Kamala Harris talks about housing, Kmart disappears from the retail scene and an Oscar nominee turns landlord. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of Sept. 23-27.
Miss: Another Bowl of Word Salad. Vice President Kamala Harris finally acknowledged the complaints regarding her avoidance of one-on-one media interviews, but her Wednesday appearance on MSNBC cruelly affirmed her inability to articulate a vision for the nation. Consider this jumble when she tried to describe why her housing development plans will not be a one-size-fits-all approach: “For example, some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.” Uh, what was that all about?
Miss: A Mayor on the Hot Seat. Eric Adams made history this week as the first New York City mayor to be on the receiving end of a federal indictment – and that’s no mean feat when you consider some of the sketchy characters who ran the Big Apple. Adams is accused of absorbing illegal campaign contributions and luxury gifts from Turkish nationals, and real estate is part of the indictment – the mayor is charged with pressuring the city’s fire commissioner to approve the opening of a 36-story Turkish consular building without a fire inspection. Adams broadly hinted he is a “target” of the Biden administration’s wrath because he openly criticized its illegal immigration policies and its deleterious impact on New York City. Whether that strategy will work remains to be seen, but it is difficult to be sympathetic with a mayor who has overseen the dramatic decline in the once-great city’s quality of life.
Miss: End of a Retail Era. The last full-size Kmart operating in the US is scheduled to cease operations on Oct. 20. The 90,000-square-foot store in the Long Island hamlet of Bridgehampton, New York, opened in 1996 and was part of a chain that encompassed more than 2,000 locations at its peak. Kmart has not completely disappeared – the last US location with the Kmart brand is a small store in Miami that is closer in size to a convenience store than a department store, while Kmart-branded stores still operate in Guam and the US Virgin Islands. Still, this story offers a bittersweet denouement for the story of a beloved retail chain.
Hit: Belated Justice in the Works? On Thursday, some of the judges on a New York City appeals court judges questioned the civil fraud case against former President Donald Trump, who is seeking to overturn a judgment against him related to the valuation of his real estate assets. The judgment as grown with interest to more than $478 million, but the appeals judges questioned both the severity of the penalty against Trump as well as whether New York Attorney General Letitia James overplayed her authority in bringing the case to trial. While the judges did not issue an immediate ruling, it is invigorating to know there are judges in New York that do not seem have a baked-in bias against the former president.
Hit: An Oscar-Nominated Landlord. Actress Michelle Williams has been nominated for five Academy Awards and has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. According to the New York Post, she is expanding beyond her reel-life work for a real-life role: a Brooklyn landlord. The glamorous star is renting her Brooklyn mansion for $35,000 a month. The 6,500-square-foot residence was built in 1910 and has eight bedrooms, six full bathrooms and modern amenities including heated floors and a home gym. Whether Williams herself will be a hands-on landlord is uncertain, but whoever becomes her tenant will be the rare New Yorker who can claim their rent check goes each month to a Hollywood icon.
Miss: AREA Slams NAR. This week, the start-up American Real Estate Association (AREA) launched a petition campaign calling on the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to repeal its Clear Cooperation Policy, claiming that it forces real estate professionals to “submit listings to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) within one business day of public marketing, regardless of their clients’ wishes.” AREA has been trying to promote itself as an alternative to NAR, but perhaps it would be more successful if it concentrated on highlighting the unique benefits of membership in its organization. NAR has already generated ill-will by its actions over the past year – if AREA is going to succeed, it needs to show real estate professionals how it can provide a better way forward.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
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