his ownership stake in Blackstone. His net worth is now pegged at $12.4 billion, according to Forbes. And he’s not alone in wanting to live the high life.

Whether it’s yachts, planes and horses or Schwarzman-style entertainment and off-the-wall hobbies, many of real estate’s heaviest hitters take pride in their expensive pursuits outside of acquisitions and development. And with the last financial crisis nearly 10 years in the rear-view, as the stock market hovers at record highs, many New York property moguls are seeing little reason to enjoy life under the radar — despite softening real estate values.

After the market collapsed in 2008, there was “a lot of belt-tightening,” said Winston Chesterfield, a director at the financial research firm Wealth-X. “Following that, you had many psychological attacks on the wealthy and their lifestyles, including anti-1 percent marches, that also caused them to take more of a subtle approach to spending,” he added. “That sense of personal austerity has now relented, and spending on luxury goods has picked up since.”

In some ways, property titans are leading that push. Roughly 4.3 percent of the world’s ultrahigh-net-worth individuals (categorized as people with investable assets of $30 million or more) made their money in real estate, according to Wealth-X. Those industry players have an average net worth of $193 million, while the top 30 have a combined net worth of $240 billion.

From Harry Macklowe’s alleged $1 billion art collection to David Levinson’s stake in the Yankees, The Real Deal delved into some of the most extravagant hobbies of real estate’s A-list.

Lots of yachts

Island Capital Group chief Andrew Farkas may know as much about superyachts as he does about real estate securities.

Michael Shvo was hit last year with tax evasion charges tied to his art collection, jewelry and a Ferrari.

The billionaire executive has controlled marinas in some of the toniest Caribbean destinations — including St. Thomas and St. Maarten — since he launched his firm’s subsidiary Island Global Yachting in 2005. The idea for the marina business stemmed from his own passion for the sea: As an avid yachtsman, he reportedly found that it was troublesome to find docks big enough for boats of up to 450 feet.

It’s a hobby that comes at a significant cost. In addition to the colossal price tags — the most expensive superyachts run up to $500 million — owners pay an estimated 10 percent of a boat’s initial price each year to keep it running, including millions in fuel, maintenance, repairs and crew salaries. The insurance company Towergate pegs average annual dockage fees at $350,000 and insurance at $240,000, which means owning a dock and renting it out to fellow bigwigs can be a profitable endeavor.

Still, Farkas isn’t the only real estate executive with a penchant for high-end boats. Other yacht owners in the real estate industry include developers Nathan Berman and Larry Silverstein.

Silverstein owns a 180-foot yacht called Silver Shalis, named after his daughters Sharon and Lisa. The World Trade Center developer has docked the ship at Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, and in Antibes in the South of France.

“The superyacht experience is one area where people go, ‘I don’t mind losing a bit of money over time, because it’s worth the experience,’” Chesterfield said. “After all, it’s a depreciating asset.”

In plane sight

About 15 percent of ultrahigh-net-worth individuals use private planes for the bulk of their flights, per an international wealth report compiled by the London-based real estate services firm Knight Frank. That includes a handful of prominent real estate players, including President Donald Trump and developers Jeff Greene, Kevin Maloney and Mort Zuckerman.

Zuckerman, co-founder and chairman of Boston Properties, reportedly owns a $60 million Gulfstream G550, a business jet that costs about $5,000 an hour to operate, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Maloney, founder of the development firm Property Markets Group, even flies his high-speed jet turbine himself — usually to and from his office in Florida. Maloney told TRD in 2014 that he got into flying, ironically, because of his fear of flying.

“I was living with a woman at the time, and we went to Italy on vacation,” he said. “I think I’d taken a Xanax, an Ambien and a few glasses of wine and I was still awake wondering what was happening with the airplane. You’re not in charge, so it’s very uncomfortable for me. She said, ‘I think it’s a control thing.’ She bought me a flying lesson for my birthday that year.”

Meanwhile, billionaire real estate entrepreneur Greene reportedly sparked outrage in 2015 when he flew to Davos on his private jet  for a conference of billionaires. He arrived with his family and two nannies for his kids, only to later be quoted saying that “America’s lifestyle expectations are far too high and need to be adjusted.”

Greene told TRD several years ago that traveling in his Cessna Caravan seaplane — which he houses in the Hamptons — dramatically cuts his commute from the East End to Manhattan. It takes just 35 minutes by air, Greene noted, and he lands the more than $2 million Cessna on the bay right outside his Sag Harbor compound.

He said he was inspired to purchase the plane after seeing the singer Jimmy Buffett landing his plane on the same stretch of water.

