From left: The Juwai.com website and Chinese buyers on a tour of the Trump Soho building led by Windham China and New York’s Prodigy Network

A new international property search platform targeted at Mandarin-speaking Chinese home hunters may bring even more Chinese buyers to New York.

Juwai.com, a database of over one million property listings from 80,000 brokers and developers in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, including select multiple listing services in America, launched last week and helps international agents market their non-Asian properties to Asian buyers.

Real estate agents who want to advertise to Chinese buyers can key in the listing information, which will then be translated into Mandarin, a language understood by most Chinese citizens; the site also takes care of metric and currency conversions. Agents can upload individual property listings or import listings in bulk at no cost.
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From the December issue: As the year draws to a close, the future seems as opaque as a glass of eggnog. Some real estate professionals say pent-up demand in the residential market could foster a busy 2012, while others predict that a sluggish economy will keep prices and activity in check.

Citi Habitats vice president Jay Molishever said the high rents, relatively low sales prices and increasing activity he is seeing in the current market are good signs for the New Year.

“At some point,” he said, “the kindling is going to burst into flames again,” bringing high prices and high volume. [more]

The Dillon, a 83-unit condominium at 425 West 53rd Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, rolled out two red carpets for brokers last night to debut its townhouse units and showcase its penthouses (see photos above).


Developed by SDS Procida and marketed by Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, the Dillon is 60 percent sold, including one of the nine townhouses, according to a spokesperson for the project. The available units range from a 565-square-foot studio priced at $595,000, to a four-bedroom townhouse spanning 2,750 feet and priced at $4.15 million. The six-story building hit the market in May 2010.

Nina Freudenberger, founder of the interior design firm Haus Interior, made an appearance to show off the interiors she designed, followed closely by cameras from the HGTV reality television series, “Real Designing Women,” on which she will star. Comments

From left: Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development, a rendering of One57, Michael Chen, director of Asian market development at Bond New York and Patricia Cliff, the Corcoran Group’s director of international sales

Sales have unofficially kicked off at One57, Extell Development’s 90-story condominium tower in Midtown, with some prices hitting $6,000 per square foot, according to a source with inside information about the asking prices. The 1,000-foot tall property, at 157 West 57th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues, is slated to replace New York by Gehry at 8 Spruce Street as the city’s tallest residential building when construction is completed within two years. Extell plans to officially open a sales office at the end of this month, but foreign buyers — primarily from China — have already snapped up some of the units since the developer began shopping them privately last month, according to the source, who asked for anonymity because the information is confidential. [more]

From the October issue: Susan Tsang had already seen dozens of apartments by the time she finally convinced a landlord to rent her the $1,950-a-month Upper West Side studio where she lives today.
A doctoral biology student who grew up in Queens, Tsang earns a modest stipend. However, her family lives in Hong Kong, where she was born. And her roommate, who works as a receptionist and teacher, was back from a two-year stint in Japan, and had yet to earn a U.S. paycheck when the longtime friends began apartment-hunting.
This unique collection of circumstances combined to turn their hunt into a three-month marathon. It wasn’t until the Brodsky Organization took the rare step of allowing Tsang’s father to act as an international guarantor that she was able to sign the lease, she said.
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From left: Anthony DeGrotta, founder and principal at A.C. Lawrence & Co., and Bruno Ricciotti, Bond’s principal broker

Making a charge ripped from the pages of a thriller spy novel, residential and commercial brokerage A.C. Lawrence & Co. accused competing firm Bond New York and seven of its principals or agents of hacking into its proprietary listing system to steal valuable listings.

The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court Sept. 20, claims that beginning in February, Bond, its agents and others broke into the listing system and stole the information, later contacting the owners of properties in an effort to poach the business.

A.C. Lawrence claims in the suit that it lost at least $100,000 in commissions “which would have been earned by plaintiff but, instead, were converted and wrongfully received by defendants,” and is seeking $5 million in punitive damages. “Bond vehemently denies all allegations in this frivolous and desperate suit by a competitor. Bond will aggressively defend the complaint,” said Bruno Ricciotti, Bond’s principal broker in a statement to The Real Deal.
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From the September issue: In Manhattan, a doorman is a marker of luxury and status.
But as rents rise in a tough economy, tenants are increasingly willing to go without that friendly face to screen visitors and accept packages if it means staying in New York’s most exclusive borough, industry experts said.
Data shows that the premium that renters are willing to pay for doormen has shrunk dramatically in the past two years. Between 2010 and mid-year 2011, the premium for rental apartments in buildings with attended lobbies dropped 36 percent for studios, 21 percent for one-bedrooms and 18 percent for two-bedrooms, according to a market report compiled by real estate consulting firm and brokerage Nancy Packes Inc., in collaboration with StreetEasy. [more]

From the September issue: August in New York City is usually a sleepy time, with offices empty by noon on Fridays and co-op boards disbanded for the summer.

Last month, however, was anything but quiet. After a bruising political battle over the debt ceiling, the U.S. saw its AAA credit rating downgraded by Standard & Poor’s for the first time in history, prompting the stock market to plummet. If that weren’t enough, the city — already bracing for the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks — suffered an earthquake and a hurricane. In the same week.

These events are, at a minimum, distractions from the real estate market. That was most palpably true as Hurricane Irene barreled toward New York City late last month. With the subways shut down, New Yorkers scurried to buy flashlights, and brokers canceled closings and showings [more]

From the August issue: New Yorkers are fleeing the city in the scorching summer heat, trading subway cars for the Hamptons Jitney and business casual for bathing suits. Even so, the residential rental market is as sizzling-hot as the temperature, brokers say.
According to a market report released by the brokerage Citi Habitats, the average second-quarter rent for a Manhattan apartment jumped around 10 percent from the same period of 2010. Taking into consideration landlord concessions like a month of free rent, the median net-effective monthly rent paid by Manhattan tenants grew to $2,888 in the second quarter, up from $2,700 in the prior-year quarter, according to a report from Prudential Douglas Elliman.
“The rental market is going absolutely crazy,” said Bruno Ricciotti, a principal at Bond New York Real Estate. In some desirable neighborhoods, he said, apartments are renting for higher prices than they did during the peak of the real estate boom. [more]

Bond New York’s Michael Chadwick and Devin Grissom, the woman he’ll be vying for on CMT’s “Sweet Home Alabama”

If his online biography is to be believed, Bond New York agent Michael Chadwick is used to attention. “Complete strangers often stop Michael on the streets of NYC, just to let him know he looks like Tom Cruise,” his website reads. “Asians seem to like him a lot, especially Koreans.” (No one ever said modesty was a necessity in New York real estate). So it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that Chadwick, who specializes in apartment rentals in Midtown West and the Upper West Side and also bills himself as a model, actor and musician, is the latest victim of the industry’s reality television bug. According to an announcement from Bond’s press representative, Chadwick is set to star in County Music Television’s new dating reality show, “Sweet Home Alabama,” which premieres Thursday at 9 p.m.

Perhaps unfortunately for Chadwick, the object of his affections on the eight-episode series is not Korean, but rather a bona fide “Southern belle” from Alabama, who’ll be choosing, “Bachelorette”-style, from among 20 men hailing from both the small country towns she’s used to and from the “big city.”
– Sarabeth Sanders [more]