“Location, location, location” is off the map as real estate’s defining mantra. Enter “data, data, data.”\xa0
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Hype over artificial intelligence and the seemingly overnight arrival of a new generation of chatbots (which, I swear, did not write any of this editor’s note) could transform the residential real estate industry.\xa0
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Our cover story this month explores some of those implications, from better real-time valuations for homes to instant marketing materials, more exacting lead generation and even bots replacing brokers in stages of the home-selling process. \xa0
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Even Zillow’s notoriously all-over-the-map Zestimates could get fine-tuned.\xa0
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As reporter Patrick Sisson writes, perhaps the biggest question of all will bewhether the tech lives up to the hype\xa0— a question even ChatGPT can’t answer.\xa0
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The AI revolution could also mean a leaner workforce, which is bad news for office landlords already faced with staggering obstacles.Tony Malkin, for example, the scion of the dynasty that owns the Empire State Building, is grappling with an existential question: Do offices still matter?\xa0
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The world’s most iconic skyscraper opened in the teeth of the Great Depression, lived through 15 recessions and survived a plane crashing into it. But the talent pool’s shift away from the office\xa0may be its greatest threat yet, reporter Rich Bockmann writes.\xa0
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Bockmann's profile examines how Malkin is responding to the changing market (he’s put in a pickleball court) and what it means for other stewards of famed skyscrapers forced to compete with newer and shinier counterparts.\xa0
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At least Malkin hasn’t suffered as many recent shellackings as other big-name landlords like\xa0Brookfield\xa0and\xa0Columbia Property Trust, which have defaulted on once-prized properties in prime markets. The head of RXR, Scott Rechler, gives Hiten Samtani a clear-eyed take on how his portfolio is\xa0responding to the new realities, with an initiative called “Project Kodak.” \xa0
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More broadly, we explore how preferred equity is stepping in to save stalled developments ina story on “rescue capital.”\xa0
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Elsewhere in the issue is a look at a high-profile project resurrected after surviving a previous downturn. The supertall condo 125 Greenwich, whose investors past and present have included Michael Shvo, Howard Lorber, the late Howard Michaels and Chinese company Cindat, became one of the city’s most prominent stalled sites. Now it's back in the game with a new formidable equity partner,Fortress Investment Group.\xa0
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Elsewhere in these pages, we have our\xa0annual ranking of New York’s top residential firms.\xa0As reporters Harrison Connery and Sheridan Wall write, the year “began on a high carried over from 2021’s record-breaking post-lockdown bonanza, but the spring of hope quickly became a winter of despair as high interest rates froze the market.” Still, the top five firms held steady from the prior year in Manhattan; the fastest riser among the top 10 was Ryan Serhant’s firm, which doubled its sales volume from the year before.\xa0
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Don’t miss our profiles from across the country. We have a story on scrappy Los Angeles developer\xa0Grant King’s quest to build a hotel empire\xa0(he’s behind the Dream, Tommie and Thompson hotels). We also take a look at\xa0Andrew Joblon’s Turnbridge Equities, which has built a portfolio of more than \\$2 billion from New York to Austin. And we have a profile of South Florida’s\xa0“lowest-profile” developer, Lewis Swezy, whose portfolio of thousands of apartments and hundreds of acres in a hot South Florida market came together with zero fanfare.\xa0
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Enjoy the issue!\xa0
