Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

In the Great Resignation, millions of Americans ditched old jobs for new ones or none at all, leaving employers powerless to demand workers return to the office.

But the Great Resignation is over, data show. Could that mean the annual prediction of employees streaming back to their desks after Labor Day actually pans out?

Such expectations never materialized in the first year of the pandemic (2020), the first year of vaccines (2021) and the first year that pretty much everything but office work was back to normal (2022). That was because employees relished their new flexibility and companies feared they would bolt if forced back to their desks.

This time will be different, some say, citing employers’ increased leverage in the never-ending back and forth with workers.

“The pendulum has swung back towards the company,” said Nick Romito, co-founder, and CEO of VTS, a commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform.

VTS’ Nick Romito (LinkedIn)

One analysis supports that notion. A JLL study found that 2.5 million office-based employees in the U.S. will face return-to-office mandates through the end of the year.

Most of those policies are set to take effect in September as school resumes and summer winds down. Firms including BlackRock, Meta, Robinhood, and even the company that became synonymous with remote work —  Zoom — have called their employees back into the office.

The industry’s argument is that productivity will be better over the long term.

“For the first time in a long time, there’s going to be clear winners and losers,” Romito said. “And the winners are going to be the most connected, productive teams. These are folks who are together. And the result of that is them winning in the market, whatever category they’re in.”

A VTS study found that the national demand for office space has stabilized, but New York City’s office demand index increased by 7.4 percent  year-over-year —  the most of any market in the study.

Between mandates and employees’ feeling less confident that they could pick up and go elsewhere, JLL projects office occupancy will increase to 55 percent to 65 percent by year-end and likely set a post-pandemic record. On the most popular midweek days it could trend over 80 percent.

Offices have remained ghostly on Fridays, and even if a return-to-office surge happens, it would likely be on Tuesday through Thursday. 

Last year between Aug. 29 and Sept. 12, 49 percent of Manhattan office workers came in, according to a survey of 160 major employers reported by the Commercial Observer.

This year, pre-Labor Day, some have already noticed a difference.

Marie Boster, president of the Fifth Avenue Association, a Midtown business improvement district, said, “I’m seeing a lot more of my restaurants in the post power lunch hour have no availability because everybody’s going out for lunch.”

The Fifth Avenue Association’s Marie Boster (The Fifth Avenue Association)

Another sign from the data is that after several months of decline, U.S. office leasing has begun to rebound. Gross leasing volume is up 11.6 percent from this time last year, the fastest growth rate since mid-2021, according to the report.

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Select industries have been driving office demand. Leasing by energy companies and utilities has grown nearly 40 percent year-over-year, the study found. Tech-oriented office districts are also seeing a much-needed pickup from artificial intelligence, as some workers fear missing opportunities during the AI craze.

Aside from employer mandates, remote-work fatigue and fear of missing out, some employees could be prompted by their children’s change in routine.

“There’s this shift where you say, ‘Okay, my kids are going back to school, I’m going back to work too,’” Boster said.

The post Will the post-Labor Day return to office finally pan out? appeared first on The Real Deal.

 In the Great Resignation, millions of Americans ditched old jobs for new ones or none at all, leaving employers powerless to demand workers return to the office. But the Great Resignation is over, data show. Could that mean the annual prediction of employees streaming back to their desks after Labor Day actually pans out? Such
The post Will the post-Labor Day return to office finally pan out? appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, JLL, new york, Office, RTO The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Townhouses ruled Brooklyn’s luxury market last week.

The property type nabbed 10 of the 15 contracts inked for homes asking $2 million or more in the borough between Aug. 21 and Aug. 27, according to Compass’ weekly report. Condos claimed the remaining five. 

The priciest home to find a buyer was 137 Clifton Place in Bedford-Stuyvesant, with an asking price of $3.7 million. The two-family brownstone spans 4,200 square feet and includes a separate garden-level apartment. 

The renovated triplex has five bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also features an open-concept parlor floor, chef’s kitchen  with deck access and a paved garden. 

Compass’ Maria Ryan had the listing.

The second most expensive home to enter contract was 1406 73rd Street in Bensonhurst, with an asking price of $3.4 million. The 3,950-square-foot home, rebuilt in 2002, has four bedrooms and four bathrooms.

