Paula Busch, former director of sales at Town (l), her replacement Dennis Cusack & 730 Fifth Ave.

Paula Busch, a former senior-level manager at the Corcoran Group and most recently director of sales at Town Residential, has departed Andrew Heiberger’s rapidly expanding firm after just nine months on the job, Town confirmed today.

Dennis Cusack, who joined Town as a vice president in August from Stribling & Associates, will be taking over as director of sales at the company’s 730 Fifth Avenue office, Town said, declining to reveal the circumstances of Busch’s departure, saying only that she had been “disassociated from the company for personal reasons.” [more]

From left: Stephen Kliegerman, Roberta Benzilio and On Prospect Park

Brown Harris Stevens is now handling the marketing of Richard Meier‘s On Prospect Park, taking over from the Corcoran Group, BHS said today.

SDS Procida Development Partners, the developer of the 80-percent sold glass condo tower at 1 Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Heights, has tapped BHS’ Stephen Kliegerman, president of Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing, and Roberta Benzilio, executive director for Terra Development Marketing, to lead the sales of the 21 units remaining on the market. On Prospect Park has been on the market since 2008. [more]

From left, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Dottie Herman, Halstead Property’s Greg Heym and the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman The volume of Manhattan home sales declined at least 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, although prices continued to hold steady, according to quarterly reports issued today by the city’s largest residential real estate brokerages. Experts proffered a host of explanations for the drop in sales activity, from global economic chaos to low inventory levels to financing issues for buyers in the middle of the market. [more]

Much of the Williamsburg development activity that stalled as a result of the recession is being revived, the New York Post reported, and most of it will be delivered in the form of rentals.

“There are a lot of buildings in Williamsburg that have gone rental,” said Christine Blackburn of the Corcoran Group. “It has to do with financing. The financing that is available is available for rentals and not for condos. The banks see . . . things leasing for $50 a foot now, and it’s enough for them to lend on.”

Among new rental properties hitting the market are 170 North Fifth Street, a 16-unit development that was initially imagined as condos, which Blackburn is marketing, and the Driggs at 205 North Ninth Street, where 21 of 113 units are already leased, according to the Post. [more]

Charlotte DePersia and the car wreck

Charlotte DePersia, the prominent East Hampton broker who was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle last November, was sentenced to probation and community service yesterday despite the protests of her crash victims, Patch reported.

At the sentencing, DePersia, who admitted all blame for swerving into the right lane of traffic on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton near midnight on the night, striking the driver’s side of a BMW in the adjacent lane, was sentenced to 840 hours of community service to be completed during the five years of her probation, Patch said. She will also be required to submit to drug tests and wear an alcohol monitoring device. [more]

From the December issue: Venerable Park Slope brokerage Warren Lewis Realty is expanding outside the neighborhood for the first time. The 25-year-old firm is taking over Prudential Douglas Elliman’s old office at 299 Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, according to Warren Lewis president Aroza Sanjana. The 1,600-square-foot location, which Elliman vacated last year after moving into a bigger office, is slated to open in January, she said.

Sanjana has been shaking things up at Warren Lewis since taking the reigns earlier this year, when she folded her company, Atlantic Realty Partners, into the well-known brokerage and moved into its space on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. She recently hired top Corcoran broker Wassim Fakhereddine, bringing the current stable of full-time Warren Lewis agents to 18. [more]

Median home sales prices in Brooklyn rose 5 percent in the third quarter of 2011, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Brooklyn quarterly survey of sales, as The Real Deal previously reported. BrickUnderground.com has some theories as to why the borough saw price increases in a relatively bleak quarter that saw flat prices in Manhattan. Aside from the obvious — affordability, driven in some measure at least by condominiums built with tax abatements — the factors behind Brooklyn’s sales numbers, BrickUnderground said, include less-crowded elite schools, vibrant small businesses and, of course, the best views of Manhattan you can get without living in Hoboken. [more]

Number of signed contracts for Manhattan home sales (Source: UrbanDigs.com)

The number of signed sales contracts for Manhattan condominiums and co-ops has declined every month since July, forecasting a drop in closed sales volume for the fourth quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012, according to Jeffrey Jackson, chairman of appraisal firm Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson.

The most widly publicized figures from recent Manhattan market reports indicate an increase in sales activity in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter. Prudential Douglas Elliman, for example, said that sales transactions rose 17.2 percent over the previous quarter, while the Corcoran Group found a 6 percent quarter-over-quarter increase. [more]

A view of Jed Garfield, of Leslie J. Garfield & Co.’s kitchen and upstairs living room, which is filled with Damien Hirst paintings and sketches

From the November issue: A New Yorker’s address is a marker of identity — especially if the New Yorker is a residential real estate broker. This month, The Real Deal peeked inside the homes of some of Manhattan’s top brokers to find out what’s behind their front doors.

The five brokers we visited, who were all in the top 20 on The Real Deal’s latest list of top Manhattan agents (published earlier this year, in the June issue), may specialize in different sectors of the market, but they have all used their industry knowledge to pounce on insider deals and access otherwise obscure properties.

So it’s perhaps no surprise that their own homes seem to match up with the homes that fuel their businesses. [more]

The Real Estate Board of New York held its 23rd annual Residential Deal of the Year Awards and Charity Gala last night at Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers. The top prizes went to Sharon Baum, senior vice president and director of the exclusive properties division of the Corcoran Group, who received the Henry Forster Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Norman Horowitz, executive vice president at Halstead Property, who won the first prize Residential Deal of the Year Award in  sales. The Rookie Salesperson of the Year Award was given to Sarah Williams, an agent with Halstead Property, for what REBNY called “her impressive entry into New York City’s residential sales market.” – Miranda Neubauer [more]