Changing content of blogs and website of golowfee

Just giving an update of what I have been up to. I’m currently working on a couple of new sites but one in particular that will be interactive with the followers, similar to cubed.com with some modifications. I am currently working out some of the bugs and will have it up and running in about a month.

Also, I have been training new and experienced sales agents in the rental side of the business from A to Z.

I will have an update soon plus a big announcement when I have the sites up and running.

Lets Play…Head Games Anyone?

Buyers and sellers playing new head games

Lack of comps creates mental barrier between sellers and bottom-fishing buyers

By Alison Gregor (The Real Deal)

Without any hard numbers yet reflecting closing prices of deals struck last fall, apartment sellers are finding themselves in a tough spot as they face off against capricious buyers.

With no one in New York certain just how far apartment prices have fallen from their peak in 2008, apartment sellers are learning that if they don’t advertise a discount, some potential buyers believe they’re being scammed. Some simply laugh in their faces.

Yet if sellers do give a big discount, apartment hunters are demanding an even steeper one or simply fading away.

Kathryn Higgins, an associate broker with DJK Residential who has a master’s degree in psychology and has taught it at the college level, said, “We’re seeing two psychologies: the passive-aggressive and the approach-avoid.”

The passive-aggressive buyer enters negotiations appearing to be unsure, saying he or she is just looking or trying to get a feel for the market. Then he or she makes a lowball offer — so low the seller may not even counter, Higgins said.

“Then the buyer gets very aggressive, saying, ‘What do you mean? I offered you good money. You’re lucky you’re getting anything in this market. You should be offering an even bigger discount,’” she said.

Buyers exhibiting approach-avoid behavior engage sellers because “they need an apartment and want to buy it,” Higgins said. “They negotiate, and they can afford the price. But suddenly they go into avoidance mode, because they read something in the paper or see something on television that scares them.”

Brokers throughout the city are seeing such behavior among buyers who are confused about exactly where prices should be.

“We had one couple that was very enthusiastic about an apartment, and we thought for sure they’d put in an offer,” said Jacky Teplitzky, a managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman.
Note: Correction appended.

“But we didn’t hear from them for 24 hours, so we called, and they said, ‘We’re just too nervous. Everyone around us is telling us the market is going to fall even further, so we’re just going to rent.’”

The root of the problem is “bottom fishing,” a phenomenon fed by sellers who are desperate to offload their properties.

“Unlike other markets, where most people were reasonable sellers, we have a wide variety of people who want to sell for different reasons,” said Kathy Braddock, co-founder of Charles Rutenberg Realty. “So what buyers are going to do in this market — and it’s not unethical, just uncomfortable — is put in multiple low offers, because in their minds, they’re looking at several different sellers who have different strategies in mind.”

Those bargain hunters, or bottom fishers, are hoping to expose the seller who has to sell because of financial distress and who will take the best offer received, Braddock said.

“It’s like the lottery,” she said. “They might find the person who’s desperate, but they’re not going to know until the offer is accepted.”

Such behavior, Teplitzky said, is creating market chaos. “The problem right now is you can see, in the same building, apartments trading for completely different numbers,” she said. “The bottom fishers are putting multiple offers — three, four, five [offers] — on units without any emotional attachment.”

Teplitzky said that in early March her team received a $1.5 million offer on a $2.5 million apartment. “Basically, these buyers are trying to see who blinks,” she said. “And there are some sellers who are blinking. So in the same building, in the same line, you can have accepted offers that differ by 10 to 20 percent.”

Some brokers are exacerbating the problem, she said, by listing apartments at unrealistically high prices or without a discount at the behest of the sellers they represent. “They’re creating huge discrepancies in prices and making buyers more confused, because the brokers that are pricing these apartments are still not pricing them right,” said Teplitzky, who used an unusual approach to price one of her listings in early March: She invited 20 of the top brokers from competing New York brokerages to a tea at the luxury apartment to get their feedback on pricing.

No data are available yet on bottom fishing in the current market, only reports from brokers, because the deals haven’t closed yet, Teplitzky said. When these bargain-basement apartment sales do close, they will create “comparables” in the building that will reduce all residents’ property values, Braddock said.

For that reason, desperate sellers in co-op apartment buildings may arrange a deal with a bottom fisher only to have it nixed by the co-op board, she said.

“The co-op boards don’t want to unrealistically lower the value of their apartments for themselves,” Braddock said.