It also has a finished basement, driveway with a garage, 14-foot ceilings and backyard with a pool and patio. 

Townhouses often crown weekly luxury reports in the borough, but homes in Bed-Stuy and Bensonhurst rarely crack the top contracts. 

Bensonhurst neighbors Gravesend, a Syrian Jewish enclave home to several major New York City retail investors. Last year, billionaire Jeff Sutton paid $14 million for a two-story home formerly owned by the Chera family.

The total was down from the previous period, which saw 16 contracts inked for homes asking $2 million or more. Late summer has been slow for Brooklyn’s luxury market, with few contracts signed for homes asking $4 million or more. 

The average asking price for the 15 homes was $2.8 million with an average price per square foot of $1,049. The typical home received a 2 percent discount from the asking price and spent 142 days on the market.

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The post Bed-Stuy, Bensonhurst townhouses top Brooklyn’s luxury market appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Townhouses ruled Brooklyn’s luxury market last week. The property type nabbed 10 of the 15 contracts inked for homes asking $2 million or more in the borough between Aug. 21 and Aug. 27, according to Compass’ weekly report. Condos claimed the remaining five.  The priciest home to find a buyer was 137 Clifton Place in
The post Bed-Stuy, Bensonhurst townhouses top Brooklyn’s luxury market appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

If you move to the Sun Belt in the next few years, there’s a chance you’ll be renting your home from Jordan Kavana. 

Kavana is the founder and CEO of ARK Homes for Rent, the American rental housing joint venture of Israeli private equity firm Electra Real Estate and Florida-based Transcendent Investment Management. ARK operates across the southern United States, and its Texas properties are clustered around San Antonio and Houston. 

The firm recently said that it would buy and develop $3 billion in single-family rental and built-to-rent properties over the next five years. It’s placing that bet at a time of upheaval in multifamily markets across Texas, as tens of thousands of units are slated for delivery in the next 18 months, but new starts have slowed severely. 

As Texas metro areas’ populations continue to grow, and mortgages remain out of reach for many Millennials entering their prime homebuying years, purpose-built rental homes may be the future for housing in the Lone Star State. Kavana spoke with The Real Deal about the opportunities he’s scooping up as other operators struggle, finding financing in a dry market and whether lenders are finally ready to play ball again. 

Why are you focused on single-family rental and built-to-rent specifically in the Sun Belt?

There’s a real deficit in terms of housing supply across the country, but specifically in those markets, building new product still makes sense. There’s also still a tremendous amount of support, both from the community level and the state level, to have these built. 

There’s a lot of Not-In-My-Backyard sentiment in many different communities where they think that bringing in renters is a bad thing. But if you think about it, with average rents in the $2,500 to $3,000 range, these aren’t subsidized renters. These are market-rate renters that could be owners, but they’re choosing to rent, either because of lifestyle, or because they want to try before they buy.

We have found that those markets are not only supportive of the build-for-rent space, but of course, their demographic story is fantastic, too. Just look at Florida: we’re receiving thousands of new transplants every week. There’s a huge lack of supply.

Rental housing in the Sun Belt is at a crossroads right now. The pipeline is huge, and there are tens of thousands of units coming online in the next 18 months. At the same time, it has become much harder to find financing for multifamily development, so starts have fallen off a cliff. How are you making sense of that dynamic right now?

That’s the billion dollar question. I think we have a little bit of a unique advantage in that we roll up to a public company traded in Israel, but we still operate privately here in the U.S, so we have the ability to move deals forward with 100 percent equity, using capital that we have on our balance sheet. When we feel capital markets coming back, we can recapitalize or refinance. 

In other cases, I think because of our track record and reputation, we are seeing some relief on the financing side. We’re seeing deals pencil now — and by the way, that’s a phenomena of the last 30, 45 days. It’s starting to turn around. 

I think the bigger issue related to that question is, it’s not so much our capital markets, it’s that you have so many sponsors that came into this space, and simply don’t have the balance sheet, experience or execution ability. That’s why you’re seeing a big choke in the pipeline.

Does that lead to opportunities for you?

