From the January issue: From working-class enclaves in the outer boroughs to glistening new
condo towers in Manhattan, the legions of New Yorkers at risk of losing
their homes has been growing. While the number of foreclosure filings in the state dropped during
the first three quarters of last year compared to the same time in
2008, the filings jumped 14 percent in New York City, according to
RealtyTrac. And no borough — including Manhattan — was spared.
This month, The Real Deal examined foreclosure data provided
by PropertyShark, RealtyTrac and NYU’s Furman Center and found that
across the board — from houses on cul-de-sac streets in Staten Island
to tony co-op apartments on the Upper West Side — foreclosures in the
five boroughs have quietly started creeping into more well-to-do
neighborhoods. While the level of distress in many of these higher-end
neighborhoods still pales in comparison to foreclosure epicenters like
East New York, Jamaica and Ozone Park, it is clearly on the rise.
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Brooklyn-based
brokerage the Developers Group is merging with Manhattan’s Real Estate
Group of New York, creating one firm with reach in two markets. The new
firm, temporarily known as TDG/TREGNY, has 70 agents. Financial terms
of the merger were not released. Daniel Baum, co-founder of the Real
Estate Group, will be the CEO of the new firm. The
Developers Group was founded six years ago and specializes in marketing
new developments in Brooklyn, while the Real Estate Group, founded in
2004, focuses on Manhattan rentals.

The city Department of Buildings announced it will share information
about tower cranes with Chicago and Philadelphia in an effort to track
equipment failures, recalls, accidents and industry trends. Over the
past year, 12 tower cranes have come to New York City from other
places. The new system will track where the cranes work, who owns them
and will include any information on accidents involving the machines.
This is the latest in a series of measures instituted after two tower
crane accidents in Manhattan resulted in nine people dead last year.
There is currently no national database to track tower cranes and their
parts, and several other places, including California, Connecticut and
Dallas, have expressed interest in the new program. [more]

Number of foreclosures by borough (Source: PropertyShark.com)

New York City saw a slight increase in foreclosures from April to May
but a decrease between May 2008 and May of this year, according to a monthly foreclosure report from PropertyShark.com. There were 285 new
foreclosures across the five boroughs in May, an 8 percent rise from
April but a 9 percent drop from May 2008 (see jump for full report). Queens continued to have the
highest number of new foreclosures, with 209. Staten Island saw 30 new
foreclosures, a 36 percent decrease month-over-month and
year-over-year. There was a 26 percent drop in new foreclosures in the
Bronx from April to May, to 17. Foreclosures in Brooklyn increased 62
percent from April but fell 62 percent from May 2008. Manhattan saw eight
new foreclosures in May, a 43 percent drop year-over-year. The 15 zip
codes with the highest numbers of foreclosure auctions were in Queens. TRD [more]

Some Brooklynites are worried that as Manhattan real estate prices and rents fall, the borough will no longer be the first choice for young New York City residents. Residential sales transactions fell 57 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period of 2008, which is the biggest drop seen in any borough, according to a first-quarter report by Miller Samuel. Though several companies, including Etsy and SpikeDDB, Spike Lee’s advertising agency, have chosen Brooklyn over Manhattan for their offices, when it comes to the residential market, Brooklyn can no longer count on a spillover of people who can’t afford to rent in Manhattan. [more]

From the May issue: Like timeshares on steroids, condo-hotels appeared to offer the perfect real estate trifecta when the market was strong.
The units — which look like high-end hotel rooms but are sold as
condos that buyers can stay in for about a third of the year — were
long a win for developers, buyers and lenders.
Developers won because they were poised to reap profits both from
condo sales and from the money generated on the nights the rooms were
occupied by hotel guests. Buyers won because they were securing what
appeared to be an appreciating real estate investment and had access to
full-service hotel amenities. And financiers won because they were
lending money on what seemed like two sure bets: the condo market and
hotel market in Manhattan.

From the May issue: Manhattan retailers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. The
continued freeze in consumer spending is forcing some retailers to do
the once-unthinkable: close desirable Manhattan locations, including
flagship stores — which are valued as much for the marketing boost they
provide by being located here as for their actual sales. Retailers, however, can’t just go dark, for they are often bound by
leases that render them unable to walk away without paying huge
penalties. As a result, high-profile national chains such as Ethan
Allen, Home Depot and Borders are turning to subleasing to unload
spaces that are prominent but costly. 

[more]

Renters in the outer boroughs who were previously priced out of
Manhattan are moving back as prices fall. For just $100 more a month, a
publicist left his Greenpoint apartment for a Lower East Side unit
(although it is half the size of his old Brooklyn home), and an editor
left Sunset Park for Midtown, receiving a month of free rent. In the
first three months of the year, one-bedroom rents in Manhattan fell 6.7
percent compared to the previous year, while Brooklyn one-bedrooms saw
rents drop 3.2 percent, according to Citi Habitats and Ideal Properties
Group. Only 9 percent of renters moving to Brooklyn were from Manhattan
during the first three months of the year, while nearly a quarter of
renters migrated from Manhattan to Brooklyn during the same time last
year, according to Ideal.
[more]

In the first four months of the year, the total amount office space
available for lease in Manhattan increased by nearly 10 million square
feet, a figure that equaled the increase for all 12 months of 2008,
data from real estate advisory firm Newmark Knight Frank shows. From January through April, the negative net absorption was 9.98
million square feet, versus 9.91 million square feet in all of 2008,
Newmark found. Real estate researchers use the term negative net absorption to
describe the quantity of office space made available through direct or
sublease space subtracted by space removed from the market through
leasing. [more]

The city’s largest office building landlord, SL Green Realty Corp., saw a 3.9 percent increase in first-quarter revenues year-over-year, the company announced yesterday. SL Green’s first-quarter revenues this year were $263.4 million. SL Green signed 32 Manhattan office leases, comprising a total of 296,849 square feet, in the first quarter, with average rents of $52.71 per square foot. Occupancy was 96.2 percent at the end of the first quarter, down from 96.7 percent at the end of 2008. [more]