John Reinhardt, president and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate, said that in early March he encountered a buyer who, only a couple of hours before the closing, suddenly demanded that the seller cut $25,000 to $30,000 off the price of a house on East 71st Street in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn.

“They went to contract four months ago, and the buyer was still trying to beat up the seller,” Reinhardt said. “But the buyer was willing to take a chance on losing a deal, which they normally wouldn’t, and the seller was a bit nervous about not accepting the deal because of the market uncertainty. So they settled for $10,000 off the price of the house.”

Oddly enough, Reinhardt pointed out that sometimes the buyer and seller fomenting the market chaos is the same person.

“We have an interesting client right now who is selling a property and asking, I would venture to say, about 20 percent higher than the market is worth, while at the same time looking to buy something and offering about 40 percent less than the asking price,” he said. “You have to ask this guy, ‘What the heck are you thinking?’

Manhattan Rentals Still Falling, Just As Fast as Unemployment Rises

Manhattan Apartment Rents Fall as Unemployment Rises (Update2)

By Oshrat Carmiel

April 13 (Bloomberg) — Manhattan apartment rents fell as much as 5.9 percent in March from a year earlier as a record jump in unemployment damped demand, Citi-Habitats Inc. said.

Average rents declined for apartments of all sizes and the vacancy rate topped 2 percent for the fifth straight month, the New York-based property broker said today in an e-mailed statement.

Demand slumped after New York City’s unemployment rate climbed to 8.1 percent in February, the highest level since October 2003 and the biggest month-to-month increase on record. City Comptroller William Thompson predicted in March that New York City would lose 250,000 jobs before the recession ends.

“There are people who are unemployed, and people not willing to spend the type of money they were willing to spend before and they need to make tough decisions,” said Gary Malin, president of Citi-Habitats.

Rents for studio apartments dropped 2.1 percent to an average of $1,812, while those for one-bedroom units fell 5.9 percent to $2,595. The cost of renting two-bedroom homes declined 2.2 percent to $3,631 and three-bedrooms fell 1.6 percent to an average of $4,670.

Concessions

The average declines for March don’t reflect concessions offered by landlords, such as a free month’s rent, that lower the overall cost to tenants, Malin said.

“There is a greater degree of price decline than those numbers show,” he said.

The average rent for two-bedroom apartments on Manhattan’s Upper West Side fell 8.6 percent in March to $3,580, while one- bedrooms dropped 2.4 percent to $2,393. The price of studios in the neighborhood climbed 6.4 percent to $1,966, according to the report.

At Trump Place at 220 Riverside Blvd., 25 apartments are now available for rent, 13 for reduced prices, according to the property listing service Streeteasy.com.

A 700 square-foot one-bedroom in the building is listed for $3,800 a month, 10 percent less than its November 2008 price. The furnished condo is in a Trump property along the West Side Highway that includes a health club and a swimming pool, according to Streeteasy.com.

Vacancy rates of Manhattan apartments reached 3.8 percent in October 2002, according to Citi-Habitats. March’s vacancy rate of 2.37 percent was last seen in Manhattan in the six-month period between November 2002 and April 2003, when vacancies averaged 2.35 percent. The broker has been tracking the market since 2002.

U.S. Vacancies

Manhattan’s East Village had the highest vacancy rates in March with 3.24 percent of its rental units available, Citi- Habitats said. Soho and TriBeCa, both in Lower Manhattan, had the lowest vacancy rate: 1.84 percent.

Across the U.S., apartment vacancies climbed to 7.2 percent in the first quarter from 6 percent a year earlier and 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter, Reis Inc., a New York-based research firm, said April 7. Vacancies were at the same level as the first quarter of 2004, matching the highest since Reis began conducting its survey in 1999.

Rents across the country fell 1.1 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months to $984 on average. They were up 0.1 percent from a year earlier, Reis said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Oshrat Carmiel in New York at ocarmiel1@bloomberg.net.

Apartments Sell for Less if They Are Sold at All

By JOSH BARBANEL

Published: April 2, 2009

Hard times have come to the Manhattan real estate market, according to a series of quarterly sales reports to be issued on Thursday.