It does. There are two options from that situation. Number one, we’re looking at platforms that started up in the last three-to-five years that have build-to-rent pipeline that they can’t move forward. We’re trying to take over the pipeline and integrate them into our shop. Then, we’re looking to take over operating platforms that have started and are in that sub-1,000 home range.

Higher rates have turned a lot of would-be buyers into renters. How are you looking at the current rate environment? And are you concerned at all about rates eventually coming back down?

Right now, for a typical renter of ours, the spread between owning that same home versus renting it is about $400 a month. It’s still cheaper to rent than it is to own. Historically, that spread has been in the $200 range with more normalized lending standards. 

For every unit that we have available, we have close to 10 qualified applications, so I don’t think it’s so much a financing rate issue. I think the issue is, what happens when all this build-to-rent or newly built product delivers into the same sub-markets at the same time — are we still going to have an issue? Or are we going to have opportunities? 

The data shows that with all of the build-to-rent pipeline nationally, or even specifically in the markets we look at, there’s still going to be a lack of housing supply for the next 10 years, so for the foreseeable future, I’m not hugely concerned. I do believe, depending on what happens in 2024, that there’s going to be some shifting around in lending policy, and as a result, it’s going to get competitive for a while in terms of concessions. But the macro thesis, I think, still holds very strong.

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The post ARK Homes for Rent CEO breaks down Texas’ built-to-rent boom appeared first on The Real Deal.

 If you move to the Sun Belt in the next few years, there’s a chance you’ll be renting your home from Jordan Kavana.  Kavana is the founder and CEO of ARK Homes for Rent, the American rental housing joint venture of Israeli private equity firm Electra Real Estate and Florida-based Transcendent Investment Management. ARK operates
The post ARK Homes for Rent CEO breaks down Texas’ built-to-rent boom appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, built to rent, Commercial Real Estate, Multifamily, Sun Belt The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Miami-Dade County condo sales slipped slightly last week. Total sales, dollar volume, average sale price and price per square foot all fell.

Brokers closed 116 condo sales totaling $82 million last week, compared to 127 sales totaling $93 million the previous week.

Units sold for an average price of $706,000, lower than the $732,000 from the week prior. The average price per square foot fell to $505 from $534, according to data from condo.com. Last week, condos closed after an average of 57 days on the market.

For the top 10 sales, prices ranged from $1.7 million to $4.2 million.

Residences by Armani/Casa unit 4903 at 18975 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, took the top spot with a $4.2 million closing. The sale equated to $1,546 per square foot after nine days on the market. Fabio Lopes with Coldwell Banker Realty had the listing, and Ian Reisner with Dezer Platinum Realty represented the buyer.

  Leaflet map created by Adam Farence | Data by © OpenStreetMap, under ODbl.

A condo at Bellamare snagged second place with a $4 million sale. Unit 2108 at 6000 Island Boulevard in Aventura closed at $999 per square foot after 15 days on the market. Richard Goihman and Ivonn Goihman with Douglas Elliman had the listing, and Jodi Macken with Macken Realty represented the buyer.

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 sales from Aug. 20 to Aug. 26:

Most Expensive

Residences by Armani/Casa, 18975 Collins Avenue, unit 4903 in Sunny Isles Beach | Price $4,200,000 | $1,546 psf | Listing agent: Fabio Lopes with Coldwell Banker Realty | Buyer’s agent: Ian Reisner with Dezer Platinum Realty | Days on market: 9

Least Expensive

Nine Island Avenue, Nine Island Avenue, unit 514 in Miami Beach | Price $1,670,000 | $699 psf | Listing agent: Geane Brito with Compass Florida | Buyer’s agent: Allison Turk with Coldwell Banker Realty | Days on market: 23

Highest Price Per Square Foot

Continuum on South Beach, 50 South Pointe Drive, unit 2005 in Miami Beach | Price $3,800,000 | $2,238 psf | Listing agent: Stacy Robins with Stacy Robins Companies | Buyer’s agent: Roland Ortiz with One Sotheby’s International Realty | Days on market: 30

Lowest Price Per Square Foot

Hamptons South, 20201 East Country Club Drive, unit 2101 in Aventura | Price $1,850,000 | $517 psf | Listing agent: Silvia Olivera with FIP Realty Services | Buyer’s agent: Ana Kajayan with Beachfront Realty | Days on market: 25

