Former Mets ace Matt Harvey has traded pitching baseballs for pitching loans.
Harvey, who quit the sport last month after a 10-year career, has quietly joined commercial real estate firm Newmark as managing director of its multifamily debt origination and advisory unit, The Post has learned.
A source said Harvey’s job will be to develop new client relationships while he undergoes a “crash course” as part of the powerhouse Capital Markets Strategies division.
“I’ve always been interested in the many different aspects of real estate,” Harvey told The Post. “By joining an incredibly successful firm such as Newmark, I will be able to learn and grow from some of the best in the industry.”
Newmark told The Post in a statement, “Matt’s high-profile career has given him tremendous exposure to industry professionals and his position will allow him to expand the group’s footprint in the tristate region.
“Matt has already hit the ground running, meeting with clients and colleagues and deploying his team-building skills to the multifamily and commercial financing sector.”
Matt Harvey retired from baseball last month.AP
Harvey, who earned the moniker of “The Dark Knight,” helped lead the Mets to their only World Series appearance in the past four decades.
They lost to the Royals in 2015 and his Hall-of-Fame trajectory was soon derailed by injuries and an MLB suspension for drug use.
He pitched for four teams after leaving the Mets and last appeared in the majors in 2021.
Harvey, 34, landed the position at one of the world’s largest commercial real estate brokerages and service firms thanks largely to his relationship with lifelong Mets fan Anthony Orso, the president of Capital Markets Strategies.
Newmark said Matt Harvey has already “hit the ground running.”AP
The two met in 2013, Harvey’s second season with the Mets, when the rising star helped Orso’s son Steven with his knuckleball during a bullpen session at Citi Field.
Orso had co-founded Cantor Commercial Real Estate — Cantor Fitzgerald’s commercial and multifamily real estate finance company, which closed over $50 billion in loans during Orso’s tenure as CEO — before joining Newmark.
Harvey participated in Cantor’s many charitable programs, Orso recalled.
“And sort of coincidentally, I had a friend who had a box at Citi Field who was friends with Matt’s parents in Mystic, Ct.,” said Orso, an Amazin’ fan since since the Miracle Mets won the Worlds Series in 1969.
A few months ago, another Newmark executive who knew Harvey told Orso about the pitcher’s plans to hang up his cleats.
Newmark’s headquarters are located at 125 Park Ave.GoogleMaps
“I felt bad. He’s such a great guy. I knew he had a lot of surgeries,” Orso said.
Orso soon offered him a job in his division, which specializes in complex real estate financings, private equity placements and restructuring advisory services, and Harvey reported for work at the firm’s 125 Park Ave. headquarters.
“He’s in the office early, working all day” and often out with clients at night, Orso said.
This week, Harvey took clients to the “Subway Series” at Citi Field.
“What client doesn’t want to go there with Matt Harvey?” Orso mused.
As for whether the former starter will thrive in his new role as a closer, Orso predicted, “He’ll be very successful.”
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
