In the Press

To those who may not have thought of this option prior, there are some distinct advantages for real estate investors to allocating real estate owned into an IRA. Real estate is tangible, thus, you have strategic control over the management of the properties and which properties are purchased for the account. My personal favorite advantage

Manhattan, NY Members of Baruch College’s alumni community have banded together to create the college’s first real estate alumni club. The goal of the group is to “create, maintain and support a community of Real Estate Alumni of Baruch College and Newman Real Estate Institute.” At their first official board meeting on March 1st, the

What are your predictions for commercial real estate in 2012? 2012 will be defined by how well the European markets will manage to sort out their liquidity crises. We are heading for an election year and that brings more uncertainty to an already volatile market. Expect market like New York, D.C. and San Francisco to

In the midst of the global predicament comes another hurdle for hoteliers to jump over; hotel construction financing has become increasingly difficult to achieve. While financing for the purchase or refinancing of strong hotel properties in New York remains strong, private funding for construction or redevelopment has been quite stringent. Hospitality financing groups have been

With Senior Lenders more conservative than in past years, bankers have been opening their doors to non-traditional alternatives to the fill the void in capital stack for qualified borrowers with well-positioned assets. It seems the stars have aligned for mezz lenders; a rapid increase in development in and around the boroughs, as well as a

Pool table manufacturer Blatt Billiards has sold its six-story building at 809 Broadway, according to property records. The buyer, a syndicate of Israeli investors using the name 809 Broadway Holding LLC, paid $24 million for the building, which is between 11th and 12th Streets. The deal closed on February 13 and was recorded with the

Lee Silpe (27) Berko & Associates, COO and Partner At Berko and Associates, Lee Silpe wears many hats. As the chief operating officer, he oversees the operations for the whole office, consisting of 22 associates, analysts and support staff. He is also a director at the company, leading a team of the firm’s top agents.

Long Island City, NY Joe Berko and Michael Korine of Berko & Associates along with Madison Realty Capital (MRC) completed a $27 million first mortgage loan to recapitalize on the Paper Factory Hotel at 37-06 36th St., which will open later this month. The borrower purchased the six-story 103,000 s/f warehouse in 2012 and turned

Early this year, the outlook appeared grim for the owners of 280 Park Ave. Vacancy rates were ballooning, and cash reserves were dwindling. But Broadway Partners and Investcorp Real Estate Group still had to service huge debt they’d taken on when they bought the 1.2 million-square-foot, two-tower property at the height of the market in

Joe Berko was on a visit to Brazil when Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008. “I was watching CNN and I knew: This is it. Something big just happened,” he recalled. When he returned to the U.S., he found a financial system that had gone into cardiac arrest. Berko’s promising, three-year-old investment