Most Days on Market

Portofino Tower, 300 South Pointe Drive, unit 3403 in Miami Beach | Price $3,500,000 | $1,373 psf | Listing agent: Oiva Lloyd with South Pointe Drive Realty | Buyer’s agent: Esha Desaiy with Compass Florida | Days on market: 84

Fewest Days on Market

Residences by Armani/Casa, 18975 Collins Avenue, unit 4903 in Sunny Isles Beach | Price $4,200,000 | $1,546 psf | Listing agent: Fabio Lopes with Coldwell Banker Realty | Buyer’s agent: Ian Reisner with Dezer Platinum Realty | Days on market: 

(Condo.com)

The post Residences by Armani/Casa closing tops weekly condo sales in Miami-Dade appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Miami-Dade County condo sales slipped slightly last week. Total sales, dollar volume, average sale price and price per square foot all fell. Brokers closed 116 condo sales totaling $82 million last week, compared to 127 sales totaling $93 million the previous week. Units sold for an average price of $706,000, lower than the $732,000 from
The post Residences by Armani/Casa closing tops weekly condo sales in Miami-Dade appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Aventura, Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Sunny Isles Beach, Weekly Condo Sales The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Actors and writers are still striking, while developers are striking deals to be the next providers of their production spaces.

The Blackstone Group and Hudson Pacific Properties joined Vornado Realty Trust’s production studio project at Pier 94 in Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal reported. The three entities combined to invest $350 million in the joint venture for the development, dubbed Sunset Pier 94 Studios. It’s a public-private partnership with the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

The partners plan to break ground this year on its 266,000-square-foot campus off the Hudson River. The campus will include six soundstages — each an average of 14,000 square feet — offices, writers’ rooms and support facilities. There will also be public amenities folded into the city’s bikeway and park system.

The developers aim to complete construction of Manhattan’s first film and television production studio by the end of 2025. Vornado will own a 49.9 percent stake in the project, while Hudson Pacific will have a 25.6 percent stake and Blackstone will own the rest.

High development costs and a lack of space have kept production campuses marooned to other parts of New York City, particularly Queens. The Big Apple is the nation’s second-largest studio site, despite the lack of a presence in Manhattan.

Fortunately for the developers, the city is defraying some of the project’s costs. 

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Some community members criticized the incentives the city granted Vornado when Steven Roth’s firm launched the project. Those perks included a promise of $73.5 million to repair and maintain the pier until 2060, as well as giving Vornado a starting rent of $900,000 per year, which won’t escalate to its $2.8 million peak until the end of the 99-year lease — in the next century.

While developers are banking on an end to the concurrent strikes, they’re also betting the streaming wars that exploded during the pandemic will continue, even as some studio operators commence cost-cutting measures.

— Holden Walter-Warner

The post Blackstone, Hudson Pacific join Vornado’s Pier 94 studio project appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Actors and writers are still striking, while developers are striking deals to be the next providers of their production spaces. The Blackstone Group and Hudson Pacific Properties joined Vornado Realty Trust’s production studio project at Pier 94 in Manhattan, the Wall Street Journal reported. The three entities combined to invest $350 million in the joint
The post Blackstone, Hudson Pacific join Vornado’s Pier 94 studio project appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Blackstone, Economic Development Corporation, Film Production, Midtown West, Steven Roth, Vornado Realty Trust The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

A Jacksonville-based development firm proposes a 590-unit affordable housing project in south Miami-Dade County’s Leisure City. 

Vestcor wants to build the multifamily project on 7.8 acres on the northwest corner of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 280th Street, according to an application the developer filed to Miami-Dade County last week. The development site is at 27742, 27860 and 27862 South Dixie Highway. 

Jacksonville-based Vestcor has the property under contract for an undisclosed amount, according to the filing.  Records show an entity led by Bruno and Maritza Ramos owns the site. 

The development, to be called Ambar Station, would be walking distance from a South Miami-Dade Busway station and would include nearly 6,000 square feet of commercial space and amenities. 

Vestcor, founded by John Rood in 1983, builds affordable, workforce, senior living and student housing, according to its website. Steve Moore is president of Vestcor Companies. 

