Home Mortgage Company Better.com Leases at 3 WTC

NEW YORK CITY—Better.com has signed a deal with Silverstein Properties to lease 44,000 square feet on the 59th floor of 3 World Trade Center. The tenant has the option to expand to two additional floors. A Silverstein Properties spokesperson tells GlobeSt.com that the asking rent is $80 per square foot.

Better.com is a technology-driven home finance company. It has digitized and automated a process for finding, financing and insuring residential property. The company states it works to deliver lower financing rates and expedite closings with technology.

In the last year, Better.com added 480 new hires and moved from SoHo to Silverstein Properties’ 7 World Trade Center to accommodate its growth. The move to 3 World Trade Center follows the closing of its $75 million in Series C funding. The company is backed by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, AmericanExpress Ventures, Kleiner Perkins and Pine Brook. Last year, the company also opened additional offices in Irvine and Oakland, CA.

The company has undergone significant growth since its launch in January 2016. Last year, it originated $1.3 billion in mortgages, representing an approximate increase of 300% from the prior year.

This is the fifth lease in the building this year totaling 355,000 square feet. Other companies moving into the skyscraper include Diageo at 87,000 square feet; Casper at 70,000 square feet; Asana at 18,000 square feet; and Hudson River Trading at 136,000 square feet.

These tenants will join GroupM who has leased 700,000 square feet, McKinsey who is taking up 185,000 square feet and IEX who is occupying 45,000 square feet.

“We’re humbled and honored to be in the same place that once housed financial institutions like Salomon Brothers. No other location in New York combines the sense of history, dynamism and grit that makes New York special, along with amazing state-of-the-art facilities like the World Trade Center,” says Vishal Garg, CEO and founder of Better.com. “Silverstein Properties understood that we were onto something really big and went out of their way to find a solution for Better.com’s expansion needs, which made for an easy decision to stay within the WTC.”

“The new World Trade Center is a terrific place for new and fast-growing companies to move, grow and prosper,” says Larry Silverstein, chairman of Silverstein Properties. “That’s why we’ve succeeded in leasing almost 8 million square feet of space here, and why many companies have expanded and moved within our buildings.”

Jeremy Moss led the negotiations for the landlord, along with Camille McGratty. The CBRE agency team included Mary Ann Tighe, Steven Siegel, Adam Foster, Steve Eynon, Evan Haskell, David Caperna, Ken Meyerson and Rob Hill. Better.com was represented by James Wenk and Dan Turkewitz of Jones Lang Lasalle.

“The World Trade Center has the greatest density of tech tenants in New York City. Thirty-one companies occupy over two million square feet of space with well over 10,000 employees,” says Moss. “Better.com has the option to expand into three floors, totaling 132,000 square feet. We welcome them to the building and look forward to their growth here.”