Synopses & Reviews
In just over three years, real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of investorsand#8217; dollars on a single deal. The New York Times reporter who first broke the story of the sale of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village takes readers inside the most spectacular failure in real estate history, using this single deal as a lens to see how and why the real estate crisis happened.
How did the smartest people in real estate lose billions in one single deal? How did the Church of England, the California public employeesand#8217; pension fund, and the Singapore government lose more than one billion dollars combined investing in a middle-class housing complex in New York City? How did MetLife make three billion dollars on the deal without any repercussions from a historically racist policy of housing segregation? And how did nine residents of a sleepy enclave in New York City win one of the most unlikely lawsuits in the history of real estate law?
Not only does Other Peopleand#8217;s Money answer those questions, it also explains the current recession in stark, clear detail while providing riveting first-person accounts of the titanic failure of the real estate industry to see that a recession was coming. Itand#8217;s the definitive book on real estate during the bubble yearsand#151;and what happened when that enormous bubble exploded.
and#160;
Review
"It's been said that journalism is the first draft of history, but with his upcoming bookand#160;
Other People's Money,and#160;
New York Timesand#160;reporter Charles Bagli writes the most authoritative account yet of the failed Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village deal and the housing crises that rocked the world." -
New York Observer and#160;
and#8220;The reader interested in New York real estate history, its moneyed elites, or even the self-contradictory aspects of social investment should find ample material for reflection and enjoyment in Bagliand#8217;s account.and#8221;
and#8212; Publishers Weekly
and#8220;Bagli's sourcing is impressive, and readers will welcome his ability to make arcane investment dealings comprehensible.and#8221; and#8212;Kirkus
and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, coauthor of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Review
and#8220;
Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off of a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, author of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Review
Praise forand#160;
Other People's Money:
and#8220;The reader interested in New York real estate history, its moneyed elites, or even the self-contradictory aspects of social investment should find ample material for reflection and enjoyment in Bagliand#8217;s account.and#8221;
and#8212; Publishers Weekly
and#8220;Bagli's sourcing is impressive, and readers will welcome his ability to make arcane investment dealings comprehensible.and#8221; and#8212;Kirkus
and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money delivers one of the great untold stories of the financial crisisand#8212;how greed, arrogance, and the distorted incentives of the commercial real estate market helped drive our nationand#8217;s economy off a cliff. Told through meticulous reporting of what was arguably the worst real estate deal of all time, in this vitally important book Bagli demonstrates how the well-heeled and well-connected walked away relatively unscathed from the wreckage that they created, leaving a devastated middle class holding the bag yet again.and#8221;
and#8212;Neil Barofsky, New York Times bestselling author of Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
and#8220;Charles Bagli does for the politics and economics of urban real estate finance what Jane Jacobs did for urban street life. Bagliand#8217;s new book, Other Peopleand#8217;s Money, uses the sale of a major housing complex on Manhattanand#8217;s Lower East Side, Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village, to demonstrate how contemporary real estate speculators deploy international finance and local politics to change the housing options of more ordinary city dwellers. Bagli, a talented journalist, makes the street-level impacts of abstract global finance easily understood.and#8221;
and#8212;Elliott Sclar, professor of urban planning, Columbia University
and#160;and#8220;Other Peopleand#8217;s Money is a terrific book. With remarkable textual clarity and a fine-tuned dramatic sensibility, Charles Bagli has recreated the extraordinarily high stakes poker game that was the largest real estate deal in U.S. history. His characters include the biggest real estate players on the planet as well as middle-class residents desperately holding on by their fingertips to the only housing they can afford. A truly epic tale, one that systematically demonstrates the logic (and illogic) of the real estate bubble that set the stage for worldwide recession and that reveals the wild, unforgiving nature of twenty-first-century capitalism. Itand#8217;s a powerful story and a great read.and#8221;
and#8212;Rick Fantasia, coauthor of Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement and professor of sociology at Smith College
and#160;
Synopsis
A veteran New York Times reporter dissects the most spectacular failure in real estate history
Real estate giant Tishman Speyer and its partner, BlackRock, lost billions of dollars when their much-vaunted purchase of Stuyvesant TownPeter Cooper Village in New York City failed to deliver the expected profits. But how did Tishman Speyer walk away from the deal unscathed, while others took the financial hitand MetLife scored a $3 billion profit?
Illuminating the world of big real estate the way Too Big to Fail did for banks, Other Peoples Money is a riveting account of politics, high finance, and the hubris that ultimately led to the nationwide real estate meltdown.
About the Author
CHARLES V. BAGLI covers the intersection of politics and real estate at The New York Times. He was ranked the sixty-first most powerful person in real estate by The New York Observer in 2010. He lives in New Jersey with his wife. They have two daughters.