Manhattan home owners who scrambled to unload high-end properties just before the nation went over the fiscal cliff a few months ago probably lost money because the madcap rush pushed prices down, the Wall Street journal reported.

December set a record for luxury sales, more than 60 percent above the highs during the real estate boom, new data reviewed by the Journal shows. In Manhattan, 156 properties each priced at $4 million and up changed hands – many just days before the federal government increased the capital-gains tax rates.   [more]

From the February issue: Anyone who’s picked up a newspaper or logged onto the Internet in the last month knows that lawmakers cut a last-minute deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, narrowly avoiding widespread tax increases and deep spending cuts. But now New York real estate investors and home buyers — along with their accountants — are watching closely to see how that deal will affect the residential and commercial markets here. The major impact for New York real estate, observers said, could come from increases in federal capital gains rates, as well as from a Medicare surcharge tied to President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Some speculate that the capital gains increases (which range from 5 percent to 8.8 percent on the margin) could cause a drop-off in the number of properties traded, as well as an increase in asking prices for residential and commercial real estate. [more]

From the February issue: Although it wasn’t a total win for homeowners and sellers, the patchwork legislation that emerged from the fiscal cliff fracas on Capitol Hill came pretty close. In fact, it even reached back and resuscitated two key tax benefits for housing that had expired more than a year ago. Now homeowners will be able to take deductions on their upcoming 2012 tax returns that they assumed were no longer available. [more]

2410-2418 Broadway

In the rush to beat the fiscal cliff, a 12-story Upper West Side apartment building at 2410-2418 Broadway at West 89th Street traded for $47 million just before the new year, the New York Post reported. The buyer was real estate investor Robert Gilardian and the seller was a partnership dubbed M.E. & A. Realty. The 46-unit building – 61 percent of which are rent-regulated — had been owned by the same partnership for 70 years, which included 14 members at the time of the sale. The building includes 5,000 square feet of retail space mostly on the Broadway side…. [more]

From the January issue: Although the European debt crisis seems to be further from investors’ minds today than it was a year ago, fresh hurdles like the fiscal cliff standoff in Washington, prospective tax changes and a New York City mayoral election loom. And those are not the only questions that industry pros are pondering as 2013 gets underway. Also on their minds: Will the tech sector continue to prop up commercial leasing? What kinds of housing stock will move — and what will languish on the market? Where will the next wave of retail condo sales take place? And which overall sectors of the market will investors gravitate towards? This month, The Real Deal talked to New York City real estate insiders from several different sectors of the market to get their industry predictions for 2013. [more]

The U.S. housing market stands to benefit from two tax provisions that were left alone in the hasty budget compromise that Congress reached yesterday, CNBC reported. In seeking to avert the fiscal cliff, federal lawmakers opted not to touch the mortgage-interest deduction and extended tax relief on mortgage debt forgiveness for a year. [more]

U.S. construction spending in November fell 0.3 percent below the revised October figure of $868.2 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Spending in November totaled $866.0 billion, a 7.7 percent year-over-year gain. As The Real Deal reported last month, the October figures showed a second consecutive month of gains, following a large drop in July and another fall in August. [more]

Rising anxiety over the so-called fiscal cliff caused construction employment in New York to fall 5.2 percent year-over-year, an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of Labor Department shows. The prospect of federal tax increases, combined with spending cuts, has made contractors anxious, and resulted in 16,100 fewer construction jobs in New York, year-over-year — bringing the number of construction jobs statewide down to 292,200. … [more]

From left: Robert Dvorin, Meredyth Smith and Dolly Lenz

As the year winds down, there’s now a rush among the well-heeled crowd to close deals on residential properties in order to beat the tax increases that could take effect on New Year’s Day, the Wall Street Journal reported. Though year-end rushes aren’t uncommon, the Journal said, adding fuel to the fire this year are potential tax increases on real estate, for example, that are in play as politicians work to steer clear of the fiscal cliff. [more]

Mary Ann Rothman and Eva Talel

Attorneys and property managers have been inundated with requests to transfer apartments to trusts before the new year, when some co-op owners will face a series of tax changes triggered by the fiscal cliff, the New York Observer reported.

If Congress fails to reach an alternative budget deal, beginning on Jan. 1, homeowners will no longer be able to take advantage of the $5.1 million gift tax exemption. They will also face an inheritance tax of 55 percent, a jump from its current level of 35 percent. [more]