Joseph Chetrit

Who they are

Joseph "Joe" Chetrit, Moroccan-born, is the merchant king of New York real estate, prizing the trade over the building. With his brother Meyer he built the Chetrit Group into a national holder of offices, apartments and development sites, which The Promote has put at about 14M sf. His signature deals were trophy flips. In the mid-2000s he led an investor group that paid about $840M for Chicago's Sears Tower and sold it to Blackstone for $1.3B in 2015. Partnering with David Bistricer, he beat some 20 bidders to buy Manhattan's Sony Building for $1.1B, then sold it to Saudi buyers in 2016 instead of converting it to condos.

Lately, it's been rougher. Crain's reported in early 2025 that the extended Chetrit family had defaulted on about $1.6B of debt. Joseph's exposures in The Promote's coverage include an alleged mezzanine default at the 265-275 Cherry St. site in Two Bridges, which the firm bought for $78M in 2022 and later got a loan extension on. They also include a Mack Real Estate claim of default at the former Hotel Carter and the 2019 purchase of a roughly 9K-unit portfolio from Roco Real Estate. Roco's co-CEO Tyler Ross was later sentenced for supplying false financials to the buyer and its lender. The litigation over that portfolio's $481M loan has so far named Meyer, not Joseph, personally.

In October 2025 the Manhattan DA charged Joseph with felony tenant harassment. Prosecutors allege that two senior rent-stabilized tenants were deliberately left without heat or an elevator. Meyer and the firm had been indicted weeks earlier. The charges are allegations, and the cases are pending. Meanwhile Joseph keeps dealing. He refinanced the Empire Hotel with the Podolsky brothers in January 2025. He sold control of his Miami River District megaproject to a Yakir Gabay/Flow/Canada Global group while keeping a 40% stake. And at Two Bridges, Simon Dushinsky's Sky Equity has quietly stepped in.