The classics

In the ongoing divorce battle between 432 Park Avenue developer Harry Macklowe and his estranged wife, Linda, no asset seems to have gained quite as much attention as their reported $1 billion art collection. Macklowe claims he paid for every single piece in the collection — which includes works by Mark Rothko, Franz Kline and Gerhard Richter — and should therefore be the one to hold on to it.

Indeed, nothing seems to go hand in hand with real estate quite like art, which can often be used as business collateral.

“These real estate developers didn’t get to where they are without being investment-savvy,” said Emily Santangelo, a New York art consultant. “Art started as a passion when they began making good money, and they quickly realized the value-add that comes with putting them in their projects.”

Among the New York real estate crowd, Sheldon Solow is widely said to have the most significant collection of postwar art. And most of the pieces were purchased decades ago, which means he makes a hefty profit every time he sells one. In 2015, Solow sold a bronze Alberto Giacometti sculpture titled “The Pointing Man” for $126 million.

Developer Edward Minskoff, whose mother was a sculptor, has a collection of more than 500 pieces, including a 6,600-pound Jeff Koons sculpture of a red rabbit, which he exhibits at his 51 Astor Place office building. A 12,000-pound sculpture from his collection by Isamu Noguchi was installed in Hudson Square near the Holland Tunnel last December.

But for a few in the business, collecting has become a hefty legal burden. Broker-turned-developer Michael Shvo was indicted on tax evasion charges related to his extensive art collection in September 2016 and still faces up to a year in prison. He was charged with scheming to evade payment of more than $1 million in taxes related to purchases of fine art, furniture, jewelry and a Ferrari, the indictment from the Manhattan district attorney’s office shows.

His art collection includes pieces from Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Frank Stella and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, whose sheep sculptures dot Shvo’s Time Warner Center apartment.

Likewise, Aby Rosen of RFR Holding had to pay $7 million last year to settle a case brought by the New York attorney general, who alleged he’d failed to pay taxes on $80 million in artwork that he had bought or commissioned between 2002 and 2016.

Others in the real estate world said they’re more content with wine than an expensive art collection.

“I have a nice collection. About 2,000 bottles,” Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital group head Alan Wiener recently told TRD. “I’m very eclectic. I like to find interesting wines. Anyone can go out and buy a great Bordeaux. I buy stuff from the South of France, a lot of Rieslings from Alsace and Germany, Chateauneufs, Spanish wine.”

All a game?

One of the riskiest hobbies for those who specialize in glass-and-steel towers and concrete numbers may be acquiring a stake in a professional sports team.

While athletes often make millions, the sports business can lead to brutal financial losses on the ownership side, and many investors struggle to break even. But real estate scion Jed Walentas, who heads Two Trees Management, seems to have picked a clear winner.

Miami developer Gil Dezer driving one of his many cars into in his condo in the Porsche Design Tower.

Walentas recently described being a part owner of the San Francisco Giants as “fantasy camp” — the team has won three World Series titles since he purchased a stake 10 years ago.

With a $2.25 billion valuation, Forbes ranked the Giants as the third most valuable franchise in Major League Baseball in 2016.

Other team owners in New York real estate include the likes of Jonathan Tisch, co-chairman of the board of Loews Corporation, whose family owns the New York Giants, and L&L Holding’s David Levinson, who owns a stake in the New York Yankees.

“I did it solely for love of baseball and the Yankees,” Levinson told TRD last month. “I have no involvement at all in team operations. The financial gains come from an increase in the team’s value.”

“Sport franchises have gone up in value by a great deal over the years, like land values in New York City,” he argued. “You just need to be in it for the long term.”

While the Kushners have notoriously flirted with buying a professional baseball team on more than one occasion — the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012 and the Miami Marlins in 2017— no deals ever came to fruition.

Something different

Until the start of the decade, Daun Paris and her husband, Peter Hauspurg, the founders of Eastern Consolidated, raised llamas on a farm in Bedford, New York. But they sold the property to Newmark Knight Frank’s Barry Gosin for $9.4 million in 2010 after their kids went off to college.

These days, Paris said, she makes her own 22-carat gold jewelry and even invested in building out an equipped studio in her apartment after taking classes from a jewelry pro a few years ago.

“We use old artisan techniques,” she explained. “We make the gold kernels, every aspect. Some people work in silver, but I like the patina of a 22-carat gold piece.”

New York real estate mogul Alex Sapir, meanwhile, spends some of his free time performing at nightclubs as an electronic dance music DJ.

Billionaire Gristedes Foods owner and Red Apple Group Chairman John Catsimatidis is a gun enthusiast — he once captured one of three robbers who tried to hold up one of his grocery stores, on 84th Street  and York Avenue — while Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. enjoy big-game hunting in Africa, a pastime that has sparked outrage on social media on multiple occasions.