Relatively few apartments are selling, and when they do, prices are down 20 percent or more from a year ago. Large, luxurious apartments on Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue and Central Park West, and new condominiums with many unsold apartments, have been particularly hard hit. One report, prepared by two brokerage firms, Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property, showed the number of closings of condos and co-ops down by 58 percent in the first quarter of 2009, compared with the same period a year earlier, as buyers were scared off by worries over the economy, portfolio losses and fears that apartment prices would continue to fall in the months ahead. The drop in sales was worse than the decline in the auto industry. In March, sales at General Motors were off 45 percent from March 2008. The report showed that average condo and co-op apartment prices were down 11 percent from the first quarter of last year, to $1.5 million. Co-op prices were off 27 percent, to $975,000, and condominium prices down by 4 percent. but were up from the last quarter, as buyers continued to close on new condominiums for which contracts were signed many months ago. The number of sales of apartments over $10 million plummeted, by 87 percent, compared with a year ago, when sales of apartments at some of the city’s most expensive condominiums, at 15 Central Park West and at the Plaza Hotel, were completed, the report said. Only one co-op closed for more than $20 million, compared with eight in the same quarter a year ago. Although details in the various reports differed — one put the decline in sales at 52 percent and another at 48 percent — they suggested a market still traumatized by a collapse in confidence last fall after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, even as sales have begun to stabilize in far more troubled real estate markets in the West. “Consumer confidence is the killer,” said Dottie Herman, president of the Prudential Douglas Elliman brokerage firm. “People are scared. They have never seen anything like this.” Jonathan Miller, an appraiser who prepares the market report for Prudential Douglas Elliman, said he has tracked a series of statistics on inventory over the last decade that show the market declining more steeply than ever before. The number of apartments on the market, 10,445, was 34 percent above the inventory level a year ago, he said, and 15 percent above the inventory last quarter. The average number of days that apartments stayed on the market had increased to a record 170, nearly half a year, up 16.5 percent from the first quarter last year and 7 percent from the last quarter. And when buyers did sign contracts, they got a discount of 12 percent from the most recent listed asking price, up from 7.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008. The Elliman report showed that average and median sales prices for all co-ops and condos were up a bit from a year ago, but Mr. Miller said the figures were distorted by closings of expensive new condominiums (even though few contracts for new condominiums are currently being signed). He said a more significant figure was the sale price of existing co-op and condominium apartments, which was down 20.9 percent, to $732,000, since the first quarter of last year. Hall F. Willkie, the president of Brown Harris Stevens, said that despite the declines, there were some positive signs. Activity has picked up in each of the last few months, he said, with the number of active buyers and the number of contracts signed rising. But Pam Liebman, the president of the Corcoran Group, which also issued a report, predicted that as activity picks up, prices will erode even more. While sales of the most expensive apartments and apartments in new condos are down sharply, she said that sales were increasing among lower-priced apartments. She said sales of one-bedrooms and studios were up, as were sales to first-time buyers, who can purchase an apartment without having to sell something else. “Manhattan has become affordable again,” she said. “It is a lot more affordable than it was six months ago.”

Bernanke Easing Mortgage Rates for Consumer-Driven Rebound

By Kathleen M. Howley

April 3 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is delivering what he promised five months ago, record- low mortgage rates and a refinancing boom that’s putting cash in consumers’ pockets.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates fell to a record low for the second consecutive week last week, hitting 4.78 percent, Freddie Mac said yesterday in a statement. The rates are the lowest in records dating to 1971, and come after Bernanke told Congress in November that helping the most creditworthy borrowers was essential to reviving the economy.

Mortgage applications in the U.S. rose for the fourth straight week last week as a decline in borrowing costs spurred homeowners to refinance, while purchases of new houses unexpectedly rose in February. The Fed’s effort to bring down fixed rates may give consumers as much as $25 billion, said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com.

“It certainly gives further fuel to consumer spending,” said Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “It puts more money into circulation.”

The extra cash may help boost first-quarter consumer spending by 1 percent to 1.5 percent, said Barton Biggs, managing partner at New York-based hedge fund Traxis Partners LLC. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy.

Creditworthy Borrowers

Bernanke signaled the Fed’s effort to bring down fixed mortgage rates in Nov. 18 testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Financial Services.

“It is imperative that all banking organizations and their regulators work together to ensure that the needs of creditworthy borrowers are met,” he said.

One week later, the Fed said it would buy up to $500 billion in home-loan securities, causing the biggest one-day drop in mortgage rates in at least seven years, according to Bankrate.com. On March 18, the central bank almost tripled the size of the program to up to $1.25 trillion in purchases during 2009. The intent is to lower rates and make real estate financing easier to get, the Fed said.

