The exclusive listing myth: Why Manhattan’s biggest deals don’t need gatekeepers - by Robert Khodadadian

Robert Khodadadian

Last month, a 26-story office tower in Manhattan’s Financial District closed for $105 million. The building had traded nearly a decade earlier for $225 million, after which the sellers poured another $70 million into gut renovations. By any traditional calculation, they were staring at a catastrophic loss nearly $200 million evaporated into the New York skyline.

But here is what nobody wrote about: the deal didn’t happen through an exclusive listing. There was no glossy offering memorandum, no controlled auction, and no six-month “process.” The building at 101 Greenwich St. never hit a listing platform; it sold because someone reached the right buyer, the one person who looked at a distressed office tower and saw what others didn’t. The buyer, Idan Ofer, partnered with Nathan Berman of Metro Loft, who has converted more than eight million s/f of office space into residential