Its other Miami-Dade affordable and workforce housing projects include Ambar Key at 380 Northeast Fourth Avenue in Florida City, Ambar Trail at 15000 Southwest 272nd Street in south Miami-Dade and The Ambar at 1250 Northwest 36th Street. 

South Miami-Dade, which includes the Princeton and Naranja neighborhoods, has caught affordable and workforce housing developers’ eyes. The area has a healthy supply of land that comes at a discount compared with Miami’s urban core. South Florida’s apartment affordability crisis also has created demand for below market-rate apartments. 
In Princeton, Legacy Residential Group, CD Group and Fenix Contractors propose a 630-unit multifamily complex on 20 acres at the southeast corner of Southwest 252nd Street and Southwest 145th Avenue. In Naranja, Atlantic Pacific Companies plans to redevelop the Heritage Village II public housing complex on the northeast corner of Southwest 270th Street and Southwest 142nd Avenue with 116 affordable apartments.

The post Vestcor proposes 590-unit affordable housing project in Leisure City appeared first on The Real Deal.

 A Jacksonville-based development firm proposes a 590-unit affordable housing project in south Miami-Dade County’s Leisure City.  Vestcor wants to build the multifamily project on 7.8 acres on the northwest corner of South Dixie Highway and Southwest 280th Street, according to an application the developer filed to Miami-Dade County last week. The development site is at
The post Vestcor proposes 590-unit affordable housing project in Leisure City appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Affordable Housing, Miami-Dade County, Multifamily, South Florida Multifamily Market The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Blackstone unwound itself from a struggling multifamily portfolio and the threat of foreclosure last week, selling off a majority stake in 11 Manhattan buildings where rising rates had whacked revenues. 

Buyer Atlas Capital Group scored a 51 percent interest in the properties for $142.4 million, PincusCo first reported. A Blackstone spokesperson confirmed the purchase price that also included $90 million in mezzanine debt. 

Meridian’s Institutional Investment Sales Group, led by Helen Hwang, arranged the sale. 

The lender on the mezzanine loan’s B note — a Korean group — had listed the debt for sale through Meridian in April, sparking broker speculation the loan was distressed. 

In the months prior, the portfolio’s $270 million senior loan had been sent to special servicing, then downgraded by Moody’s for a sub-1 debt service coverage ratio, meaning cash flow was not covering monthly debt payments.

The slipping ratio signaled an elevated risk that Blackstone would default on the senior debt and an even greater risk the mezzanine lender, which is paid back second, would be forced to foreclose.

Atlas’ purchase of the mezz debt and the owner entity that borrowed the loan puts that risk to rest. 

“The sale basically means Blackstone had decided to move on,” a broker said. “Atlas controls the ownership and it bought the loan so it can take the properties pretty quickly.”

Blackstone’s spokesperson said the $90 million mezzanine loan had been paid off, the borrower had tapped its final one-year extension option on the senior debt and that loan is no longer in special servicing. 

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with our lenders that is in the best interests of all parties involved,” the spokesperson added in a statement. Atlas did not return a request for comment. 

What’s less clear is what the sale says about the portfolio’s current valuation. 

Brokers extrapolated the $142 million purchase price for a 51 percent stake to peg the portfolio’s total value at $278 million — a 43 percent decline from the $487 million Blackstone had paid in 2015. PincusCo’s back-of-the-envelope math arrived at the same result. 

That decline would mean the equity in the deal had been wiped out and the buildings were worth just $7 million more than the senior debt. Brokers said that decline would track with Atlas’ move to buy the entity tied to the mezzanine debt.

“My guess is [Atlas] figured it was buying the entity where the value was ultimately going to land; they were buying the controlling entity,” a broker said. 

Multifamily valuations have fallen as rates have soared. Brokers estimate declines of up to 20 percent. 

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But a spokesperson for Blackstone denied there was no equity left in the deal, adding that the value of the transfer doesn’t indicate anything about the value of the portfolio. 

The firm said the challenges it faced stemmed from its value-add plan “because significant capital was required to bring the 60+ year-old product up to our standards,” the representative said. 

