From left, two pictures from Town Residential, the Spire Group and the Level Group’s holiday parties (see jump for specific captions)

[Updated at 3 p.m. on Dec. 19 with picture from Platinum Properties' party] It’s been three years since the city’s two largest residential brokerages, Prudential Douglas Elliman and the Corcoran Group, cancelled their once notorious holiday bashes, citing the plunging economy and the corresponding embrace of austerity.

While the residential sales market has largely recovered from 2008 (even if it hasn’t reached pre-crash levels), and the rental market is on fire, the specter of financial strife continues to hover over the holiday season like Scrooge’s Ghost of Christmas Past, wreaking havoc with the party calendar.

“This year they’re more sparse,” Iman Bacodari, vice president and associate broker for the Jacky Teplitzky team at Elliman, said of the industry’s holiday parties. “I’m not seeing them one after another, I’m not seeing big splurges.
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While the folks behind Streeteasy.com may be most closely associated with real estate listings and data points, they shrugged off the computer geek image last night for a holiday party at the Mondrian Soho hotel’s Mister H bar.

Sofia Song, vice president at Streeteasy, said more than 200 of the invited brokers, advertisers, clients and media guests planned to attend the event, at 9 Crosby Street between Howard and Grand streets, and the press of bodies last night seemed to bear out her tally.

Between the ruby-colored wingbacks, gilt-framed mirrors, Persian rugs and bird cages strung from the ceiling, the space evoked a cross between a boudoir and a colonial drawing room. Or, as Iman Bacodari, vice president and associate broker for the Jacky Teplitzky team at Prudential Douglas Elliman, put it, “Chinatown dumpling shop meets Spanish brothel … with a little English manor sprinkled in.” Comments

From the August issue: A sudden flurry of New York City brokers are setting up shop in Florida, hoping to cash in on a housing market making strides toward recovery.

In the last six months, commercial brokerage Robert K. Futterman & Associates and residential firm Prudential Douglas Elliman have both dipped their toes into the Sunshine State market with new Miami offices. They’re joining the Corcoran Group and Brown Harris Stevens, which already have offices in Florida.

“Miami seems to be one of the most vibrant places in the U.S. right now, especially in terms of foreign investment,” said Robert Futterman, founder of the eponymous retail firm. [more]

From the August issue: When temperatures rise in New York City, apartment buyers skip town — or so goes the conventional wisdom. That leads many sellers to believe that they are better off waiting for the fall to list new properties. But this summer, it’s not so clear-cut. Today’s market is more unpredictable than ever. As a result, more brokers are choosing to list properties in August rather than face the unknown in the fall. This month, The Real Deal asked industry experts to weigh in on the pros and cons of listing a new property during the dog days of summer. Here’s what they had to say: [more]

A top-ranked Manhattan broker team, the Jacky Teplitzky Team, is expanding to Florida.
In March, Prudential Douglas Elliman opened an office in Miami, and Jacky Teplitzky told The Real Deal that she will be starting a new branch of her 10-person team there. The group was ranked seventh among New York City’s Elliman teams in gross commission income for 2010.

Teplitzky said a broker based in Miami will be joining her team, though she couldn’t yet announce who it would be. In addition, Teplitzky herself will soon begin a training course to get a real estate license valid in Florida. [more]

A Zen Buddhist-inspired Water Mill mansion that sits at the highest point in the Hamptons, and that drew no bids when it went up for auction last year, is making another attempt later this month. The 12,000-square-foot home, which once had an asking price of $30 million, belongs to Japanese architect Setsuo Ito, who also designed it. Located on nine inland acres on Bridgehampton’s Noyack Path, it has a 40-foot-tall glass pyramid, waterfall pool and spa, and views of the Atlantic Ocean and Peconic Bay. Last year, Jacky Teplitzky of Prudential Douglas Elliman had listed the house for $10.995 million before the unsuccessful auction. [more]

Joseph Moinian and the co-op at 1045 Park Avenue

It’s been more than two years and developer Joseph Moinian still hasn’t sold his 4,000-square-foot co-op at 1045 Park Avenue, so naturally he concluded that he had priced it too low. According to the Post, the five-bedroom, full-floor spread is back on the market for $10 million, up from $7.9 million last year at this time, and has a set of new brokers. Moinian originally listed the apartment for $8.995 million with Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Jacky Teplitzky, but after a year and a half and a price cut, he dropped her for Elliman’s Peter Acocella, Stephen Dartley and Brian Sakonchick, who pulled the sales listing and put the apartment on the rental market for $32,000 per month last summer. Now, that second broker team is out too, with Town Residential’s Dana Power, Bryan Graybill and Lucas Nathan stepping in for a try. [more]

From left: Dolly Lenz, Jacky Teplitzky and Michael Shvo

It’s time to let the other kids have a turn.

Prudential Douglas Elliman’s star broker Dolly Lenz, who has been awarded the company’s top agent prize for the past eight years in a row, has said she will no longer compete for the honor.

Elliman released a statement today stating that Lenz “has graciously agreed to no longer compete for the top sales agent award, allowing other member of the company’s sales force to vie for the top individual prize.”

Instead, starting in 2011 Lenz will receive a newly created “Stratosphere Award” honoring her “unprecedented sales achievement and exemplary contributions to the company.”
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This week was a whirlwind of shindigs for The Real Deal. We partied down with New York Commercial Real Estate Women, Fox Residential, Platinum Properties and Core. Oh, and a certain big guy at The Real Deal also rubbed shoulders with real estate pros and celebrities at the New York premiere of “Little Fockers.” Read on and check out the slide show above to see just how we celebrated the holidays this week. [more]

The Water Mill home

Artist Setsuo Ito’s 12,000-square-foot Water Mill home will stay on the market a little longer, according to Curbed, after Ito and his agent, Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Jacky Teplitzky, decided to extend the property’s auction through Aug. 28. The two previous bidding dates were Aug. 8 and Aug. 15. The auction on the mansion — which had an asking price of $30 million in 2009, before the listing had its acreage chopped and its price reduced to $10.99 million — has no minimum bid. The seven-bedroom, five-bathroom house includes a 4,000-square-foot sun deck, a 1,600-square-foot spa, jacuzzi and swimming pool. [Curbed]

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