The Real Deal

01/13/2026

Billionaire developer Zhang Xin is testing Manhattan’s office-market mood swing. She’s shopping a 49% stake in Park Avenue Plaza, an offering that would peg the 1.2M-square-foot tower at $1.3 billion, with a tenant roster that reads like a finance power lunch: Evercore, Morgan Stanley, General Atlantic.

And with no major lease expirations until 2035, the pitch is simple: stability, not suspense.

It’s one of 2026’s first trophy office listings — and a clean signal that investor appetite for Park Avenue is warming again.

Read the full story at the link in comments for the details behind the deal.

01/13/2026

On Jan 27th, we're gathering the industry's top developers, architects and brokers for "Building Luxury: Beverly Hills," an evening panel discussion featuring visionary leaders like Coldwell Banker's Jade Mills, Huntington Estate Properties' Ramtin Ray Nosrati and Redeavor's Mike Leipart, who will discuss the implications of Measure ULA on luxury investment and the massive post-wildfire rebuilding cycle unfolding across the Palisades, Malibu, Altadena and beyond.⁠
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💌 Reserve your spot: https://bit.ly/4jBcw6s

Join TRD and BSH for a forward-looking conversation on design-forward development, luxury sales strategy, reconstruction-led growth and where the highest-value opportunities will lie in 2026.

01/13/2026

A Miami Beach partnership is turning into a courtroom brawl. Italian investor Gianluca Vacchi is suing developer Michael Stern over a $2.5 million investment tied to the Casablanca property in North Beach, alleging “deliberated and calculated fraud” — including claims of misrepresentations, altered documents and a disputed valuation. The case was temporarily stayed this month, but the complaint remains active. Stern has declined to comment.

Read the lawsuit’s allegations, the deal backstory and what’s at stake at the link in comments.

01/12/2026

Vanderbilt University is moving forward with its plans for a $520M graduate campus in West Palm Beach, more than a year after scoring its first approvals for the project.

Read Kate Hinsche's report at the link.

The University has plans for a graduate campus, more than a year after scoring its first approvals for the project.

01/12/2026

A landmark rehab just became a federal case. Prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into whether Fed Chair Jerome Powell misled Congress about the cost and scope of the Federal Reserve’s $2.5B HQ renovation—an overhaul now projected roughly $700M over budget.

From asbestos remediation to “V.I.P.” perk allegations, this isn’t just a buildout—it’s a political flashpoint. Read the full story at the link in comments.

01/12/2026

A year after the Palisades and Eaton fires, Los Angeles isn’t short on retrospectives; it’s short on patience.

On the January 7 anniversary, hundreds rallied under the banner “They Let Us Burn,” demanding answers on everything from containment to insurance to the price and pace of rebuilding. The coverage has been all over the map — climate risk, red tape, frozen aid — but the anger on the ground is more focused: homeowners say they’re still stuck, and the system still doesn’t talk to itself.

As Rochelle Atlas Maize of Nourmand & Associates put it: “We cannot keep rebuilding communities without reforming how insurance, permitting and infrastructure planning work together… If we don’t fix that, this will repeat itself again and again.”

Read more at the link in comments.

01/12/2026

A $40M haircut in Beverly Glen: billionaire Tony Pritzker's 50,000-square-foot hilltop estate just slid to $135M, its second price drop since debuting near $200M in late 2024.

The timing isn’t subtle: the listing is tied to Pritzker’s divorce, after his ex-wife Jeanne reportedly learned she had no legal ownership stake in the mansion because it was held in entities that didn’t include her.

Inside, it’s peak L.A. excess: 16 bedrooms, 27 bathrooms, plus a bowling alley, theater, wellness center, and that green marble infinity pool moment.

Go inside the listing at the link in comments.

01/12/2026

Compass and Anywhere’s $1.6B mega-merger closed months ahead of schedule. Now the industry gets to do what it does best: Read the tea leaves.

The first tremors are already showing up in talent movement, with agents and publicists citing the deal as an “inflection point” for splits, launches and exits, even as leadership sells a “Better Together” vision and promises brands will operate independently.

Is this the start of a consolidation-era shuffle?

Read Sheridan Wall's full story (and what top producers are doing next) at the link in comments.

01/12/2026

Real estate policy is becoming campaign policy, and the overlap is getting messy.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s City Hall legal brief in the Pinnacle bankruptcy argues rent-stabilized buildings have been rendered “virtually worthless,” a sharp contrast with the campaign-era claim that landlords are “profiting handsomely.” In Washington and Albany, President Donald Trump and Gov. Kathy Hochul are echoing each other’s populist proposals, including restricting institutional buyers of single-family homes and pushing “no tax on tips” — ideas critics say are designed more for voters than for results.

For the industry, the message is clear: rhetoric is hardening into policy, and the consequences could ripple from New York’s regulated stock to the national housing market.

Read the full column at the link in comments.

01/10/2026

The Venezuelan corruption crackdown is reverberating through U.S. real estate. Watch as Hannah Kramer unpacks how money tied to Venezuela's political elite, the boliburguesía, has poured into American property for years, with federal authorities tracking and seizing billions in real estate linked to corruption and money laundering investigations.

And following Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's capture, the U.S. is back in the spotlight as both a preferred landing pad for offshore wealth — and a prime battleground for asset seizures.

01/09/2026

A $451M bid. 5,100 rent-stabilized apartments. And a New York judge just said: proceed.

Summit Properties is poised to acquire more than 5,000 mostly rent-stabilized units across New York City from Joel Wiener’s Pinnacle Group through a bankruptcy auction, despite a last-ditch push by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to pause the sale. The judge rejected the city’s request for a delay, clearing the runway for Summit’s takeover.

City officials warn the math may not work: low legal rents, rising costs, and a portfolio carrying $12.7M+ in unpaid fees and 5,000+ violations — all raising the question of who can realistically repair and preserve New York’s strained rent-stabilized housing stock without pushing it to the brink.

Read Lilah Burke's full story at the link in comments.

01/09/2026

California’s proposed wealth tax on billionaires is already sending signals — and South Florida is picking up the tab.

A new wave of ultra-high-net-worth buyers is shopping Miami and Palm Beach, drawn by Florida’s no state income tax and the prospect of a ballot measure that would tax California residents worth more than $1 billion. The poster child: Google co-founder Larry Page, who recently spent a combined $173 million on two waterfront homes in Coconut Grove. Fellow co-founder Sergey Brin has also been in the hunt, sources say, making a roughly $50 million offer on a Miami Beach waterfront property.

Brokers call it the busiest they’ve been since the 2021 boom, and they’re watching to see how far the migration goes if the tax makes the ballot.

Catch up on the billionaire buying wave at the link in comments.