Psst. Hey buddy. Wanna buy a U.S. Embassy? Take your pick.

The U.S. Government is selling off 29 of my embassies overseas. They didn’t ask my permission, but I would have said ok.

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK):

From Kinshasa to Katmandu, Bangkok to Bogota, U.S. embassies, ambassadorial residences and other diplomatic digs are up for sale as the State Department moves its employees to more secure locations, upgrades facilites and combines operations in multipurpose compounds.

Some 29 properties worth more than $205 million are now on the market in 21 countries, including a huge and historic embassy annex in the heart of London, large chancery buildings in Panama, Nicaragua and Nepal and homes fit for envoys extraordinary in Belize and Venezula.

I was in Moscow, Russia a few years ago

NY Times Headquarters sells for $525 Million, up from $175 Million in ‘04.

From the NY Times:

Less than three weeks after putting the historic headquarters of The New York Times Company on the block, Tishman Speyer Properties sold the building for $525 million, three times the $175 million it paid in November 2004…

In Midtown, “for anyone looking for a block of space in excess of 300,000 square feet during the next two years for less than $100 per square foot, this is your only option,” said Darcy A. Stacom, the broker at CB Richard Ellis who sold the property for The Times in 2004 and handled the sale to Africa Israel for Tishman Speyer.

$525 Million? <whistle>. The building was on the market for less than three weeks and it sold for $525 Million? Three years ago ol’ Darcy A. Stacom sold the same building for $175 Million. Those were a couple good years for him. He must have been off his game in 2005 and 2006.