The plan to buy mortgage bonds this year is succeeding where $11.6 trillion of government lending, spending, and guarantees so far have failed.

‘Successful Effort’

“This has been the most successful effort, at least so far in this crisis, to shore up the economy,” said Zandi.

Bernanke’s mortgage purchase program may help curb a recession that is in its second year and being driven by the highest jobless rate in a quarter century and shrinking household wealth.

“If you throw enough money at one credit market, you will bring down the price,” said Gerald O’Driscoll, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and former vice president of the Dallas Federal Reserve. “They are targeting the mortgage market in an attempt to speed the process of establishing a floor in the price of housing.”

Homeowners who refinance with a half-point drop in fixed rates may save $150 a month on a $300,000 mortgage, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Securities Inc. in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a former Fed economist.

Home Prices

Cheaper financing may also help spark a turnaround in the housing market. Sales of previously owned homes rose 5.1 percent to 4.72 million at an annualized pace in February from the prior month as low mortgage rates spurred demand, the National Association of Realtors said. The NAR’s affordability index rose to a record in January, helped by lower home values and mortgage rates. The median U.S. home price in February was $165,400, the NAR said in a March 23 report, down 28 percent from its 2006 high.

Bernanke cited lower mortgage rates in testimony in February as evidence that Fed policies were working, noting that rates had fallen “nearly 1 percentage point” since the program was announced.

On April 1, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Sandra Pianalto said the Fed’s program was resulting in “encouraging signs” for the economy. Besides falling rates, “we are also beginning to see a resurgence in refinancing activity in the residential mortgage markets, spurred on by these lower rates,” she said.

The bankers’ group boosted its forecast for 2009 home-loan originations by $800 billion to $2.78 trillion last month as a wave of refinancing and low interest rates spur homeowners to seek out new loans. Refinancing will increase to $1.96 trillion in 2009 and purchase originations will total $821 billion, the group said.

The London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for three- month dollar loans dropped to 1.17 percent yesterday, down from 1.43 percent at the start of the year, showing banks have become more willing to lend.

TED Spread

The so-called TED spread, the gap between what banks and the Treasury pay to borrow money for three months, shrank to 96 basis points from 1.35 percentage points on Dec. 31. It touched a yearly low of 91 basis points on Feb. 2. The gauge reached a high of 4.64 percentage points in October, up from 1.35 percentage points on Sept. 12, the last trading day before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy.

U.S. home prices fell 6.3 percent in January from a year ago, the smallest decline in five months, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington.

“We have seen evidence that home sales are bottoming,” said Jim O’Sullivan, senior economist with UBS Securities LLC, in Stamford, Connecticut. “This should be positive.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kathleen M. Howley in Boston at kmhowley@bloomberg.net.

Foreclosures in New York jump after decline

Foreclosures in New York jump after decline

By Sara Polsky

Foreclosures by borough (Source: PropertyShark.com)

After a seasonal dip in the fourth quarter in 2008, foreclosures in New York City increased in the first quarter of this year. But foreclosures were down year-over-year, according to the first-quarter foreclosure report from PropertyShark.com.

There were a total of 869 new foreclosures in the first quarter in New York City, compared to 764 in the fourth quarter last year. Foreclosures surged in some boroughs and dropped in others. The number of foreclosures in the Bronx spiked 191 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008; in Queens, the number jumped 17 percent and in Staten Island, it rose 5 percent. But foreclosures dropped in Manhattan by 23 percent and Brooklyn by 55 percent. The report defines a foreclosure as a property scheduled for auction for the first time during the period of the report.

“Brooklyn is really starting to act like Manhattan,” said Bill Staniford, CEO of PropertyShark. “It does seem like a trend, not something that’s just an anomaly.”

Foreclosures in Queens are another, less fortunate trend. “I would think that Queens is going to at some point come down,” Staniford said. “It strikes me as a little bit odd that it’s remained as high as it has….I would love to see [government intervention] start having an effect in the Queens area.”

But Staniford doesn’t expect the foreclosure numbers to change significantly in Staten Island any time soon. “If there was more interest in living in that area, then I would think those numbers would start coming down.”

