Real Estate

  Bloomberg Scott Rechler, chief executive officer of RXR Realty LLC, is stepping down as vice chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey after almost five turbulent years as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top appointee at the agency. Rechler, 48, will be replaced by Steven M. Cohen, who formerly served as Cuomo’s senior-most adviser. Rechler ...

  Bloomberg New York REIT Inc. shares had their biggest drop since they began trading more than two years ago after analysts questioned whether the planned sale of the company to closely held JBG Cos. is in the best interest of investors. “The jury is out and New York REIT’s board owes its shareholders a lot more transparency quantitatively why ...

  Bloomberg In 1900, two years before he would be named the president of American Radiator (the predecessor to American Standard), Clarence Wolley built a Tuscan-style estate in Greenwich, Conn. Now its latest owners, Andrew and Judith Ban, entrepreneurs who founded the wholesale jewelry line Leslie’s Jewelry, are putting the house on the market for $12.995 million after living in ...

  Bloomberg China City Construction Holding Group Co., whose recent shareholder change triggered early redemption of its debt, will buy back its 2.5 billion yuan ($382 million) offshore yuan bond before maturity on June 20. Its 2.5 billion yuan notes maturing 2017 jumped 1.5 yuan to 96.3 yuan, the biggest gain since May 9. That leaves it set for the ...

  Bloomberg Singapore’s property market may be closer to a bottom than Hong Kong, according to LaSalle Investment Management, which oversees more than $58bn in real estate funds. Governments in Asia’s two most expensive residential markets have imposed curbs in recent years to tame prices and improve affordability. As demand has dropped amid a slowdown in the region’s economies, home ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP, the world’s biggest private-equity property investor, plans to sell hotel buildings in London, Dublin and Amsterdam for about 980 million euros ($1.1 billion), according to people with knowledge of the matter. The hotels are all operated under Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s DoubleTree brand, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information ...

  Bloomberg New York real estate developer Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. offered to buy a controlling stake in Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd., a unit of distressed IDB Development Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter. IDBD said it received a non-binding offer that values the insurer at $743 million, without identifying the bidder. Michael Alpert, the president of ...

  Washington / AP Long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week but remained at low levels that could entice purchasers amid the current home buying season. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 3.64 percent from 3.58 percent last week. It’s far below its level a year ago of 3.87%. The average rate on 15-year ...

  Bloomberg Donald Trump criticized the wind-power industry this week for killing birds. A far bigger threat is real estate developers and their tall buildings. About 599 million birds are killed annually in the U.S. when they fly into windows, trailing only loss of habitat and cats as the top causes of bird deaths, according to the National Audubon Society. ...

  Washington / AP Americans signed more contracts to buy homes in April for the third straight month, driving pending home sales to the highest level in more than a decade. The National Association of Realtors said that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index surged 5.1 percent last month to 116.3, the highest since 117.4 in February 2006. The April ...