And then there’s Winston Fisher, of the family real estate firm Fisher Brothers, who told TRD that he recently completed seven marathons in seven days on seven different continents. He and a group of fellow adrenaline junkies chartered a Russian transport jet to Antarctica, where they stayed at a glacier camp and ran in 25-knot winds. They then completed marathons in Miami, Madrid, Marrakesh, South America, Dubai and Australia. The group, which included Olympian Ryan Hall, finished up on Manly Beach near Sydney, where Fisher ran the final marathon in four hours and 10 minutes, his personal best. “It’s not cheap,” Fisher admitted, “especially when you’re chartering an old Russian cargo jet. But I like to do something that scares me.”

Scott Durkin riding one of his five Friesian horses

On top of the travel expenses, Fisher also had to invest in preparations. He hired Jimmy Riccitello, an Ironman cycling official, to put him through his paces. “[I’m] not winging it,” he quipped.

But when it comes to extravagance, Miami-based developer Gil Dezer, the son of Israeli-American real estate tycoon Michael Dezer, takes personal spending to new levels. His private Porsche collection — apart from the more than 1,200 cars he and his father keep in their Miami Auto Museum — is reportedly worth millions, and each car is painted a signature shade of silver. His most expensive ride is a $1.5 million Bugatti Veyron, one of just 450 ever made.

Dezer’s 60-story Porsche Design Tower in Miami even includes an auto elevator, known as “the Dezervator,” which allows him to park his vehicle inside his condo. Dezer also reportedly owns a $17 million Gulfstream IV private jet, which he retrofitted with seats similar to those in his Ferrari 458 Italia for $55,000 apiece, he told CNBC last year.

Horse play

SL Green Realty CEO Marc Holliday is an avid horse racer and has scored millions with his gray filly named Love Train. His Blue Devil Racing Stable in Scarsdale — named after his high school lacrosse team — focuses on breeding and raising racehorses. He and his wife also support Akindale Farm, a rescue and retirement destination for horses in Pawling, New York.

 Newmark Knight Frank’s Jeff Gural is also a major presence in the racing world. The real estate mogul, who owns the Meadowlands Racetrack as well as Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs upstate, told TRD in 2012 that his passion for the sport goes all the way back to his childhood.

Gural recently declared that he would begin out-of-competition testing for cobalt — an alleged performance enhancer for horses — and has banned some trainers from racing at his three Standardbred tracks.

 And Scott Durkin, Douglas Elliman’s chief operating officer, told TRD last month that he owns five Friesian horses, which he keeps at a stable in the Hudson Valley. Well-bred Friesians can run in the tens of thousands of dollars apiece.

“It all started at the Hamptons Classic 10 years ago,” he said. “The Friesians were the most beautiful, serene creatures I’d ever seen. Think Michelle Pfeiffer in ‘Ladyhawke.’”

Durkin, who competes in dressage with his aptly named stallion Durk, said it’s a pricey sport. “For each horse, it’s like having a kid in private school,” he said. “You can’t get into it for the money — they don’t appreciate.”

The breed of the horse is very important, the Elliman executive noted. “You want a Dutch warmblood or a German warmblood,” he explained. “I liken them to a great prewar building with beautiful bones.”

FIU Inset: Airbnb founders Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and Brian Chesky

The hotel industry’s campaign against Airbnb and other online short-term rentals has taken a new turn.

Florida International University, a state university that gets some of its funding from Florida taxpayers, has dropped out of an American Hotel and Lodging Association-funded research project on the safety and security of short-term rentals, the Miami Herald reported.

The university blamed a dispute with the hotel association over the copyright for the research and control of the information. FIU is walking away from a $68,210 grant, according to the Herald.

“It’s important that we maintain the copyright for any material that we do so we can determine how that material will be used. We don’t do work for other people to just produce an outcome,” Mike Hampton, dean of FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, told the Herald. “We want to make sure the integrity of the data is always maintained.”

Last year, FIU’s involvement with the AHLA was made public after leaked documents revealed the hotel association’s intentions to “advance a national narrative” to regulate short-term rentals. FIU was one of several universities bidding to conduct research sponsored by the hotel association. A CBRE study was also listed in the documents.

According to a statement by the AHLA, the association will be seeking other research partners to fill FIU’s place in the project. It said the study on the safety of short-term rentals is “important research,” according to the Herald

Last month, at a national telephone press conference, watchdog blog Checks & Balances, which is partly funded by Airbnb, criticized FIU for what appeared to be “pay to play” contracts, according to FloridaPolitics.com.

