All’s Fair (and FARE) in New York Real Estate This Week

15 November 2025

This week saw the major blowup of one of the country’s largest apartment landlords.

Fairstead has about $7.8 billion in assets and projects in the pipeline and 24,000 housing units across 28 states with a goal to grow even bigger.

But internal disputes sparked multiple legal fights, including one that saw a lengthy opinion come down late last month. The trial involved 10 witnesses and nearly 2,600 exhibits, providing a play-by-play of the drama and negotiation at Fairstead, as well as showing an example of what happens when a business takes off at lightning speed.

Slower to take off are significant office projects in Manhattan.

But after the opening of JPMorgan Chase’s shining office tower, all eyes are on the next big skyscraper set to reshape Manhattan’s office skyline.

Vornado Realty Trust filed a construction permit application for a high-rise at 350 Park Avenue. Vornado is partnering with Rudin Management and hedge fund Citadel on the development of the tower located between East 50th and 51st streets.

The permit application describes a 62-story building totaling more than 2 million square feet. Citadel, in addition to being a partner on the project, agreed to rent 850,000 square feet in the tower.

In Brooklyn, a townhouse set the record for priciest sale in the borough.

Eli Gindi, a member of the acclaimed Gindi real estate family, sold his home at 2126 East Fourth Street in South Brooklyn’s Gravesend neighborhood for $32 million, according to property records. The buyer was identified as Victor Hakim, chief executive officer and founder of Choice Home Warranty.

The deal easily surpassed the borough’s previous record for a single-family sale, set at 8 Montague Terrace in Brooklyn Heights, which sold for $25.5 million in 2020.

Andrew Farkas is big-dealing hunting, too. His Island Capital put the Lexington Hotel in Midtown East up for sale, eyeing a price of about $275 million for the 725-key property.

Farkas’ joint venture acquired it in 2021 for $185 million. The hotel had been closed due to the pandemic and renovated by its previous owner, DiamondRock Hospitality. It reopened under the Marriott International Autograph Collection brand shortly after the trade.

The Lexington is the last major “big-box” hotel in the neighborhood, meaning it could benefit from nearby developments such as the aforementioned JPMorgan HQ.

Finally, we take a breath and look back, for it was one year ago this week that the City Council approved the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act, which banned forcing tenants to pay fees for rental brokers they did not hire.

Proponents of the measure argued that the previous dynamic gave landlords more leverage to raise rents at lease renewal, knowing tenants likely wanted to avoid upfront costs.

But opponents, such as the Real Estate Board of New York, blamed the law for rising rents and the disappearance of public listings. REBNY is even awaiting an appeal for a legal challenge.

So with one year since passage — and five months since enactment — our residential and politics team looked at how the FARE Act has actually affected the city’s residential market. Time to separate fact from fiction.