By Daniel Geiger

Centerline Capital Group, a specialty financing company and debt servicer, is in talks to relocate from midtown to 100 Church Street. The company, which appeared to teeter near insolvency during the recession and the credit crunch but has since bounced back, would take about 60,000 s/f in the deal, sources say. Located currently at 625 Madison Avenue, the firm is negotiating with the building’s landlord, SL Green, to terminate its lease there in order to move. Helping the deal is that another tenant in 625 Madison Avenue, Polo Ralph Lauren, one of the 570,000 s/f building’s largest tenants, is interested in taking Centerline’s space.

By Daniel Geiger

Greystone, a hedge fund and investment management company, has renewed its roughly 25,000 s/f lease at the high end midtown office building Carnegie Hall Tower. The firm is one of the original tenants in the building, which was built by the Elghanayan brothers in the late 1980s, and occupies the 60-story tower’s penthouse, a space that features sweeping views of Central Park.

By Daniel Geiger

Two insurance companies are leasing space at 125 Broad Street, an office building in lower Manhattan owned by the New Jersey based real estate investment trust Mack Cali. CNA Financial Corporation is relocating from 40 Wall Street into about 80,000 s/f at 125 Broad. Gen Re is also taking about 56,000 s/f. The company, a reinsurance firm, is moving to 125 Broad from 199 Water Street and hasn’t yet finalized exactly how much space it will take. Sources familiar with the deal said that the firm may end up either committing to as much as 70,000 s/f or negotiating the options to expand to that in the future.

By Roland Li

The numbers are bleak. U.S. home prices fell 4.2% in the first quarter of 2011, according to data from Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller housing index, released on Tuesday. With the latest decline, prices have hit a new post-recession low, and are now comparable to mid-2002 prices. The trend has been described as a “double dip,” defined by prices dropping below the previous post-recession low in 2009. “The numbers are horrifying. But it’s focused damage,” said David Blitzer, managing director of Standard & Poor’s and index committee chair of S&P Indices, referring specifically to foreclosures.

By Roland Li

A 4,500 s/f building at 250 Canal Street, on the southeast corner of Lafayette Street, is on the market for $30 million. It is also being marketed for a long term net lease of 49 years, with an annual rent starting at $1.8 million. The square structure has 72 feet of frontage along both Canal and Lafayette and is adjacent to a subway station, seeing heavy foot traffic. The one-story property is currently subleased to an individual, who has subleased it to various souvenir and handbag retailers.

By Daniel Geiger

Cushman & Wakefield is partnering with the British real estate company Legacy Portfolio to bring a $1 billion fund to the U.S. aimed at buying real estate obligations off the balance sheets of corporations seeking to downsize and limit the liability of upcoming accounting rule changes. “We’re raising enough capital to help companies remove about a billion dollars of lease liabilities from their balance sheet,” said Michael Rotchford, an executive vice president at Cushman.

By Liana Grey

Not long after Amy Williamson began marketing the Centurion, a condo tower on West 56th Street designed by starchitect I.M. Pei, she found herself on a plane to Hong Kong and Shanghai. With the help of local brokers, Williamson, a vice president of sales at Prodigy Network, held information sessions about the limestone-clad tower in hotel conference rooms, and met privately with prospective buyers to discuss finances.

By Roland Li

A mixed-used building at 101 Seventh Avenue has been sold for $56.66 million, according to city records. The sellers were Treger Realty LLC and Tandem NY Properties LLC, entities controlled by Brooklyn-based United Management Co., along with 75 West 190 LLC. The buyer was Equity One, Inc., a real estate investment trust with headquarters in Florida.

By Roland Li

Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has rented 153 Franklin Street, and his move is already attracting controversy. He will pay $50,000 per month for rent, according to reports, but if Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has his way, the tab will be higher.

By Roland Li

Jared Kushner, the real estate scion and publisher of the New York Observer, has sold his 21 Astor Place apartment for $3.91 million, according to city records. Kusher, a principal of Kushner Companies, is no stranger to high-end real estate. His company purchased 666 Fifth Avenue, a trophy office tower, from Tishman Speyer in a blockbuster $1.8 billion deal in 2006. In March, Inditex SA purchased the retail condo in the building for $324 million, a U.S. retail record. A Zara clothing store will occupy the 39,000 s/f space.