Legislation curbing Airbnb is spreading throughout the nation as politicians take steps towards regulating online home-sharing companies. Miami-Dade and Broward counties recently started collecting tourist taxes on all short-term rentals. Miami and Miami Beach are among the cities that have recently implemented strict restrictions on short-term rentals.  [Miami Herald] – Amanda Rabines

From left: Steve Gold, Fredrik Eklund and Ryan Serhant

From TRD New York: It’s been a season of ups and downs for our three heroes. Listings have come and gone, tears have been shed and beards have been grown longer, and grayer.

On this final episode of “Million Dollar Listing New York,” Fredrik rings in his 40th birthday with sales at 75 Kenmare and some very important baby news. Ryan remembers what it’s like to live a little, and Steve makes the most of his trip to Paris.

And Luis shows up, too!

Risky business

Ryan hasn’t quite felt like himself lately — and it’s not something that sunsets and sitting on the couch can fix. He tries to remind himself of the good ole days, when real estate didn’t feel so routine, by taking on a more modest listing. The seller, an older gentleman named John, isn’t so modest when it comes to the price of his Midtown apartment, which has hit the market for $2.25 million. Despite John ridding his home of every single last piece of furniture, Ryan manages to reel in an all-cash, full-ask offer. Good enough for John? Think again.

Upon hearing the good news, John changes his mind. He won’t accept $2.25 million — but he will take $2.4 million for the apartment. Ryan tries to convince him otherwise, warning him that the buyer might rescind their offer due to the unexpected price hike. But John doesn’t care — life’s all about the risk, baby!

“Sometimes in life, if you really want to feel better about the direction you’re going — screw it, take a risk!” John says.

Yeah, screw it!

Ryan places a call to the buyer’s representative, and it goes as expected. Only the whole risk thing begins to strike a chord with him. What’s life without a little bit of risk? Maybe this is what Ryan has been missing lately? He calls the broker back, only it’s Ryan who’s in charge this time! He comes off like a tween telling off his parents for the first time, but the expletive-filled rant seems to do the trick. The buyer bumps their offer up to $2.38 million.

Following the deal, and a valuable life lesson from John, Ryan catches the risk-taking bug. He confides in Emilia that he’s thinking about purchasing Online Homes, a 30-agent brokerage in Brooklyn. It’s a lot of money and a lot of work — and it would mean Ryan would have to sacrifice even more time with her. But she lets him pursue it, because who can deal with his existential angst all the time?

Paris can’t wait

Fredrik is off to races with 75 Kenmare, and where better to sell New York City condos than in France? Duh! But Freddie can’t return from across the pond until he sells 25 percent of the project. Did you hear the interiors have been designed by Lenny Kravitz by the way? He plans a massive party to kick off sales — though he receives too much interest … in the form of 1,000 RSVPs. Fredrik thinks it’s 1,000 RSVPs too many, and cancels the party. He only wants the cream of the crop attending the event, since the interiors were designed by Lenny Kravitz, after all.

Dan, the project’s developer, is a bit perplexed by the lack of brokers in the room, but Fredrik assures him there are actually thousands of brokers there — he just can’t see them. Steve Gold makes good on his promise to visit Paris, and does some schmoozing with Dan while rubbing elbows at the event. Scandalous!

Fredrik’s decision to downsize pays off, and he sells five of the Lenny Kravitz-designed units right off the bat. Even Steve wants in on the action! He brings a full-ask offer to Fredrik, though his buyer wants the developer to pay the $70,000 transfer tax. This only slightly agitates Fredrik. What really puts him over the edge is finding out Steve is going to have lunch with Dan, a.k.a. “my developer.”

Steve views this as business as usual. For Fredrik, it’s a betrayal.

“When did you become such a whiner?” Steve asks Fredrik. Burn!

Fredrik predictably loses his cool and gets super emotional about something that happens every day in real estate. Steve is not affected by his tears, though the pair do ultimately strike a deal for a fourth-floor unit at 75 Kenmare.

For Steve, it’s no big deal. His newly minted team is hard at work in New York, so he doesn’t have time for 40th birthday parties anyway.

The Golden Guys

It appears Fredrik’s emotional outburst isn’t from out of the blue. Derek flies to Paris to deliver some big baby news — their surrogate is pregnant! With twins! Fredrik has been relatively mum on the subject following the miscarriage their surrogate suffered last season, so it’s actually pretty heartwarming to see it all end so positively. Good for Fredrik. Good for Big D.

