From left: Jeff Wolk and Rob Anzalone of Fenwick Keats

From the May issue: When Fenwick Keats Real Estate merged with Marty Goodstein’s brokerage four years ago and took on an extra last name, it hoped to benefit from access to Goodstein’s other business: a 9,000-unit New York City property management firm known as Goodstein Management.

But last summer, Goodstein Management sold to First Service Management, a nationwide landlord whose New York arm is known as Cityline. With that sale, the critical advantage Fenwick Keats principals Jeff Wolk and Rob Anzalone sought in forging the partnership was lost. So the pair decided to buy Goodstein out. [more]

A Prudential Douglas Elliman report released today depicts the spectacular rise of home prices over the past decade, but also the sudden — and definitive — arrival of the real estate slump in Manhattan. In 2009, Manhattan co-ops and condos saw year-over-year declines for the first time since 1996, the report shows. The average 2009 apartment sold for $1.39 million, down 12.5 percent from the previous year. The median price dropped 11 percent to $850,000 from 2008, while the average price per square foot sank 14.2 percent to $1,073. Other areas of the country have seen real estate activity and prices decline gradually over the past few years, but the Manhattan real estate market was still booming until the Lehman Brothers collapse in the fall of 2008. In fact, Manhattan prices set new records in 2008. That year, the average sale price of a Manhattan apartment reached a new ever high of $1.59 million, while the median was $955,000 and the price per square foot was $1,251, according to the report. Still, Manhattan real estate prices remain at dizzying heights compared to a decade ago. More

Source: Prudential Douglas Elliman

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From the February issue: Nothing says progress like Madoff. Late last month, The Real Deal broke the story that the Ponzi schemer’s Upper East Side penthouse finally appears close to a sale.
Listing brokers Anne Corey and Serena Boardman of Sotheby’s
International Realty have told interested agents that there is an
accepted offer on the 133 East 64th Street duplex. At press time, the
U.S. Marshals Service, which seized the property from the disgraced
financier, said the listing had not yet entered contract.
The sale (if it does clear the many obstacles of today’s market) may not be unqualified good news.
The penthouse’s asking price is $8.9 million, following a November
price chop of $1 million. It’s also been sitting on the market since
September.  [more]