This Week in Comments

Who do you think should be held responsible for identifying whether a rental apartment is illegal?
Ultimately the landlord, but the broker should have to refund the fee. They had a fiduciary duty which they did not live up to.

TRD gets dirt on Elliman’s new $1M Web site

So if they really allow people to discuss listings on their Web site,
how edited will this content be? I’m expecting any comments about
overinflated asking prices to be removed promptly.

Tribeca PTA admonishes Corcoran brokers
The problem here is twofold: 1) they should never have solicited a PTA email list with a commercial venture. That is pretty stupid and they got called on it. 2) This is a referral fee scam to try to get more business, nothing more. Playing it out as if its a donation is a sucker’s interpretation. They could easily donate 10 percent of existing business to this association, but they are not. That by the way would likely have been the way to go, and got them the desired extra business from their good nature. Instead, they sell it as a donation when it really is a referral fee off the top of earned commissions from future business from the solicitation. That’s the illegal part. Only a licensed broker can receive a referral fee. Clearly they had good intentions, [they] just didn’t understand the poor execution part of it.

Not much progress at WTC site
[Larry] Silverstein has no intention of finishing anytime soon. He’ll lose tremendously if the market is still fragile when he’s ready to begin leasing.

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W’burg’s Rose Plaza gets City Planning nod
First, there is zero financing for any of this, so nothing is being built regardless [of whether] it’s approved or not. Second, the city should encourage quality architecture that fits into the cityscape.

How accurate are Zillow.com’s “Zestimates”?
I don’t believe I know a single broker in New York City who uses Zillow or Trulia. They are not designed for urban areas. They are designed for places like Kalamazoo, Mich.

Boymelgreen’s LibertyPointe Bank shut down
[Shaya Boymelgreen] did a lot of stupid things with a lot of other people’s money. I have no doubt in my mind he still has millions of dollars and will be just fine.

South Florida residential market won’t rebound until 2030
1. One must see the overbuilding in Florida to believe it now.
2. Even though we’ve seen a lot in the past two years, this is a shocker.