Two of the three areas with the greatest increases in foreclosures also had the highest rate of foreclosures per household, with one in every 1,187 homes scheduled for auction in Staten Island and one in every 1,343 homes slated for auction in Queens. Twelve of the city’s top 15 foreclosure-heavy zip codes were in Queen

First Time Home Buyers, Apparently Have It Easy. FYI, it is Possible To Be A First Timer Over Again

By MAX GROSS
99 John Deco Lofts

Last updated: 12:12 am
April 2, 2009
Posted: 12:00 am
April 2, 2009

THERE are those whose first time was an awkward, painful experience they’d rather forget. They went in with great expectations, but afterward, felt exploited.

But losing your real-estate virginity doesn’t have to be that way.

In fact, many buildings are trying to make it easier for first-time buyers during this volatile economic climate.

For example, should you buy at Northside Piers in Williamsburg and then lose your job, the developer has an insurance program that will take care of the mortgage for up to a full year. If you buy at 99 John St. in the Financial District, the developer promises to buy your unit back in five years at 110 percent of the purchase price.

But it’s important to be selective. We’ve all heard of buildings succumbing to a diseased mix of bad loans, poor sales and shady developers. A lot of buildings seem to be taking this into consideration. Even older developments, such as the Concord Village co-op complex at the edge of Brooklyn Heights, are boasting about strong financials. There, you can buy a one-bedroom on the market for a mere $219,000 (with 20 percent down).

It’s just one in a slew of homes all over the city where your down payment would be less than $50,000. And deals on starter pads can be found even in decent areas of Manhattan, including the Upper East Side and Kips Bay. Hopefully, at the end of all of this, you will feel the glow of something beautiful. Either way, we hope you won’t feel screwed.

99 John Deco Lofts, studio condo $495,000

The Financial District should make any potential buyer a little nervous; thousands of new condos have hit the market there in the last couple of years, and a sizable chunk haven’t sold. But 99 John is trying to make buying in the area a sound proposition. The building has a couple of studios priced less than $500,000 (one 550-square-foot studio is $495,000) and a few just over that amount. And the developer, Rockrose, is making an enticing offer: “If someone buys in the building, we’ll pay 110 percent of the value of the apartment [in five years],” says Brad Ingalls, sales director for 99 John. “The response has been overwhelming — in the last couple of weeks we sold a dozen apartments.” Moreover, Ingalls tells us that Rockrose has put $9 million in the building’s reserve fund. Building amenities include shared terraces and a gourmet grocery store. Contact: Brad Ingalls, 212-217-9999

242 E. 25th ST., Alcove studio condo $499,000

“This is a very first-time home buyer-friendly building,” says Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Eileen Hsu about this 2005 condop, which has a 549-square-foot studio on the market for $499,000. How so? “It’s very attractive to a lot of young people . . . there are so many parties on the roof deck — you should see them!” Now, if you’re confused about the concept of the condop, it basically means co-op rules about closing costs (low!) and condo rules about how much you need to put down (10 percent!) and about renting out the unit (you can!). Aside from the apartment’s new finishes, a washer/dryer and a walk-in closet, the building comes with doorman and gym — and, of course, that roof deck. Contact: Eileen Hsu and Morgan Evans, Prudential Douglas Elliman, 212-321-7122 and 212-321-7147

300 E. 93rd St., studio condo $475,000

There are certain neighborhoods that will always be a relatively safe place to buy, and the Upper East Side is one of the city’s more established areas. Moreover, this 444-square-foot alcove studio with a walk-in closet, foyer, marble bath and city views seems like a comfy place to wait out the economic storm. The full-service building has a 24-hour doorman, garage, gym, party room, roof deck and live-in super. Contact: Bess Freedman and Anisa Saroop, The Corcoran Group, 212-360-6701 and 212-851-6971

Northside Piers, studio condo $349,990

In one fell swoop, Northside Piers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has taken away much of the nervousness of buying a home with its “mortgage protection program.” If you lose your job or “have an illness that prevented you from working [and meeting payments], the mortgage is covered for 12 months,” says David Von Spreckelsen, senior vice president at Toll Brothers City Living. And a 584-square-foot studio at Northside Piers’ new tower (which is slated for completion in 2010) goes for a relatively reasonable $349,990. Contact: 866-662-1593

270 Jay st., Brooklyn studio co-op $219,000

You might want to rub your eyes a few times before reading any further. Studio. Downtown Brooklyn, at the edge of Brooklyn Heights. $219,000. And, no, you don’t have to sell any vital organs to get this 420-square-foot beauty. The problem with a $219,000 apartment, of course, is that it’s a co-op, and a co-op will require at least 20 percent down. But a co-op generally has much lower closing costs than a condo. And your monthly mortgage (for a 30-year fixed loan at 5.5 percent) and maintenance will be $1,567 per month (and remember: maintenance is partially tax-deductible!). But if you think you’re moving into someplace sketchy, think again. “It’s a full-service building with a doorman and on-site maintenance staff,” says Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Tara Gartner. There’s also a gym. Contact: Tara Gartner and Martha Ellman, Prudential Douglas Elliman 845-551-0346 and 718-780-8114

