With a new tax abatement program, developers are testing out a novel approach in New York City: avoid triple-digit units.
As The Real Deal reported earlier this week, developers are scaling back the number of apartments in their projects to avoid the wage level that kicks in at 100 units under 485x.
By some estimates, construction costs for buildings with more than 100 units are up 15 to 25 percent under the new tax abatement program, which replaced the expired 421a.
Projects of 100 units are not the only thing proving more elusive in New York City real estate. Affordable housing in New York continues to be hard to come by.
Last year, NYCHA selected 200,000 Section 8 tenants by lottery to be awarded Housing Choice Vouchers. Nine months after the application window closed, NYCHA worked its way through 12,000 applications; of those, only 318 succeeded in obtaining affordable housing through the program.
In a city with nearly six million renters, 318 is the statistical equivalent of zero, writes columnist Erik Engquist.
Although the Housing Choice Vouchers may not be much of a lifeline these days, the office market received a big one recently. A trio of Midtown office buildings scored 10-figure CMBS deals in February, a sign of post-pandemic recovery for trophy commercial properties.
Irvine Company’s MetLife Building landed the largest CMBS deal of the three, a $1.5 billion loan issued by Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding scored a $1.2 billion refinancing of the Seagram Building, while Ivanhoé Cambridge’s trophy office tower at 3 Bryant Park grabbed a massive $1.1 billion CMBS loan.
On the crime beat, a federal judge in New Jersey sentenced Moshe Silber to 30 months in prison for his involvement in a broad mortgage fraud scandal, sparing him the maximum sentence. He faced up to five years after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mortgage fraud in 2024.
Meanwhile, four individuals — including one real estate agent — were indicted for allegedly stealing three homes in Queens through a deed fraud scheme involving falsified documents. The scheme allegedly targeted elderly homeowners and involved transferring properties to companies owned by one of the defendants.
Read more
The era of 99-unit buildings has arrived
Rent voucher “lifeline” is virtual dead end
What office meltdown? Three Midtown landlords score 10-figure CMBS deals