Those buildings span Chelsea, Midtown and the Upper East Side:  250 West 19th Street, 31 East 31st Street, 344 East 63rd Street, 434 West 19th Street, 309 West 30th Street, 337 West 30th Street, 345 West 30th Street, 162 East 61st Street, 425 East 84th Street, 445 East 83rd Street and 451 East 83rd Street.

The Manhattan buildings are “not representative of the strength we’re seeing in our broader rental housing portfolio,” the spokesperson added.

The post Blackstone sidesteps foreclosure with Manhattan multifamily sale appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Blackstone unwound itself from a struggling multifamily portfolio and the threat of foreclosure last week, selling off a majority stake in 11 Manhattan buildings where rising rates had whacked revenues.  Buyer Atlas Capital Group scored a 51 percent interest in the properties for $142.4 million, PincusCo first reported. A Blackstone spokesperson confirmed the purchase price
The post Blackstone sidesteps foreclosure with Manhattan multifamily sale appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Blackstone, DSCR, Lending, loans, Meridian Capital, Multifamily Market, UCC Foreclosure The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Four-time Super Bowl champion Joe Montana couldn’t defend against a winter storm that sent floodwaters blitzing through his Marina neighborhood in San Francisco.

The 49ers legend has joined a lawsuit by residents along Marina Boulevard that accuses the city of flawed sewers and storm drains that allowed yuck water to invade their homes, the San Francisco Standard reported.

The amount of damages sought by residents was not disclosed. 

The flood waters followed a series of atmospheric rivers last winter that sent torrential rains into San Francisco. Marina Boulevard, between Webster and Baker streets on the waterfront by Marina Green, closed over New Year’s because of flooding caused by the deluge.

A spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s office has blamed the storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, for the flooding. 

At least 58 residents along Marina Boulevard, including Montana and real estate mogul Victor Makras, have signed on to the lawsuit. The Marina District tops a list of the 20 priciest neighborhoods in San Francisco.

The residents allege the flooding was not just from a freak weather event, but resulted from insufficient infrastructure, and blamed the city for damage done to their properties, according to the complaint.

Montana and other residents alleged in a June claim that the city had known the sewage and storm drainage system along the Marina Boulevard couldn’t handle big storms. They filed a lawsuit late last week, represented by prominent San Francisco attorney Khaldoun Baghdadi, former head of the city’s Human Rights Commission. 

“We don’t only trust the city to maintain the sewage infrastructure, but we pay it for doing so,” Baghdadi told the Standard. “When the city makes the decisions that cause raw sewage to flood homes, it is responsible for compensating residents.”

Residents on Marina Boulevard allege the storm and subsequent flooding were unlike anything they had seen. An October 2021 storm resulted in 4.5 million gallons of untreated wastewater flooding the street, according to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The storm on Dec. 31 caused 18.6 million gallons of water to flood the area, the water board said in a letter to the city. Millions of more gallons flowed straight into the bay “without authorization” on both occasions, it said.

The City Attorney’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

“The intensity and duration of the storm that hit the city on Dec. 31, 2022, was almost unprecedented. It was the strongest storm to hit San Francisco in more than 170 years,” Jen Kwart, a spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s Office, told the Standard in an email early this month.

“The storm, and not the city’s infrastructure, was responsible for widespread flooding throughout the city.”

— Dana Bartholomew

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The post 49ers’ Joe Montana and Marina neighbors sue SF for flood damage appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Four-time Super Bowl champion Joe Montana couldn’t defend against a winter storm that sent floodwaters blitzing through his Marina neighborhood in San Francisco. The 49ers legend has joined a lawsuit by residents along Marina Boulevard that accuses the city of flawed sewers and storm drains that allowed yuck water to invade their homes, the San
The post 49ers’ Joe Montana and Marina neighbors sue SF for flood damage appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, flood The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

The leader of Connecticut’s top small team is headed to Compass.

Leslie Clarke, head of The Leslie Clarke Team, is leaving William Raveis after 12 and a half years with the family-owned brokerage. Clarke’s team crowned RealTrends’ 2022 ranking of small teams in Connecticut with over $124 million in sales volume.

Clarke declined to share the size of her team and whether members would be joining her at Compass.

“I’ve been in sales since I was 20 years old,” Clarke said. “I’ve actually never stayed at a firm for as long as I had my last one, so I think I was ready for a change.”

