Suddenly the “Prettiest Girl at the Dance”

Abstract

This chapter discusses Tishman Speyer's purchase of Stuyvesant Town for $5.4 billion, which was so large that there was not a single bank or other investor able to make a loan of such a significant amount. It describes enthusiastic investors looking to cash in on the real-estate market that lent Tishman Speyer and BlackRock what they needed to buy Stuy Town from MetLife. It also notes the appraisal that put the value of Stuy Town and Peter Cooper at $1.8 billion in 2010. The chapter highlights the $3 billion first mortgage on Stuy Town as the primary loan that paid for the property and when Tishman Speyer defaulted, the lenders were entitled to get paid back before anyone else. It explains how the $3 billion first mortgage had been packaged into five sets of other mortgages around the country and sold to investors as bonds.