Finally achieved escape velocity.
From Yahoo News:
Owners: $5.4B NY housing complexes go to creditors
Owners: 2 NYC apartment complexes bought for record $5.4B will be turned over to creditors
NEW YORK (AP) -- The financially troubled owners of two massive apartment complexes that sold for a record $5.4 billion a few years ago said Monday they're turning them over to their creditors.
The joint venture ownership team led by Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, hurt by the real estate market collapse, couldn't make a multimillion-dollar loan payment earlier this month for the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartments in Manhattan.
Over the last few days it became clear the only viable alternative to bankruptcy would be to transfer to lenders control and operation of the 110 buildings and 11,000 apartments overlooking the East River, partnership spokesman Bud Perrone said.
"We make this decision as we feel a battle over the property or a contested bankruptcy proceeding is not in the long-term interest of the property, its residents, our partnership or the city," Perrone said in an e-mailed statement.
The group bought the complexes, which have about 25,000 tenants, in 2006 at the height of the real estate bubble in the nation's largest residential real estate deal.
The record purchase price seemed outrageous to many real estate analysts, but the partnership believed it had a winning strategy: It would aggressively convert thousands of rent-regulated apartments occupied by middle-class families into luxury units that would fetch top dollar.
But the tactic was a bust as the city's housing market cooled considerably. Ratings firms estimated the value of the 80-acre area had fallen to as little as $2 billion -- far less than the outstanding loan balance.
...
Goodnight moon.
Goodnight stars.
Goodnight hustlers.
Goognight scammers.
Goodnight light, and the real estate balloon...
20 comments:
The focus of the real estate market in New York during the 00s seemed to be making money by eliminating housing that people can afford to actually pay for. Who could have known it wouldn't work?
The focus of New York in boom times was to eliminate New Yorkers who couldn't afford "top dollar."
Eliminating the middle class -- a microcosm and test lesson for America, as usual.
I work in designing moderate income housing in an urban environment, and for the past couple of years it's been impossible to find investors.
Goodnight light indeed.
@Zombie: Patience. The revolution is coming.
This news packs a punch even if you don't live in NY, but if you do, which I do, it's doubly punchy. These complexes were odd little islands of middle class stability in the middle of a "luxury" housing siege. It really was jaw-dropping news when they were sold off -- and while it's not surprising that the deal went south, it's shocking nonetheless. I know a few people in these complexes whose lives have been turned upside down by this nonsense.
The only "good" news here, such as it is, is that Tishman Speyer is getting smacked around. They deserve it.
Boo fucking hoooo. About time a little reality reared it's ugly head in the rich man's life.
"BlackRock Realty"...
Bringing it back home to Daley's gentrified terraforming. Phase I, move out the poor. (They're just squatting on priceless real estate.)
Phase II, build overpriced yuppie shitholes to "spike the job" and signal the new up and coming area replete with trendy eateries, boutiques and nightspots. Phase III: New state-of-the arts schools for these urban pioneers' kids is key because in Phases IV and V, the low and middle income will be "reintroduced" back into the landscape through "mixed income housing".
How's that? Phases IV and V have been canceled because of the economic downturn.
Thank you for playing our game.
`Res, What I was logging in to say just what you said better.
"These complexes were odd little islands of middle class stability in the middle of a "luxury" housing siege."
Growing up in New York, they were a bastion of middle-class housing, affordable, quirky (remember no air-conditioners?), and seemingly inviolable. Then the ads appeared with the same layout, gussied up for luxury sales.
(remember no air-conditioners?),
Oh hell, yes. I attended many a party at one particular Stuy Town apartment in the summer in the early '90s when friends were living there sans a/c. A good (if hot) time was had by all.
Shoulda known you'd be a wirefiend
Good story telling/comments, as always here at Driftglass.
Those of us who own just plain nice little homes who have ONLY lost our equity but still OWN a home are the LUCKY ones!
As always, I am pleased to hear whenever these crooked money parlayers get their comeuppance.
Anyone want to buy a nice little outfit at the beach so this old veteran and his missus can be on our way out of this decaying country? Hell of a deal!
http://beachhomeforsale.blogspot.com
Folks like Casey Serin should be imprisoned and subsequently executed.
Rehctaw:
Just a repeat of Streeterville in the 19th century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streeterville
Stephen A:
Just a repeat or the Trail of Tears.
A nomadic population meandering about without context, roots or history is ill-equipped to question the wisdom of the schemes.
The "upwardly mobile" chasing a conjured ideal, hounded by the "undesirables" without realizing their own undesirability.
A GAP-like mentality compelled to swap stability for fashion through clever advertising.
There's profit in churn. Adopting faux-community and facade rather than tradition and sweat-equity.
NYC resident here. Yes, they were trying to tear the heart out of Stuy-Town, which was the largest and ONLY bastion of lower-middle-class and plain ol' middle class housing left in Manhattan proper. LOTS of people got forced out by illegal rent hikes; retirees went bankrupt paying their medical bills versus their new, ILLEGALLY-RAISED rents, and so forth.
Local businesses and essential services that had thrived for years on the local housing island (good real Hispanic coffee and pastry shops, small laundromats, five-and-dimes where you could pick up a pack of sox and underwear fast if you needed it, small pharmacies, etc) were swept up in a wave of new, glittery shit that provides no services. You can't buy diapers at 3 AM at a trendy overpriced sushi place.
Now, the remaining tenants are getting refunds and rent rollbacks.
Fuck the greedheads. Hang em.
So these people (corporations) just get to walk away while other people (living humans) are told to suck it up, no cram down for you, accept it and pay money for nothing on an upside-down mortgage?
Hmmmm. I'm with 2xNickel. Continuing down this road ends badly for some folks. After the revolution, we find out who ended up badly.
SP
Serving Patriot said...
accept it and pay money for nothing on an upside-down mortgage?
But the kicks are free.
A good friend of mine used to live in one of those stable, middle-class rent-controlled island buildings right near Columbia University. His family had lived in that building since the early 1960s. He jumped when the building management said they were abolishing rent controls and raising the rents to "market rates."
He lives in Portland, OR now, and he talks about how happy he is that he left, but you can hear the desperate, vicious bitterness at the people who ripped the beating heart out of his city...
Although it's been a while since I've seen Dog Day Afternoon, I'm pretty sure Pacino isn't saying "Adequate", but rather "Attica, Attica!" A reference to the riots at Attica prison where many died, intended (in the context of the scene) to stir anger amongst the crowd of onlookers against the show of force by the police.
No arguments otherwise.
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