From left: Zhann Jochinke and Eric Barron
[Updated at 8:51 p.m. with comment from Argo] Keller Williams NYC has hired Zhann Jochinke to oversee the brokerage’s day-to-day operations as COO, the firm said. Jochinke joined the Keller Williams NYC in December, but his hiring was kept under wraps due to unspecified “complications” with his previous firm, Argo Residential. [more]
From left: Ilan Bracha, Jared Seligman, John Burger, Leslie Singer and Cathy Franklin
Sources: Streeteasy.com and The Real Deal. Footnotes: Data is for closed deals filed with the city this week through Friday. The chart only includes sellers’ brokers, because buyers’ brokers’ names are not available in city data or listings. The data does not include deals in contract. To obtain broker information, listing information was compared with sales records filed with the city. Only deals where an individual broker and address can be identified are included. As a result, private sales, listings where an address has not been provided and new development sales by a sales center are not included.
From left: 249 Central Park West and Felise Gross and Diane Abrams of Brown Harris Stevens
A four-story Renaissance Revival-style mansion at 249 Central Park West and 85th Street, which hit the market last September for $30 million and chopped its price to $26 million two months later, is now available as a rental, Curbed reported.
The 10,000-square-foot property, which features coffered ceilings, a paneled dining room, and Tiffany-era stained glass windows on every floor, is asking $50,000 per month. It’s listed with Felise Gross and Diane Abrams of Brown Harris Stevens. It has four bedrooms and five bathrooms. [more]
More than 2,000 protest city’s decision to close 23 schools. The Donald is very angry about a wind farm near his Scottish golf development. Five problems with CNBC’s Dick Bove’s rant against the mortgage deal. Gawker says building a huge house is morally wrong. And a partial bulkhead collapse leaves at least one injured at Alphabet City construction site. Read these stories and more after the jump.
445 West 20th Street
The General Theological Seminary, an episcopal seminary in Chelsea, has sold another building to the Brodsky Organization, Curbed reported. The religious organization has been in the process of selling a number of buildings to the developer to convert to luxury condominiums since 2010, when it encountered financial trouble.
The seminary just sold 445 West 20th Street, between Ninth and 10th avenues, to Brodsky for $18.5 million, according to city records. It was not immediately clear what the exact plan for the building was. [more]
The lower end of the Manhattan residential market is lagging behind the soaring luxury market, the New York Times reported.
“There is a greater disconnect between the very top of the market and everything else than I have ever seen in my 25 years in the business,” said Jonathan Miller, president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel. [more]
Click above to order your copy
The day has finally come! The Real Deal‘s 2012 annual Data Book, the must-have book of real estate-related statistics and facts, is now available to order. The Data Book, which covers residential and commercial real estate as well as new development, includes lists of the city’s top residential and commercial boutique brokerages, a ranking of last years’ biggest building sales and a look at stalled construction projects and much much more (see sample pages after the jump.) To order a copy of the annually researched data book in print or digital format, at a cost of $50, click here, or contact Junaid Zahid at (212) 260-1332. TRD [more]
A home for sale in Wall Township, N.J.
In New Jersey, as the housing market tumbles further, landlords are increasingly giving concessions in addition to lowering asking prices, the New York Times reported.
Such concessions often include things like covering closing costs or taxes or paying in advance for renovations. And when the concessions are in the contract they can often be used in mortgage calculations in the state of New Jersey, the Times said. [more]
Michael Shapot
From the February issue: Veteran broker Michael Shapot, along with a team of six agents, has moved from Prudential Douglas Elliman to the year-old residential brokerage Keller Williams NYC.
Shapot brought six members of the Michael Shapot Team to Keller Williams’s new 425 Park Avenue location: Luis Vazquez, Carson Alexander, Ying Li-Oshrin, Jim Biting, Elizabeth Edwards and one more who is finalizing departure plans. (Other members of the team decided to stay at Elliman.) [more]
The foreclosure settlement reached yesterday between 49 state attorneys general and the five largest mortgage servicers could result in a wave of foreclosures that would temporarily depress the American housing market even further, Bloomberg News reported.
Banks had waited until an agreement was pounded out to proceed with many foreclosures, Bloomberg said, and now that the agreement is finalized they will likely push forward, foreclosing on the backlog of underwater properties. The number of foreclosures initiated in the U.S. fell 46 percent between October and December of 2011, according to data from RealtyTrac, a real estate analytics firm. The investigation into foreclosure abuses began in October of 2011. [more]
