Charlotte DePersia's mug shot

Charlotte DePersia, a former East Hampton broker at the Corcoran Group, was jailed today for violating her probation by drinking alcohol, Patch reported. Her bail was set at $500,000 cash or $1 million bond.

As The Real Deal previously reported, DePersia was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle in November 2010, when she swerved into the right lane on Montauk Highway and hit a BMW, injuring two people. According to a Suffolk County District Attorney press release, DePersia injured two women in the crash. Roughly a year later, DePersia pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation and community service. [more]

A Pinterest screenshot (click for larger view)

From the April issue: “Getting pinned” has taken on a new meaning for the 11.7 million monthly visitors to the hottest new social media website: Pinterest.

Not surprisingly, New York City real estate professionals have also gotten in on the action. And they’re finding that the photo-focused site is ideally suited to property sales, perhaps even more so than Twitter or Facebook. [more]

From left: Dottie Herman of Elliman, appraiser Jonathan Miller, Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group and Gregory Heym of Terra Holdings

Despite some major high-end deals closing last month, Manhattan’s luxury residential market, which has been strong since the third quarter of 2010, may soon lose its reputation as the most talked about sector in the real estate industry, according to Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. [more]

Stuart Parr and his marble-clad swimming pool room (credit: Curbed)

Film producer Stuart Parr of “8 Mile” fame has listed his 9,079-square-foot Tribeca condominium unit nicknamed the “Marble House” for $20 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Corcoran Group brokers Deborah Grubman and Carol Cohen (Cohen is no longer with Corcoran) first listed the unit in February 2009 for $24.5 million, according to Streeteasy.com. Several days after its listing, it was taken off the market, but returned to the market that April. The listing price decreased that September to $21.5 million, then decreased again in March 2010 to $18.5 million. That August, the Marble House was taken off the market again. [more]

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]