the inevitability of a new york nuke ?

[Ben Straub]

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 at 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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