New York Public Library

Thousands of foreclosure settlement checks issued to homeowners written for the wrong amounts. Architect Winka Dubbeldam sells 497 Greenwich for $1.95M. New York Public Library renovation plan sparks protests. Workers remove only tree to survive construction of 51 Astor Place. Graffiti artists attracted to metallic sheen of Brooklyn Bridge. Read these stories and more after the jump.

Long Island City’s Flea & Food Market Announcement

“Numbers to know” is a weekly web feature that catalogs the most notable, quirky and surprising real estate statistics. Long Island City’s waterfront gets a flea market, buyers pay greater attention to the resale value of homes and the price of Manhattan lofts skyrocket. [more]

Jed Kolko

Trulia’s chief economist Jed Kolko said that although the housing recovery was “for real,” the price rises in many major markets were simply a rebound from the dark days of the housing bust. Speaking in an interview on Bloomberg News, Kolko said that strong job growth was increasing household demand, leading to an appreciation in house prices. See the video after the jump.

Discoveries of misconduct among the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, prior to and during the foreclosure crisis, are continuing to add up, with the revelation that the nation’s biggest banks wrongfully foreclosed on more than 700 members of the U.S. military, the New York Times reported. [more]

Inset: Mayor Michael Bloomberg

“Numbers to know” is a weekly web feature that catalogues the most notable, quirky and surprising real estate statistics. Foreclosures’ effect on crime, Bloomberg’s fight to bring more tourists to NYC and the G train’s saga. See this week’s countdown after the jump. [more]

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U.S. foreclosure filings — including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — are down 3 percent year-over-year, according to a year-end foreclosure market report issued by RealtyTrac. The nationwide average of housing units that had at least one foreclosure filing in 2012 came in at 1.39 percent — or one in every 72 units — which is down from the 1.45 percent tallied in 2011. But despite the positive news on the national front, foreclosure activity increased in 25 states in 2012, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Queens, RealtyTrac found, was particularly hard-hit. [more]

When a little-known federal law expires at the end of the 113th Congress, millions of renters across the U.S. could face eviction, the Huffington Post reported. The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, passed in 2009, gives renters the right to remain in their homes until the end of their lease or for a minimum of 90 days if they are not on a lease, if their building is foreclosed on. Without the federal provision, renters will be forced to rely on local laws that are sometimes good and sometimes nonexistent. [more]

Though home prices have been on a steady rise these last months, rapid price increases could hurt recovery in the housing market, CNBC reported. The concern lies with investors who are flocking to areas with high numbers of distressed properties and renting them out — though they can get 8 to 12 percent returns, the profits can shrink as house prices rise. [more]

Even before Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the states were faced with dramatic increases in foreclosures, Bloomberg News reported today.

October default, auction and repossession notices increased 123 percent in New York, 140 percent in New Jersey and 41 percent in Connecticut from a year earlier, according to a RealtyTrac Inc. report cited in the story. Those were the biggest annual gains nationwide. [more]

Shaun Donovan

The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures of FHA-insured mortgages for homeowners in the New York region, the agency said today.

The measure applies to homes across New York City and Long Island’s Nassau and Suffolk counties, and comes as a result of President Barack Obama’s disaster declaration for areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. [more]