Thank You, Federal Reserve: Google to Buy New York building for 100 Times 1996 Price

Google has agreed to pay $600 million to acquire a historic building in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District — a hundred times what it was sold for in 1996, reports the Financial Times.

Doug Harmon, one of the agents who brokered the sale, also sold the building (located 450 West 15th Street — also known as the Milk Building ), in 1996, for $6 million to Moishe Mana, an Israeli immigrant who grew wealthy after founding a local moving company, Moishe’s Moving, and his partner, Erez Shternlicht.

According to FT, in 2004  Harmon helped them sell the building to investment firm Angelo Gordon for $55m, and then flipped it four years later to Stellar Management for $161m, who then shifted it — with his assistance — to Jamestown, a developer, in 2013 for $284m.

Part of the increase in price can, of course, be attributed to the increasing importance of the movers and shakers to be located in Manhattan but Federal Reserve Board money pumping has played more than a small road.

-RW