Now that Fredrik and Ryan have both descended on Paris, they pay a visit to their dearest expat Luis. Luis has a very cute apartment in the city, and a fridge stocked with Heineken — and he’s absolutely miserable! He confides to the guys that he hates living in Paris, and despite his continued search for happiness, he’s still feeling very lost. Even though they both warned Luis about this major life change, Ryan admires his “cojones.”

“That’s Spanish for balls,” Ryan says.

It looks like Luis could be on the next season after all …

They exchange some “I love you”s and convene for Fredrik’s very fancy, very expensive 40th birthday party. Steve even shows up, and tells Fredrik he canceled with Dan because their friendship means more to him than some lunch with a prolific New York City developer.

Maybe we were craving a bit more drama to wrap up season 6? But we can also get down with all the feels, too.

Till next season.

Broadstone Oceanside (Credit: MSA Architects) and Dev Motwani

A joint venture between Alliance Residential and developer Dev Motwani broke ground on a major mixed-use project in Pompano Beach with a $46.7 million construction loan, property records show.

Earlier this week, Alliance Residential bought into the 4-acre waterfront site at 1333 South Ocean Boulevard for $15.83 million. Santander Bank provided the construction financing to the new owner, CRP/AR Oceanside Owner.

The developers are building Broadstone Oceanside, an eight-story, Class A building with 211 apartments, nearly 2,800 square feet of ground floor retail space and a 432-space parking garage, according to a notice of commencement. Last year, the city approved the project, which includes seven two-story townhouses, a clubhouse, a swimming pool, dog park, and 27 boat slips.

Records show Motwani’s WH Pompano LP paid $11.5 million for the property, which at the time included a beachfront lot across the street, in 2011. The Broadstone project will front the Intracoastal Waterway, and Motwani has not finalized plans for the site at 1350 South Ocean Boulevard.

Development in Pompano Beach has been limited to projects like Sabbia Beach, a luxury condo project slated to top off later this month. It’s about 85 percent presold. The city is also developing an “innovation district” as part of a plan to renovate its aging, downtown center.

Motwani and Alliance Residential could not immediately be reached for comment.

4350 and 4358 North Bay Road Inset: Stephen and Petra Levin (Credit: University of Pennsylvania)

A Miami Beach couple just dropped $11.34 million for their second waterfront home on North Bay Road, property records show.

Stephen and Petra Levin scooped up their next door neighbor’s 5,297-square-foot home at 4350 North Bay Road for about $2,140 per square foot. Stephen Levin owns 80 percent of the house and Petra Levin owns 20 percent.

Stephen Levin founded Gold Coast Beverage Distributors, one of South Florida’s largest beverage wholesalers. In 2014 the beverage tycoon reportedly sold the company for more than $1 billion. In 2015 the couple donated $5 million toward MorseLife Health System’s 182-unit Stephen and Petra Levin Tower for retirees in West Palm Beach.

They bought Major League Baseball player Alex Rodriguez’s home at 4358 North Bay Road for a record $30 million in 2013. Since then, the couple has decorated the 21,179-square-foot mansion with their art and sculpture collection, according to published reports. They dock their 70-foot yacht on their bayfront. In 2015 the couple also spent $1.8 million for a home across the street that they have since torn down.

Records show the Levins bought their new waterfront home from Irwin and Nora Friedman of Livingston, New Jersey. The Friedmans bought the home in 2002 for an undisclosed price from former Miami Beach nightclub owner Shawn Lewis, after Lewis settled a criminal case. Irwin Friedman founded the industrial plastic company Delta Plastics Corp., which he sold in 1999.

The home, built in 1996, sits on an 18,180-square-foot lot, records show. The six-bedroom, six-and-a-half bathroom home features a pool and a dock.

North Bay Road homes have been selling in recent weeks. Earlier this month Olivier Farrat, owner of the popular La Sandwicherie, sold his Miami Beach waterfront home at 2018 North Bay Road to Burger King executive Eric Hirschhorn for $5.5 million.

Rendering of the project and developer Dilip Barot

Indian developer Dilip Barot is back.

A decade after pulling the plug on an oceanfront condo project on Palm Beach’s Singer Island, Barot is resurrecting the development. During the last condo bust, Barot returned 86 deposits to buyers of his proposed Amrit Ocean Resort & Residences. He held onto the 4.7-acre site at 3100 North Ocean Drive and the property has remained vacant since then.

Now, Barot has an on-site sales center for the new project, a 19-story tower and an 18-story tower called Peace and Happiness, according to the Palm Beach Post. It will have 155 hotel rooms, managed by Crescent Hotels & Resorts and 198 condos with prices ranging from the $700,000s to more than $4 million for penthouses. Premier Sales Group is handling sales.