Be@Schermerhorn, studio condo $269,000

1-BR $320,000

Last week, Be@Schermerhorn repriced all of its available units, knocking as much as 21 percent off the last numbers. Not a great sign. But the location (Downtown Brooklyn, a couple of blocks from numerous subway lines) is good. And the units are priced extremely low for new construction. “We think our prices [are] probably the most competitive in the marketplace,” says Mario Procida, a manager of SDS Procida Development Group, which is developing the building. A 444-square-foot studio starts at $269,000, and a 540-square-foot one-bedroom starts at $320,000. And the building is, well, nice. Where most buildings around it are nothing to write home about aesthetically, Be@Schermerhorn actually looks like a new building (or, actually, two buildings, connected by a courtyard). While there may be legitimate worries about new construction in this economic climate, Procida says this one is set to be finished in July. Contact: Aaron Lemma, The Corcoran Group, 718-246 0189

101 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn studio co-op $267,000

Want to make a deal? We’ll offer you a 630-square-foot unit in a nice building in a lovely part of brownstone Brooklyn if you’re willing to take a crummy view. That’s the only thing we can see wrong with this Fort Greene studio. It features beamed ceilings, a Kohler tub, a new kitchen and oversized windows. Oh, and there’s the little fact that this studio is going for $267,000. The prewar co-op Griffin building also allows for 90 percent financing. Broker: Rodolfo Lucchese, The Corcoran Group, 718-210-4015

Riverwalk Court 1-br condo $415,000

“Our biggest challenge is getting people to come to Roosevelt Island,” says David Kramer, principal with Hudson Companies, “but once they’re there, they love it.” And Hudson Companies and the Related Companies are giving people plenty of good reasons with Riverwalk Court, the Costas Kondylis-designed condo (to be finished this summer), where a 682-square-foot one-bedroom unit starts at $415,000. (Down a little more than $100,000 from last year.) The building is on the water and only a few blocks away from the F train. The developers are rolling out gardens, a greenmarket and a daycare center, along with a doorman, gym, lounge and playroom. Contact: 212-754-0455

Not Just a Bad Dream; Unfortunately I Know Some People Still Working in LaLa Land

By JOSH BARBANEL

Published: March 27, 2009

THE incredible shrinking real estate market has arrived right here in Manhattan, and now that the first quarter is over, not even the most ebullient broker will be able to dispute it. Now everyone will have no choice but to adjust to a market where buyers aren’t buying and sellers aren’t selling, new developments have stalled and mortgages remain scarce.

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Tina Fineberg for The New York Times

834 Fifth Avenue

The evidence of this decline is likely to arrive later this week when a series of market reports are released, documenting in detail the decline in sales in every type of apartment in every neighborhood.

Last year, the Manhattan real estate market was an $18 billion business. So far this year, sales are off more than 60 percent, according to a preliminary review of first-quarter figures. That is steeper than the year-to-year decline in auto sales in February in the United States.

The drop-off in activity, especially among the most expensive apartments favored by the barons of Wall Street, led to steep drops in city real estate transfer taxes, forced brokerage firms to close offices, led to soaring inventory and left buyers and sellers uncertain about how to proceed.

For now, it seems, the market will be left to people who really need to move and who really need to buy. “If you are going to be there long term, and you need a place to live, go for it — if your time horizon is five or more years,” said Dolly Lenz, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Right now, she said, there is a standoff in the market, with buyers expecting huge discounts and sellers resisting. “The buyers and sellers have gotten different memos of what the price should be and no one is budging,” she said.

Michelle Kleier of Gumley Haft Kleier said her firm was still making sales, but of smaller apartments at lower prices than she was used to, typically to first-time home buyers and parents buying apartments for their children.

But even as the market seems to be heading in only one direction, there are exceptions.

A few weeks ago, Laurie Tisch, the daughter of Preston Robert Tisch, the late chairman and co-owner of the Loews Corporation, paid $29 million for a two-bedroom apartment on the 13th floor of 834 Fifth Avenue, one of the great apartment buildings on the avenue. Her apartment is just below the triplex once owned by Laurance S. Rockefeller and bought by Rupert Murdoch for $44 million in 2005.

