Sunday Summary: A Typical, No-Drama Week

“How was your day at work, dear?” Marge Simpson once sweetly asked her husband shortly after the company physical.

“Oh, the usual,” a disinterested Homer answered, heading toward the fridge. “Stand in front of this. Open that. Pull down this. Bend over. Spread apart that. Turn your head that way. Cough.”

For some reason, we were in this frame of mind as we looked at New York City real estate last week.

It’s not that anything uncomfortably corporeal came up, but “the usuals” were anything but: SL Green and PGIM Real Estate got a $1.4 billion CMBS refinancing for 11 Madison Avenue; MGM Empire City and Resorts World New York City won a critical vote towards securing two of the three elusive downstate casino licenses; Brookfield Properties signed a 9.4 million-square-foot extension on Brookfield Place for the next 50 years.

You know — the usual.

The fact that Brookfield and SL Green are keeping the faith with Gotham’s recovering office market probably lent some credence to the report we saw last week from JLL Capital Markets that the sky might not fall in New York City real estate if Zohran Mamdani is elected mayor in November.

“While presumptive Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s platform includes policies that may concern real estate investors, it’s critical to understand the actual extent of mayoral authority,” the report said. “Our analysis reveals that most policies affecting commercial real estate cannot be unilaterally implemented.”

From rent control, to new affordable housing, to union jobs, almost everything Mamdani has championed is subject to some federal, state or City Council oversight. So the real estate masters of the universe might not need to move to South Florida right away. (Even if some prominent New York ex-real estate moguls have already led the way.)

But if you did move to Florida….

You’d have places to shop — like the Galleria Mall in Fort Lauderdale. That one caught the eye of Russell Galbut and Sandeep Mathrani, who bought the 32-acre property for $73 million. (Certain Southern California malls are also selling — albeit at a discount from where they probably should be. Thankfully, it looks like Cain International’s One Beverly Hills is off to a strong start in its retail.)

And you’d have places to live. May we suggest Wynwood? Thor Equities (which, it should be noted, is not going gently into that good night on one of NYC’s remaining casino proposals) plunked down $30.3 million for 2 acres of land that are zoned for a whopping 613,000 square feet of space.

Just don’t try to add a condo component to an existing hotel in Miami — especially not a famous one. Starwood found that out the hard way.

Residential redux

One of the positive stories out there for real estate has been in residential. (Well, certain parts.)

“Multifamily is really the outlier as far as what we do, going back 30 years,” said Soultana Reigle, who oversees about $11 billion for PGIM Real Estate, in an interview with CO last week. “In terms of multifamily development, we have a pretty tremendous track record in that regard. We’ve done it across all sectors, but multifamily stands out.”

One part of multifamily that still summons a wow factor is luxury condo. Sure, there are some serious questions as to whether luxury condos can still attract foreign buyers, but they remain big business. In fact, they have leapt well beyond the pages of business magazines, and into mainstream media and even reality TV.

For instance, have you ever heard of John Gomes? Well, then you don’t watch enough HGTV. But a shorthand way of presenting Gomes’s bona fides is he’s the guy who sold Daniel Craig, Gigi Hadid and Tobey Maguire their homes and did some $15 billion worth of business in his career.

Gomes sat down with CO to talk about how he got started with Michael Shvo after serving as the maî​tre d’ at Balthazar, how he met his business partner Frederik Eklund, what he thinks of the luxury condo market, and more.

And for those who favor “The Bachelor” — or “The Bachelorette” — in their reality TV diet, you can read about Tyler Cameron, the season 15 runner-up, who is now a broker in Serhant’s Jupiter, Fla., office.

“I’ve been around [real estate] my whole life,” Cameron said. “So I was like, ‘You know what? I love this already. Why don’t I just get my license and do it for other people?’”

Hey — that’s a good reason to get into real estate!

See you next week.