The wellness-oriented Singer Island project will have a spa and wellness facility, a beachfront garden, an oceanfront demo kitchen and a gym. He also plans to have on-site “health assistants” for residents, according to the Post.

But some may be skeptical. Over the years, Barot was sued at least three times: by his architect for nearly $800,000, by Regions Bank for defaulting on a $3 million loan, and by Nationwide Life and Annuity Insurance Co. for alleged fraud and more.

And while the developer doesn’t have bank financing, Barot said he has a construction loan and has raised money via EB-5 investors, the newspaper reported. [Palm Beach Post] – Katherine Kallergis

George French Jones

An alleged con man who collected hundreds of thousands of dollars by posing as an owner of various luxury homes in South Florida is awaiting trial on charges of grand theft, identity theft and organized scheme to defraud, according to the Miami Herald.

George French Jones’ strategy: The alleged scam artist would score loans by posing as a wealthy man and forging documents to try to gain ownership of high-end South Florida homes and condos.

Now Jones is facing criminal cases for trying to gain ownership of a South Beach condo while also trying to take out a $250,000 loan against the property. In two others cases, civil lawyers allege Jones used phony driver licenses and court documents to gain control of a beachfront condo in Fort Lauderdale, as well as a mansion in the Cocoplum neighborhood of Coral Gables, according to the Herald.

Jones and companies connected to Jones reportedly never responded to a lawsuit won by Icon Brickell condo owner Ana Marzal de Bolivar. Her attorneys Henry Bell and Manny Reboso say Jones succeeded in getting a $441,000 loan by signing his own name and Bolivar’s on phony documents in 2015, according to the Herald.

He is currently free on a $30,000 bond, and will have to appear in court on Wednesday. [Miami Herald] – Amanda Rabines

Atlantic at East Delray, Marc Pollack of Pollack Shores and Mike Sales, head of TH Real Estate

TH Real Estate paid $54.33 million for a Delray Beach apartment complex, property records show.

Atlanta-based Pollack Shores Real Estate Group sold the Atlantic at East Delray, a 228-unit development at 650 Lavers Circle, to TRPF Atlantic at East Delray LLC, a company tied to the Chicago investment manager.

The garden-style complex, built in 1996, sold for about $238,000 per apartment, and marks another big-ticket multifamily investment sale in South Florida in recent months.

The complex sits on a 21.3-acre site sandwiched between I-95 and Federal Highway. ARA Newmark brokered the sale, according to data from Real Capital Analytics.

Rents range from $1,378 for a one-bedroom to $2,285 for a three-bedroom, according to Apartments.com. Amenities at the rental community include a lake, sand volleyball court, dog park, swimming pool, business center, car wash stations and outdoor grills. Units average about 1,082 square feet.

Records show Pollack Shores, a multifamily development, management and investment firm, paid $40.5 million for the property in 2015. The company has more than $2.3 billion of assets in its portfolio, according to its website. Pollack Shores could not immediately be reached for comment.

TH Real Estate, an operating division of TIAA Global Asset Management, is one of the largest real estate managers in the world with $96 billion in assets under management. The TIAA Global Asset Management arm recently opened a regional office in Miami to oversee the Southeastern United States and Latin America.

Harunobu Coryne contributed reporting.

Clockwise from top left: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Jonathan Gray of Blackstone and Barry Sternlicht of Starwood, construction work in Ohio.

From TRD New York: Facebook debuts advertising service for brokers that competes with Zillow

This week Facebook debuted an advertising product geared towards residential real estate brokers, in what some experts interpret as a move to seize the turf of online listings portal Zillow. Even though Facebook and Zillow recently partnered to put Zillow ads on Facebook, the social media network also launched “Dynamic Ads for Real Estate,” which allows brokers to advertise to customers who have perused listings on their sites, GeekWire reported. [GeekWire]

Blackstone, Starwood merger will create largest single-family landlord in the US

Blackstone Group and Starwood Capital Group announced the merger of their rental companies this week, the Wall Street Journal reported. The firms combined oversee 82,000 rental properties in 17 metro areas nationwide. The new company — using the name of Blackstone’s rental arm, Invitation Homes — will be the largest single-family home owner in the country, two times larger than its closest competition, Texas-based American Homes 4 Rent. [TRD]

Mortgage closings now require zero in-person contact

Last month, Chicago-based couple Peter and Patty Mueller refinanced their home with a $290,000, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage remotely, using a notary in Virginia and a lender in Michigan. The transaction was completely remote and fully digital. While previously the physical presence of a notary was required to close a mortgage, the online notary service Notarize, which “bridges all necessary parties to the transaction,” facilitated the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported. The online notary authentication required the Muellers to answer personal questions and hold photo identification and a written signature up to a web cam. [TRD]

