210 West 107th Street, c/o Google Street View
A multi-family real estate firm has filed for bankruptcy for several of its buildings located on West 107th Street, PincusCo first reported.
A petition shows that Emerald Equity Group has filed for Chapter 11 for its buildings at 203, 210, 220, and 230 West 107th Street, in addition to several of its Harlem properties on East 117th Street. The petition requests the properties be transferred to the lender, LoanCore.
The bankruptcy filings from December 28 also state that Emerald Equity Group owes a total of $203,075,766.48 to LoanCore.
Isaac Kassirer is the owner of Emerald Equity Group. According to the filing, he purchased the 107th Street buildings in December 2016 with the plan of converting them into condominiums. The Harlem buildings were purchased in March 2018, and the plan was to make renovations to vacant apartments in order to increase their rents. The filing states, however, that both of these plans were obstructed “by the passage of the New York Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 (“HSTPA”).”
According to its website, “Emerald’s Manhattan portfolio consists of over 1500 units in developing areas of the city.” The company, founded in NYC in 2012, has approximately 7,000 apartments throughout the US.
The 2020 landlord watch list, which publicized the 100 New York landlords with the greatest number of violations, included Emerald’s 210 West 107th Street. See the five other UWS landlords on that list.
Wonderful news. Tenants in all 7000 of these apartments should stop paying rent immediately until this is resolved.
Right idea , wrong time
I love how pp looking after the rent money. If u are a landlord which it’s seems that u not u understand that water, electric, and lets not talk about the taxes are up in the sky the moron mayor only think about the low income pp instead of milking the landlords for more money
Great. These landlords that buy buildings only to renovate around existing tenants and harass them to make them move so they can charge way more rent are the scum of the earth.
What should worry us is landlords are going bankrupt. Things are far worse then it appears.
Yes, they purchased and . Risked and now a crash . The tenants will wish things were as before.
As a tenant of the one of their buildings, I can tell you that this statement from their website: “Honesty and integrity with a steadfast commitment and discipline to maximizing execution, are the bedrock principles upon which Emerald’s foundation was laid and are the guiding force behind every decision,” is complete, total, and utter bullshit.
Good!!! NYC landlords have been fleecing renters for decades!! They are heartless and deserve everything coming to them.
We lived in 210 W. 107th Street, and then moved to 220 W. 107th Street. We moved in 2008 when the building were sold and we knew that the buyers paid too much money for them. We looked at the prospectus of the company that bought them, and discovered that the told investors their strategy was to move out rent stabilized tenants and bring the apartments to market rate. These building received J-51 benefits so all of the apartments (including our two) were illegally de-stabilized. Landlords are sleazy. What’s a pity is that they turned our beautiful, 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom apartment into a horrible 5-bedroom monstrosity. Look at it on Zillow sometime. Number 4-D, 220 W. 107th Street.
Hello Susie Im a journalist at Lehman College and we are doing research on Emerald Equity. Is it possible to inquire more information on your experience on these issues?
We had scum landlords who charged a year’s rent in advance, and sent scammers into our slum apartment to get us out, lying that they were from a City Agency. I am in my 40th. year with the City, and know exactly how inspections are done, and very few City Agencies go into tenant’s homes. This criminal, who has numerous Class C Violations, (the higher the letter, the graver the violations) also asked me to get his son a job in my agency. Needless to say, the worthless Police did nothing (my former Agency). Both Housing Preservation and Development and Department of Buildings found numerous violations. Rents are suicidal, and then they are increased. There should be a total moratorium on rent increases.
Many landlords will file for bankruptcy very soon. Let the state sleep, the state doesn’t know what is coming its way. There will be so many foreclosures and bankruptcies in 2022.
Let the City take over all buildings and they will become like the projects, rat infested dumps and the tenants will have zero recourse. No calling 311, no HPD violations, no working elevators, no heat/ hot water, peeling lead paint galore and nobody to turn to.
United States will be a 3rd World Country by 2022. Landlords will go bankrupt, then the banks, then the city government when they no longer can collect taxes, then the utility companies. And then Biden’s plan to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour. We are about to hit a depression that will be far worse than anything that happened in 1929 or 1930. When the 5th Amendment Right to Due Process and Taking of Property without Just Compensation goes ignored by our court system. An i.o.u. to pay rent whenever this pandemic is deemed over, is NOT Just Compensation. Just Compensation must be paid prior to the taking of property, not after the fact. Supreme Court and all these judges justifying how the 5th Amendment does not apply, when that is exactly why we have a 5th Amendment to prevent taking of property and due process. And the ACLU is a communist joke and actually opposes the 5th Amendment Rights of Landlords. An organization that is supposed to be defending civil rights, opposes the 5th Amendment? The Supreme Court needs to wake up and correct this before it is too late.