But the sale to Ms. Tisch was a rarity in the current market. So far the number of co-op sales in the first quarter is off by nearly 60 percent from the same quarter in 2008, with the total value of sales off 70 percent. Only 10 co-ops costing more than $4 million sold in the first quarter, a decline of 80 percent compared with the same quarter last year.

Condo sales also fell sharply, but because many of the sales that closed were in new buildings where expensive apartments had been in contract for many months, average sale prices actually rose. So far, all sales have totaled nearly $1.8 billion during the first quarter compared with about $5.1 billion in the same period last year.

In the 1980s, a glut of unsold Manhattan apartments in failed projects undermined the market for years. No one knows whether this will be the pattern this time around or whether the market will rebound more quickly if the economy, the stock market and the banks bounce back later this year.

WINKs Make Developers Smile; I’ve Been Called Worse

By ANTOINETTE MARTIN

 

Published: March 20, 2009

IN a generally weaker market for condominiums, one type of buyer is showing increasing strength: WINKs. Housing trend analysts came up with the acronym for “women with income, no kids.”

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Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

SINGLE OWNER Luma Oweis, a geotechnical engineer who founded her own company four years ago, is single, childless and a first-time buyer. She recently visited the site of the apartment she is buying in Morristown.

Last year in New Jersey, almost half of all condominium buyers — 45 percent — were women in this category, analysts say. That fact dovetails with the findings of various national studies that over the last decade, the number of unmarried women buying housing of any type increased 20 percent.

The Otteau Valuation Group in New Brunswick recently reported that in New Jersey, WINKs represented 21 percent of all buyers last year, up from 14 percent the year before.

The percentage of single male buyers rose to 10 percent from 9 during that period.

“Amongst all single-woman buyers, condos are far and away the most popular choice,” said Jeffrey G. Otteau, who heads the group, a housing-trend analytical company.

Of the studies bolstering that finding, one conducted two years ago by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies has been described as the first major analysis of female buyers.

The terms “unmarried” or “single” include the not-yet-married, the divorced and the widowed, Mr. Otteau said. Women with grown children or children who do not live in the household are also included.

“I didn’t know I would be called that,” said Luma Oweis, who recently bought a two-bedroom condo at 40 Park, a building now under construction in Morristown. “But it fits.”

Ms. Oweis, 36, a geotechnical engineer who founded her own company four years ago, is single, childless and a first-time buyer. She said she decided on a condo because, “I think it’s a good lifestyle for me: convenient, in the center of town, only two miles from my office.”

She said she preferred the “social atmosphere” of a condo to the relative isolation of a single-family house, and wanted to “look out the door and see action, and buzzing around.”

Also, Ms. Oweis said, she often works 18-hour days and eats out a lot during the week, so she is excited about the prospect of being able to walk to restaurants in downtown Morristown.

Unit prices at 40 Park start in the low $500,000s and exceed $1 million for penthouses overlooking the historic Morristown Green. But market analysts say that the surge in WINK condo buyers holds true across the price spectrum.

In addition, some brokers said they had already noted that single women were increasingly part of a separate recession-related mini-trend: shared housing.

At the Mill Pond at Eatontown, a newly built development where two-bedrooms start at $252,990, Nancy and Ann Mareska, sisters aged 48 and 45, each bought condos.

Also at Mill Pond, Joan Marangella, 68, and Liz Campoli, 52, who are longtime friends, became joint purchasers of a two-bedroom. Every unit in the complex has nine-foot ceilings and a patio or deck.

All four of the women are divorced. As the Harvard study noted, women who owned homes while married frequently have equity available to invest in new homes.

“Lizzie and I were both looking to downsize,” said Ms. Marangella, who has grown children and is a supervisor at a cardiology group.

“I felt the economy and everything was going downhill. It is important to foresee these things, and make a conscious decision.”

Several studies of female buyers have noted that while unmarried women have lower average incomes than unmarried men and couples, they are less likely to finance their home purchases, and that if they borrow, they borrow less.

Tara Gellatley, who set herself a goal of having a custom-built abode by the age of 35, is currently picking out tiles, trims and fixtures for the condominium that she is buying at Water’s Edge at Point Pleasant, a Pulte Homes development.