The construction labor shortage is getting worse

The number of open construction jobs rose from 163,000 in May to a seasonally adjusted 225,000 in June, but employers will be hard pressed to fill them. Construction job openings in June accounted for 3.2 percent of total employment, as compared to 2.3 percent in May. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the labor shortage across the country can be blamed, in part, on the 2008 recession that caused construction workers to leave the workforce without returning. The Trump administration’s efforts to stall immigration may further exacerbate the construction worker shortage. [TRD]

Millennials are depending less on FHA loans to purchase their first home

As the youngest generation enters the housing market, their dependency on government loans from the Federal Housing Administration has decreased, according to Ellie Mae’s monthly Millennial Tracker report. In the month of June, only 32 percent of home loans that closed for millennials were FHA loans, and they averaged  about $173,000. In the same month, 63 percent of millennials closed conventional loans in the amount of about $205,000. [Housingwire]

Warehouse landlords are looking to turn dying malls into warehouses

As e-commerce kills the big-box retail industry, the online giants and logistics companies are looking to reclaim the malls that they put out of business. Warehouse landlords are starting to repurpose the empty storefronts by using them to house stock for delivery companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. In Randall, Ohio, Amazon is considering Randall Park Mall, which closed in 2009, as a potential fulfillment center. Similarly, FedEx repurposed Big Town Mall in Mesquite, Texas as a 340,000-square-foot distribution center. [TRD]

WeWork raises even more money, buys out a Singapore co-working company

Co-working giant WeWork has raised another $500 million for expansion into Asia following a round of Series G funding earlier this year landed the company a valuation of about $20 billion. In a separate deal, WeWork also bought out the Singapore co-working company Spacemob, though WeWork wouldn’t comment on the size of the deal. The company is also reportedly in talks to rent a building in the nightlife district of Hong Kong, Lan Kwai Fong. [TRD]

Major developers are getting on board with co-living 

Once the province of Brooklyn hipster types, co-living has been embraced by major developers like the Durst Organization. The real estate firm recently completed a 10-story Manhattan property, Frank 57, which features three-bedroom units that include bathrooms with doors that indicate whether they are occupied. Units in the property cost $6,200 to $7,200 per month — or about $2,067 to $2,400 per person — the Wall Street Journal reported. PMG’s new division, PMGx, built co-living spaces in Chicago, and has plans for 5,800 more apartments, some of which will be co-living spaces. [TRD]

Major Market Highlights

The Douglas Elliman-Teles deal could make the New York-based firm a major West Coast player 

Last month, New York-based Douglas Elliman acquired Beverly Hills-based residential brokerage Teles Properties, and the deal is about to close this week. In 2016, Teles had sales revenue of about $3.4 billion. In the past, Elliman made small, strategic acquisitions in places like Aspen, Brooklyn, Sagaponack, and Delray Beach, but Elliman’s chairman Howard Lorber will likely pay between $15 and $20 million for the L.A. brokerage. [TRD]

Median home prices in Seattle and the Northwest jump 20 percent 

A July report from Northwest Multiple Listing Service indicated that the median home price in some parts of the region jumped as much as 20 percent in July. The average home price increased about 9 percent according to the data taken from 23 counties in and around the state of Washington. While inventory increased from this time last year, demand in the area still exceeds the supply of homes, the report stated. [Housingwire]

Trump attorneys fight back in Jupiter Golf Club lawsuit

The Trump Organization attorneys announced that they would appeal a court ruling from earlier this year concerning the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter in South Florida. The February ruling from U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra required the Trump Organization to pay a total of $5.76 million to 65 plaintiffs — golf club members who resigned their membership from the club but were barred from entering the facility while awaiting the refunds of their deposits. Previous club rules allowed resigned members to utilize the facilities during this period. When Trump purchased the club in 2012, he assumed liability for $41 million in refundable deposits. [TRD]

Airbnb paid out $400K to New York lobbyists in the first half of 2017

Short-term rental startup Airbnb spent a total of $404,200 on lobbying in New York in the first half of 2017. The New York Daily News first reported that they gave $345,593 directly to powerful lobbyists in Albany, making it one of the biggest spenders in the state capitol. The Hotel and Motel Trades Council, a rival to Airbnb, spent $127,855 on lobbying in New York over the same period.  [TRD]

Office Depot and CEO Gerry Smith

Office Depot just made a major real estate play in Palm Beach County.

Amid slumping sales from the e-commerce industry, the office supply retailer paid $132 million for its Boca Raton headquarters at 6600 North Military Trail, property records show. Equity Commonwealth, the Chicago-based real estate investment trust led by Chairman Sam Zell, is the seller. It traded for $211 per square foot.

