From the sand dunes of Saudi Arabia to the sunny shores of South Florida, from Bowery “flophouses” to Westchester courthouses, The Real Deal took readers around the world this year, exploring every niche of real estate. Our reporters and editors investigated complex legal battles and political loopholes, brought behind-the-scenes players into the spotlight and continued to shed light on one of the world’s most important but least understood industries whenever and wherever possible.
With all that good work it’s hard to pick favorites. Still, we tried our best. Below is a selection of TRD staffers’ favorite stories from 2022.
How a White Plains judge became a favorite refuge for NYC developers
Four TRD reporters singled out this story on New York City developers’ favorite bankruptcy judge by senior reporter Keith Larsen with research from senior researcher Christian Bautista. Reporter Joe Lovinger said the story cuts through “lawsuit legalese and layers of LLCs to provide a clear picture of the Brooklyn real estate underworld.” The story pulls back the veil on alleged “venue shopping,” which city developers may or may not have been doing to get their bankruptcies in front of Westchester County Judge Robert Drain. Ultimately, Larsen “lay[s] out the facts and let[s] the reader decide,” senior reporter Rich Bockmann said. “At a time when so many players are wrestling over troubled projects, Larsen’s story does an excellent job of showing how the sausage gets made.”
The world is running out of sand
“Who knew how important sand is to construction, and that the world is running out of it?” senior managing editor Erik Engquist asked. The answer, of course, is TRD senior reporter Kathryn Brenzel, who explains the quiet crisis colorfully in this piece. Senior reporter Katherine Kallergis noted that Brenzel took a “massive issue” that much of the industry has ignored and made it “easy to digest,” laying out the facts and some obvious but overlooked truths. Such as, in the case of J.P. Morgan’s new all-electric Midtown headquarters: Iit could perhaps be argued that the more sustainable option would have been to simply keep the existing 60-year-old building on the site.”
Taking the reader from the sands of the Arabian desert (too fine) to the gravel on Vancouver Island (much better), Brenzel sheds light on an issue you probably haven’t thought about, but should.
This New York story was singled out by TRD’s South Florida managing editor Ina Cordle as “really captur[ing] the mood of the market!” After the pandemic rush to South Florida, reporter Suzannah Cavanaugh highlighted the New York buyers returning home. Brokers said they had a range of motivations, from schools and the end of remote work to Ron DeSantis. The story neatly depicts a shifting mood in one of the country’s fastest changing real estate markets.
How a legal loophole could reshape California
It’s a whole new world for housing in California. TRD has been following the saga of “builder’s remedy,” a long-established but suddenly popular legal loophole closely, and reporter Trevor Bach did a “terrific job” laying out the law’s “long-forgotten origins” and its consequences, said Enquist. The loophole, since closed in Santa Monica but now playing out across the state, means that cities out of compliance with state housing plans can lose the ability to block projects with at least 20 percent affordable units. “Local zoning be damned,” Bach wrote. YIMBYs, rejoice.
Here at The Real Deal, we really love lawsuits. In this one, reporter Joe Lovinger “took a basic lawsuit story and unearthed a saga,” Engquist said. Lovinger starts strong: “After eight years,” he writes, “a developer’s quest to redevelop a Bowery flophouse appears to be all flop and no house.” From there Lovinger chronicled the redevelopment from its origins, including a battle between the partners, the property’s multiple lives during the pandemic and ultimately, its foreclosure.
Inside an Israeli billionaire’s Miami gamble
Any real estate reporter can write about a developer or a broker, but it takes a great reporter (or two) to write on powerful figures bankrolling real estate. Senior reporter Katherine Kallergis and reporter Lidia Dinkova’s profile of Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi, whose riches are transforming Miami’s skyline, does just that. Keith Larsen said the story shows Sagi’s personality and his unique style of investing — namely, that he can’t tell you much about any of the projects he’s backing.
“The beauty in the way I build businesses,” Sagi told them, is that “I am not running the businesses.”
Joseph Chetrit: The man from Morocco
Our June cover story by journalist and New Kings of New York author Adam Piore spotlights one of New York real estate’s quiet giants. The article, an “in-depth story on a mysterious, but important real estate player,” according to reporter Andrew Asch, lays out Chetrit’s journey from an oasis town in the Sahara Desert to an American real estate empire. The story is made more interesting by Chetrit’s press-shyness; he’s been characterized as someone “secretive,” who “deals in the shadows,” by other publications. Here he’s illuminated — nasty lawsuits, smart investments, wild negotiations and all — as a consummate dealmaker.
How special are these permits? No one got any
In the first year after the New York City Council mandated that developers must get a special permit to build a hotel, not a single application was filed for one; senior reporter Kathryn Brenzel and research director Matthew Elo checked the books. “This was a smart follow-up piece on the one-year anniversary of a nakedly political law,” editor Engquist said. It’s a law with potentially big repercussions, too: “By the Department of City Planning’s own analysis, by 2035, the permit mandate will leave New York 47,000 hotel rooms short of the demand,” Brenzel wrote.
Cannabis goes legit: Real estate sees green in budding industry
Editorial fellow Cailley LaPara tackled the weird world of weed real estate in this feature. Would-be retailers need a space to get a license, but landlords haven’t always been willing, even despite the ailing retail market and the brokers positioning dispensaries as “Amazon- and pandemic-proof” tenants. “[LaPara] manages to touch on all the potential snags legalized marijuana might pose for real estate without exhausting the reader by getting too in the (pun!) weed(s),” reporter Suzannah Cavanaugh wrote. Now, with the first licenses issued, the stars may be aligning for “canna-curious” landlords.
Thanks for joining us this year! We hope you enjoy reading these stories s much as we did producing them.