By Daniel Geiger

An over 100,000 s/f block of commercial office space in the Setai Wall Street is in contract to be sold to a group led by the real estate investor Joel Schreiber, several sources familiar with the deal say.

Schreiber, who is the principal of the real estate investment group Waterbridge Capital, will pay less than $20 million for the space, which is about 110,000 s/f in size and comprises the building’s first seven floors. Although the exact purchase price was not disclosed by press time, sources put the transaction amount at between $16 and $17 million.

By Roland Li

The Manhattan rental market saw rents climb and landlord concessions decrease in the first quarter, compared to the previous year, according to reports released on Thursday from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Citi Habitats. Citi Habitats, which based its data on the firm’s closed transactions in the first quarter, reported an average rent increase of 12% compared to the first quarter of 2010. The vacancy rate was 1.08% in the first quarter, down from 1.45% in 2010. In March, the brokerage reported a 0.99% vacancy rate, the first time the figure had dropped below 1% since July 2010.

By Roland Li

Glen Kunofsky has always been careful. When the Rockland County, New York native attended Arizona State University, he began buying single family homes and renting them out, eventually expanding to multifamily properties. Kunofsky was interested in steady returns, rather than speculation, and deliberately calculated expenses. While working in Arizona from 1989 to 2000, he avoided risky deals that relied on future market performance, preferring the steadiness of immediate profit.

By Patrick Dolan and Robert Ledig, with Kira Brereton

From the Opinion section: A proposed rule regarding implementation of the asset-backed securities (ABS) risk retention provisions of Section 941 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was recently approved by several government agencies. The rule requires a securitization sponsor to retain an economic interest equal to at least 5% of the aggregate credit risk of the assets collateralizing an issuance of ABS.