More on this soon, but for now: 601W Companies is in contract to buy 205 East 42nd St. in Midtown from the Durst Organization for $165M, according to investor materials seen by The Promote. A deal for the CUNY-anchored Art Deco tower would be the first since Durst patriarch Joseph Durst snapped up the building in 1944.

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RBC’s ruinous run in the SF multifamily market continues. Veritas, the multifamily landlord controlled by Yat Pang-Au, has defaulted on $650M+ in RBC debt and now faces foreclosure, per a notice of default spotted by Mission Local. The UPB on the loan is $551M, per the notice, and the debt’s backed by a 66-building portfolio w/ nearly 1,600 units. Veritas has seen its Bay Area portfolio gutted over the past 3Y. Ballast Investments and Brookfield took control of over 2K units (known among locals as the Lembi portfolio) via the NPL in early ‘24. Soon after, Veritas put 750+ rent-controlled units on the market, and this May PCCP paid $541M ($305K/ 🚪) to take control of nearly 1,800 units from a Veritas/Ivanhoé Cambridge (it’s always the Canadians 😢 ) JV at a 30% 💇. Pang has been stoic throughout the saga.

TBF to Veritas, it’s not the only major multi investor facing upheaval in SF. Even as Ballast made its Veritas move, a separate upscale portfolio it owned w/ Goldman Sachs was in deep distress. The sorry lender on that one, too, was RBC, which took the properties over last May and has been slowly bringing them back to the market. Much of this distress stems from overheated capital stacks rather than market fundamentals; SF’s avg. monthly rent now tops $3,300, and its 6% annual growth rate is the highest among major markets.

Sharing an email from Dallas City Council Member Chad West that’s doing the rounds:

On May 30, 2025, the City “filed challenges to the 13 properties owned by traveling HFCs that are seeking tax exemptions and 34 properties owned by traveling HFCs that have already been granted ad velorem tax exemptions…. On September 17, 2025, DCAD notified [the City] that the traveling HFCs that have requested tax exemptions in 2025 were not certified.  On September 11, 2025, the Chief Appraiser sent exemption denial letters for the 2025 tax year to all the traveling HFCs.”

This is all happening while sponsors who milked the program for all it was worth (and then some) are on the legal warpath, claiming that the bill that killed it off was unconstitutional and will undermine the faith in our capital markets. We’re already seeing some deals unravel. Meanwhile, multi developers are finding other creative sources of funding – JPI landed muni bond financing at a 461-unit project in Denton.