From the January issue: Could today’s seductive conditions in the housing market — severely marked-down prices, record-low interest rates and hundreds of thousands of foreclosures waiting to be resold — be breeding new generations of the very practices that led to the crash?

In an ironic twist, there are signs that the wreckage left over from the housing bust may be reigniting dubious real estate schemes and fraud. According to researchers: Property flippers are back in action in places like South Florida and Las Vegas, where condo prices crashed but are now seeing appreciation again in some areas. [more]

There is no evidence to support the idea that an increase in the number of housing voucher holders, or federal rental housing assistance for low-income households, in a community leads to increases in crime, according to a study by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy which examined crime and housing data over 12 years in 10 U.S. cities, released today. Instead, voucher holders are more likely to move into areas where crime rates are increasing.

“We find that crime tends to be higher in neighborhoods with more voucher holders. However, we found no evidence that an increase in the number of voucher holders leads to more crime,” said Ingrid Gould Ellen, faculty co-director of the Furman Center and a professor at NYU’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. — Katherine Clarke [more]

Residents at a high-end Tribeca rental building are fuming over an alleged breach of security, according to the New York Post. A resident in the building at 50 Murray Street, where one-bedrooms can fetch as much as $6,795 a month, was reportedly attacked in her sleep this past Sunday, after a newspaper deliveryman allegedly entered her unlocked apartment. The alleged attacker, who was quickly caught and has been charged with burglary and sexual abuse, was released on $5,000 bail. Tenants at the Tribeca building say they’re furious over the incident. [more]

St. Louis, Mo. is the most dangerous city in the U.S., according to U.S. News & World Report’s annual ranking. The ranking, which is based on seven years of Federal Bureau of Investigation crime data, pegged the city’s crime rate at more than five times the national average. New York didn’t make the list, which included other usual suspects like Detroit (No. 5), Miami (No. 7) and Baltimore (No. 8). See the full list after the jump. [more]

Violent crimes in New Your City’s public housing developments rose sharply in 2010, particularly in Harlem and the Bronx, according to city data compiled by the Daily News. Citywide, there were 73 murders at public housing projects, up from 62 one year ago. Of those, 27 took place in the Bronx, including 14 at the violence-plagued Edenwald Houses. The Bronx’s public housing developments had seen only 13 murders in 2009. While murders declined in Manhattan, shootings were up dramatically. There were 54 people shot at Manhattan projects in 2010, including 40 in Harlem, up from 37 in 2009. [more]

A three-building property manager pleaded guilty on charges of grand larcency and scheme to defraud, after stealing more than $879,000 from three separate corporations that owned the buildings, the Manhattan district attorney announced today. Luis Nunez, the sole property manager for the three buildings, located adjacent to Columbia University, was charged with collecting rent money from tenants and depositing it into his personal checking account between June 2005 and April 2009. Nunez carried out his scheme by telling tenants that they should make rent checks payable to him and not the companies that owned the buildings. Nunez could face up to 19 years behind bars. TRD

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A Queens landlord was viciously attacked yesterday after trying to collect rent from one of her tenants, according to the New York Post. Yun Zhong Sun went to her tenant’s apartment to collect rent on a Corona-area unit. Sun reportedly sat on the tenant’s bed to write up a receipt for the owed cash when the alleged attacker, 22-year-old Jasuli Abdimutel, began striking her with a metal pipe. The incident was uncovered after Sun’s husband, who was traveling outside the country and was worried when he didn’t hear from his wife, called the police. Although it is not immediately clear what condition Sun is currently in, reports indicated that she was not killed in the attack. [Post]

From the March issue:

Click chart for full version and zoom in to view

A three-bedroom cottage on Cobb Isle Road in Water Mill saw a $2 million price cut today. PropertyShark.com has debuted its new interactive New York City crime map. A new affordable housing complex opened in Bedford-Stuyvesant. For more click here. TRD
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