The deal “strengthens our financial position by reducing ongoing expenses and providing sustained value in the property,” Office Depot CEO Gerry Smith said in a statement. The company was paying just under $17 million a year in rent, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Office Depot posted a decline in sales of 9 percent in the second quarter, down to $2.4 billion from $2.6 billion in the second quarter of 2016. The company also closed 31 stores during the first half of this year.

Last year, a federal judge blocked the proposed $6.3 billion merger of Staples and Office Depot. Amid competition from Amazon.com and other sites, the two office supplies retailers have been facing years of declining sales.

Records show Equity Commonwealth paid $171 million for the 625,000-square-foot, three-building office complex in 2011. That means the REIT sold the 29-acre property at a loss of about $39 million since its last sale six years ago.

This latest sale is the biggest office trade of 2017 in Palm Beach County, according to data from Real Capital Analytics. It blows past the $62.3 million sale of Golden Bear Plaza, a Class A office complex in Palm Beach Gardens. Alliance Partners HSP, a Pennsylvania company, purchased Golden Bear Plaza in July.

Platinum Luxury Auctions will auction this Boca Raton house Aug. 26.

A five-bedroom waterfront house in Boca Raton will be offered at auction on Aug. 26 for at least $1.5 million.

The house, previously offered for $3.8 million, is in a Boca Raton residential development called The Sanctuary.

Miami-based Platinum Luxury Auctions will conduct the auction.

The Boca Raton house has an open floor plan and about 5,000 square feet of living space. It has six bathrooms and a half bathroom, and outside, it has a private dock and about 70 linear feet of deep-water frontage.

The living room has a vaulted beamed ceiling and French doors that open to the property’s outdoor living area. The kitchen, designed by Pedini New York, features custom-made cabinets, quartz counter tops, an over-sized island and Viking Professional appliances.

Among the indoor amenities is a 300-bottle wine room. The outdoor living area includes a kitchen and bar, a paved patio with a shaded dining table, a jacuzzi and a large, solar panel-heated swimming pool.

The single-story house, built in 1982 on a 0.37-acre lot and renovated in 2012, also has an iPad-controlled home security system.

2150 Park Avenue in Miami Beach (Source: Google)

A 20-unit apartment building in Miami Beach sold for $4.8 million, or $240,000 per apartment, despite the building’s limited cash flow and substantial maintenance needs.

The 60-year-old rental property at 2150 Park Avenue, which includes a 7,500-square-foot lot, is located across from the Bass Museum and Collins Park in Miami Beach.

The apartment building has one efficiency-style unit and 19 one-bedroom, one-bathroom units. Originally constructed in 1947, the building has 9,792 square feet of living area.

Three members in the Fort Lauderdale office of brokerage Marcus & Millichap had the exclusive listing to market the property: associate Brett McMahon, Joseph P. Thomas, first vice president investments, and Adam G. Duncan, vice president investments.

“The property had a significant amount of deferred maintenance and limited in-place cashflow,” Thomas said in a prepared statement.

Nevertheless, the Marcus & Millichap team generated 10 written offers for the property because of its RM-2 zoning and its potential for conversion to a short-term rental property.

The Marcus & Millichap team represented the seller, a private investor who bought the Miami Beach property more than 30 years ago, and secured the buyer, also a private investor.

The Sea Garden Resort at 4625 North Ocean Drive in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea

A Canadian investor acquired his third small hotel in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, the 17-unit Sea Garden Resort, for about $176,000 per unit.

Led by Terry Pomerantz, Quebec-based Sea Garden By The Sea Inc. acquired the hotel at 4625 North Ocean Drive and property next door for about $3 million.

Rick Tobin, the owner and broker at Premier Hotel Realty in Pompano Beach, represented the seller, Ginomar Inc.

Tobin told the Sun-Sentinel that the sale price included $2.03 million for the hotel and $500,000 for the adjacent two-room property. Furniture, fixtures and other assets accounted for the balance of the $3 million purchase price.

The Sea Garden Resort, built in 1958, last sold in 1995 for $527,000, according to property records. The hotel has efficiency units with kitchenettes, one-bedroom suites and cottage units.

Other companies linked to Pomerantz have acquired two lodging properties on North Ocean Drive in Lauderdale-By-The-Sea since 2015.

The Pomerantz companies paid $3.6 million in 2016 for a hotel at 4220 and 4208 North Ocean Drive, called Blue Strawberry By The Sea, and $1.5 million in 2015 for the Castle by the Sea Motel at 4250 North Ocean Drive. [Sun-Sentinel] – Mike Seemuth