Corcoran’s Pamela Liebman, map of disputed Brooklyn area (Bedford Avenue circled) and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries

Residential real estate giant the Corcoran Group has been commended by King’s County Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries for correcting its advertising practices. Corcoran, Jeffries said in today’s statement, had been falsely stating the boundary between Prospect Heights and Crown Heights in an effort to market Crown Heights’ properties as being in the more desirable Prospect Heights neighborhood.

Jeffries’ office said the assemblyman contacted Corcoran CEO Pamela Liebman April 25 about the practice, citing a New York State Real Property Law that allows the Secretary of State to sanction a real estate broker “if such licensee has been guilty of fraud or fraudulent practices, or for dishonest or misleading advertising, or had demonstrated untrustworthiness or incompetency to act as a real estate broker or salesman,” the law states. [more]

NoLita was one thing, but between SoHa, ProCro and BoCoCa, it’s all gotten to be too much for Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. For that reason, Jeffries plans to introduce a bill next week that would require new neighborhood names to go through a serious vetting process, garnering approvals from the local community board, the City Council and the mayor. Real estate brokers who market their properties with fake micro-neighborhood monikers would be fined or potentially suspended from the profession. “It’s the Wild West in New York City right now,” Jeffries told the New York Times. “Brokers are allowed to essentially pull names out of thin air in order to rebrand a neighborhood and have the effect of raising rents or home prices.” [more]

BrooklynSpeaks, a coalition of civic associations and advocacy groups concerned about development at the Atlantic Yards site, announced yesterday that more than 1,000 New Yorkers have signed a petition calling for legislation mandating public oversight of the project, the Brooklyn Eagle reported. Bills introduced into the State Assembly require the Empire State Development Corp. to create a group responsible for governing the Atlantic Yards’ development, which is now expected to last for 25 years. “As the largest development project in Brooklyn’s history, Atlantic Yards must be managed with no less transparency and accountability than other important state and city projects, like Brooklyn Bridge Park,” said Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries. “We will not accept a private developer being given sole decision-making power over this project’s future given the significant public investment that has been made.” The Atlantic Yards Governance Act has passed the Corporations Committee in the Assembly, and is now before the Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee and the Senate’s Rules Committee. [Brooklyn Eagle]

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Proposed legislation to transform vacant luxury apartments in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill into affordable housing could become reality, as state lawmakers review the initiative, introduced a year ago by Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries. The program, Project Reclaim, would create affordable homes out of empty high-end condos for working and middle-class families who have been pushed out of their neighborhoods because of rising rents. Since lenders usually provide a second round of financing to developers once tenants start moving in, and developers in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill were unable to secure tenants, the region became overrun with stalled, empty buildings, the New York Times reported. So in order to change these “ghost towers” into affordable housing for the community, the State of New York Mortgage Agency has proposed providing mortgage insurance to potential new buyers of recently built, but vacant properties that are in foreclosure, at half the average cost. The catch is any buyers who participate in the program would be required to rent the luxury units at an affordable price if they want to pursue the insurance deal. “This is important because the main goal of it is to try to bring these buildings back into productive use, which is critical to the neighborhoods and the people who live there,” said Priscilla Almodovar, former CEO of the New York State Housing Finance Agency.

In response to the glut of vacant apartment buildings on the market since the real estate bust, including the Isabella in Clinton Hill, Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries has proposed legislation that would give struggling developers new bank loans at reduced prices in exchange for renting or selling units at lower prices. The developers “can either hope that things turn around and allow these apartments to sit vacant or they can work with the government to actually transform these units into productive apartments,” Jeffries told NBC’s Ida Siegel. He counted more than 60 brand new buildings that are sitting empty or partially full in his Brooklyn district, which includes parts of Clinton Hill, Flatbush, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, Park Slope and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Jeffries’ proposal could have a negative effect on people who have already purchased units in such buildings. “Unfortunately, the people that bought into [them] are the ones that are going to see damage to their equity,” appraiser Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel, said.

From the October issue: Brooklyn’s official motto may be “Fuggedaboutit,” but the borough’s
real estate industry is not having an easy time shaking thoughts of
double-digit price drops and troubled residential projects. Overall,
the median closed sales price in Brooklyn has already fallen back to
2005 levels, dropping 19 percent over the past two years, according to
StreetEasy. Rental listing prices dropped 12 percent over the past
year, not including all of the concessions landlords are throwing in
these days. Meanwhile, a city tally early last month found that
Brooklyn had more stalled construction sites than any other borough
with 214 — a stunning 47 percent of all 448 projects citywide. What’s worse, most experts agree that the market has yet to reach bottom.

Sixty-five newly developed condos in some of Brooklyn’s most popular neighborhoods are either in distress or close to it, according to a report from Democratic Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries’ office. The troubled properties run the gamut, from completed properties to ones still under construction or stalled. Jeffries studied the five neighborhoods in his district, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, in an effort to advocate for enhanced affordable housing in his district. “There was an irrational exuberance of construction in the area these past few years,” Jeffries said, in reference to the glut of new properties in the borough.

State Senator Jeffrey Klein and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries said
Governor David Paterson’s effort to prevent foreclosures with mandatory
settlement conferences between lenders and borrowers of subprime loans
who are in default has been largely ineffective. In Queens, 419
conferences between October 2008 and April led to 16 settlements, and
in Brooklyn, 759 conferences resulted in 22 settlements, according to
New York Acorn. Klein and Jeffries said borrowers are going into the
meetings with a lack of understanding about the foreclosure process,
and that lenders are sending representatives who do not have the
authority to modify loans. The two lawmakers introduced new legislation
to revamp the process, which would require a borrower to meet with a
housing counselor before the settlement meeting to work out a financial
plan. [more]