From the May issue: Brokers famously sell the mantra of
location, location, location. But when it comes to their own offices,
that refrain may be changing. During the boom times, real estate
companies large and small rushed to open glittering storefront offices,
like Halstead Property’s mammoth 408 Columbus Avenue office across from
the Museum of Natural History, or the Tribeca office that Brown Harris
Stevens has on the ground floor of a 19th-century Romanesque Revival
building. The hope was to stake out their turf in prime neighborhoods
while attracting passersby. But New York’s housing slump has prompted
the rapid closing of some real estate offices, as firms seek to cut
costs, and the opening of others, as they seek to take advantage of
falling rents to gobble up new territory. And while closing an office
inevitably means ceding territory to competitors, with real estate
sales down nearly 50 percent from last year according to a quarterly
market report by Prudential Douglas Elliman, satellite offices are a
luxury many firms can no longer afford. [more]