“I’m proud of buying as a single woman,” said Ms. Gellatley, 33. “You put yourself on a tight budget, set guidelines and boundaries, and you can do it.”

Ms. Gellatley, who is employed in her father’s maritime shipping business, bought her first condo in Brick 10 years ago when she worked in the hotel industry.

The Harvard study found that unmarried women are much less likely to live with their parents than single men are.

But the question of whether WINKs are more likely to receive financial help from family members to establish their own households was not addressed.

Certainly, it happens.

“I really wanted to have my own place,” said 25-year-old Christine Corrales, who owns a one-bedroom apartment at the Trump Plaza in Jersey City. “My mom became an investor so I could do that.”

Ms. Corrales says she is thrilled with the secure, “hotel-like” atmosphere at Trump, where the 24-hour concierge is there should she forget her keys, and the people from the in-house dog-walking service always say hello.

Ms. Gellatley, meanwhile, is financing her own purchase, but moving into the same complex where her father bought a penthouse condo last year.

And Ms. Oweis will be living just two blocks away from her parents. They recently bought a condo at the Vail Mansion development in Morristown.

Manhattan on Sale; Soon Lay-A-Way Available on Condos

Foreclosures surge in Manhattan

By Sarah Ryley

Source: RealtyTrac.com

Long able to stave off the foreclosure crisis, Manhattan seems to have gotten a reality check. Foreclosure activity in the borough shot up 549 percent between January and February, with 331 residential properties receiving some type of foreclosure filing last month, according to a nationwide report released today by RealtyTrac.com, an online resource for foreclosure data.

The report tracks the number of properties — individual-owned homes, developer-owned units and entire buildings — with foreclosure filings in February, including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions. Although RealtyTrac.com has been criticized for over-inflating numbers, in the case of Manhattan, by applying a single lis pendens filed against a developer to multiple units (one building last month was counted 232 times, as one filing for each unit), the percentage change helps gauge overall movement in activity on a month-to-month basis.

Daren Blomquist, a spokesman for RealtyTrac, explained that his company sometimes tracks apartments owned by a single developer in financial peril separately because they are separate housing units being foreclosed upon, regardless of the fact that they exist inside one building.

He said that although the actual number of filings last month, 331, is relatively small, it’s significant, especially if the rate is continued at a sustained pace, because Manhattan has historically had very little foreclosure activity. According to his firm’s data, over the past year, activity ranged between 56 and 87 filings per month.

Overall, there are 1,248 residential properties in Manhattan in the foreclosure process, with high concentrations uptown, listed on RealtyTrac.com, most of which were in lis pendens, the first step in the foreclosure process.

Manhattan’s percentage increase soared above the other four boroughs, while it still ranks last citywide in terms of the number of housing units in foreclosure. The Bronx saw the next highest percentage increase, 33 percent, while Queens was the only borough that saw a decrease in activity last month, 11 percent, to 556 filings.

Queens, where a protest was held last month calling for a one-year moratorium on foreclosures, ranks first citywide in total foreclosure activity, with 9,584 homes in some stage of foreclosure. Brooklyn is second with 7,415 homes; followed by the Bronx with 2,675 homes; then Staten Island with 2,335 homes.

“Manhattan and Brooklyn are gaining ground on Queens, which has seen significantly more activity up until recently,” said Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

“The jump in Manhattan and Brooklyn volume, if continues as expected, has implications for future downward pressure on price trends.”

On a nationwide basis, the number of active foreclosure auctions, one in every 345 homes nationwide was scheduled for foreclosure auction last month, despite recent legislative efforts to stymie foreclosures, according to RealtyTrac.com.

Foreclosure activity increased nearly 30 percent in the country between Feb. 2008 and Feb. 2009, with one out of every 440 homes in the United States receiving a foreclosure filing just last month, the report shows.

New York State saw a 23 percent increase in such filings between January and February, with one out of every 1,846 homes receiving some type of notice.

New York ranked 35 out of 50 states in the nation for foreclosure activity in February. Nevada ranked first with one of every 70 homes receiving a notice, Arizona second and California third. Nebraska had just 13 homes in some stage of foreclosure, the lowest in the nation.

“These properties enter the market and compete with existing housing stock for sale that’s not distressed,” said Miller, the appraiser. “It does provide opportunities [for buyers], but it’s also evidence of a weaker economic climate, so it doesn’t do much to help consumer confidence. For the consumer, in general, it’s another piece of negative economic news that continues to cause people to pull back on their purchase activity.”