Clarke credited her move to Compass to the brokerage’s technology and its nationwide network of agents. The firm lists 288 agents in Fairfield County on its website and reported an average of 13,600 principal agents in the second quarter. 

“I found that, especially in the last few years, referrals and networking are super important in this industry,” she said.

Compass invested $900 million in developing a technology platform for agents, which includes features like the predictive modeling “likely to sell” tool. 

While at William Raveis, Clarke peddled properties in Fairfield County and Westport, with a particular focus on luxury waterfront homes. Clarke said her deals are largely for single-family homes with an average sale price around $2.4 million, though her team handles some condo sales and rentals.

Clarke’s team last year closed a $5.3 million deal for a historic Westport waterfront property at 42 & 44 Compo Mill Cove. In July, she sold another Compo Cove-facing home at 248 Hillspoint Road for $7 million. 

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At Compass, Clarke said she plans to continue selling in her primary markets but is open to expanding. 

William Raveis, headed by chairman and CEO Bill Raveis, was founded in Fairfield in 1974 and now covers markets in the Northeast and Florida.

Compass said in its second quarter earnings call it was cash flow positive for the first time since it went public in 2021. The numbers followed an aggressive cost-cutting strategy, which involved multiple rounds of layoffs and eliminating its cash and equity incentives for new agents.

The post Top Connecticut broker joins Compass appeared first on The Real Deal.

 The leader of Connecticut’s top small team is headed to Compass. Leslie Clarke, head of The Leslie Clarke Team, is leaving William Raveis after 12 and a half years with the family-owned brokerage. Clarke’s team crowned RealTrends’ 2022 ranking of small teams in Connecticut with over $124 million in sales volume. Clarke declined to share
The post Top Connecticut broker joins Compass appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Compass, Tri-state, Westchester & Fairfield The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.

Robert Khodadadian – The Real Deal

Hollywood has two sides — the movie industry and everything else.

Baranof Holdings, a Dallas-based self-storage developer, plans to serve both markets with a self-storage facility that will hold film and media properties as well as household goods.

This month the company filed plans to build a seven-story, 168,000-square-foot facility at North Seward Street and North Hudson Avenue, a couple blocks south of Santa Monica Boulevard in central Hollywood.  

Baranof would actually demolish an existing storage facility used for film storage and replace it with the new facility designed as both a film vault and a general-use repository, according to a project application. 

Until recently, largely because of pandemic-driven office and moving trends, the self-storage industry was in the middle of an extended boom, with developers around the country racing to build more units and rents ticking up at existing facilities. The largest player in the sector, Public Storage, is based in Glendale, with a market cap of nearly $49 billion.

But this year the asset class has fallen back to Earth, the Wall Street Journal reported recently, with fewer new customers signing on and rents falling. In the first quarter of 2023, rent for new customers fell 10 percent year-over-year to $15.45 per square feet, according to Green Street, amounting to the steepest drop the sector has seen in at least a decade. 

The owner of the Hollywood property is a company called Pure Silver Enterprises, which bought the site in 2013 in a multiple parcel deal for nearly $4 million, according to property records. 

Last year, when the sector still looked white hot, a number of self-storage developers filed plans around L.A., including in Woodland Hills, Glendale, Mar Vista and near Downtown L.A. 

The Dallas-based Baranof is both developing and operating facilities around the country, with additional properties in Venice and Santa Monica. 

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The post Self-storage developer plans new Hollywood film vault appeared first on The Real Deal.

 Hollywood has two sides — the movie industry and everything else. Baranof Holdings, a Dallas-based self-storage developer, plans to serve both markets with a self-storage facility that will hold film and media properties as well as household goods. This month the company filed plans to build a seven-story, 168,000-square-foot facility at North Seward Street and
The post Self-storage developer plans new Hollywood film vault appeared first on The Real Deal.  Uncategorized, Hollywood, Self Storage The Real Deal 

Robert Khodadadian has long had a simple philosophy about selling real estate. There are approximately a million buildings in the city, and the broker that gets to sell any one among the multitude that will hit the auctioning block at a given moment is, sometimes, simply the person who happens to pitch their services to the right seller.