More likely it means Met Life sees what most other people are seeing: a real-estate market cool-off or crash. They're getting out at the peak of the NYC market, which has been crazy the last few years. -- Ben On 8/30/06, Jason Arnaute <non_secure@yahoo.com> wrote:
Article on the front page of the NYT today (Aug 30, 2006) discusses the proposed sale of a large block of apartment buildings owned by Met Life in downtown manhattan. It will be a huge sale, 5 billion or more.
The article goes on to discuss the likelihood of the units being gentrified, turned into luxury condos, and the plight of the cities working middle class who will be forced out, etc.
But what caught my eye is that not only is Met Life selling off this crown jewel of urban real estate, but that:
"Last year the insurer sold its landmark tower at 1 madison avenue and the skyscraper at 200 Park Avenue, the former Pan Am building, for more than 2.6 billion"
It further details that Met Life is assuredly _not_ getting out of the real estate market, and in fact has over 40 billion of real assets worldwide.
So ... who has better research, intelligence, predictive models and risk assessment than a giant insurance company ?
And now that giant insurance company is going _very short_ manhattan real estate ? Including its own landmark, historic headquarter building ?
Is it possible that some have decided that a NYC nuke is a question of when and not if ?
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