Landlords continue to have the upper hand when it comes to Manhattan’s residential rental market, according to fourth-quarter reports released today by brokerages Prudential Douglas Elliman and Citi Habitats. The median asking rent climbed 6.6 percent over the last year, and vacancies were filled at a near-record pace, according to Elliman, while both firms reported a sharp decline in concessions. [more]

From left: Donald Trump, president of the Trump Organization, Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, and Lois Weiss, real estate columnist for the New York Post

Compiled by Lauren Elkies

In the wake of Sandy Weill’s reported $88 million sale of his 15 Central Park West penthouse, The Real Deal wanted to touch base and see if real estate executives had any last minute predictions for the New Year since speaking with the magazine for the December residential market report.

Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, said to expect 2012 to be a bit of a repeat of 2011, while developer Donald Trump said “really good real estate will have excess value.” Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, predicts a “continuing strong demand for new condominium offerings all over town,” while Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, said “the euro will continue to be in trouble causing a flight to safety to the U.S. and particularly New York City, so New York City properties will trade at even lower cap rates.” Meanwhile, Citi Habitats President Gary Malin and Halstead Property Development Marketing President Stephen Kliegerman recently told amNY that 2012 would bring more development and fewer amenities to New York City’s real estate market. [more]

At The Real Deal‘s seventh annual forum last week’s at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, real estate pros gathered to watch debates between real estate attorneys Adam Leitman Bailey of the eponymous firm and Stuart Saft, chair of law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department; developer Billy Macklowe of William Macklowe Company and John Catsimatidis, CEO of the Red Apple Group; and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty, and Lockhart Steele, founder of Curbed. In attendance were Faith Hope Consolo, chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman’s retail leasing and sales division, Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and Andrew Barrocas, CEO of brokerage MNS, all of whom stepped outside to talk to The Real Deal about the state of the market (see video above). — Katherine Clarke

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From left: Rubicon Property CEO Jason Haber and a rendering of Extell’s One57A lack of new construction, an influx of international buyers and prices still far from peaks have fueled a shortage of high-end apartments in New York City, Bloomberg News reported.

There were 832 homes on the market asking at least $5 million in New York City in October, according to Streeteasy.com, down 9.5 percent from the same time two years ago. Simultaneously, sales of Manhattan luxury apartments increased 17 percent in the third quarter from the prior-year quarter, according to Miller Samuel. There were more sales of at least $20 million in the third quarter this year than during any time since the third quarter of 2008. [more]

Jonathan Miller with his first-ever lobsterFrom the November issue: Most New Yorkers know appraiser Jonathan Miller as the statistics guru who produces quarterly market reports for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Few realize that he’s also a lobster fisherman.

But Miller, the CEO of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers, says the two vastly different specialties sometimes go hand in hand — or claw to claw, as it were.

It all started in 2005, when Miller decided lobster fishing would be a fun activity for his four sons while aboard the family boat, which is anchored on Long Island Sound near their home in Darien, Conn. So he got his lobstering license. [more]
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From left: Harlan Berger, CEO of Centaur Properties, Joe McMIillan, CEO of DDG Partners and Chelsea map

A steady stream of developers are trying to cash in on the influx of tech workers to Chelsea since Google moved its New York headquarters to 111 Eighth avenue last year, the Wall Street Journal reported, with many keen to build residential properties to house Google’s employees.

The number of condominium unit sales in Chelsea jumped to 121 in the third quarter, from 78 during the same period in 2012, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel, and the neighborhood has more condo projects in the works than any other neighborhood in Manhattan.

DDG Partners recently secured a $26 million construction loan and has broken ground on a 40-unit condo project at 345 West 14th Street and the Brodsky Organization will be launching sales at buildings it purchased from the General Theological Seminary which spans 20th to 21st streets, and Ninth and Tenth avenues, in early 2012.
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From the November issue: The autumn leaves are turning, and New York’s fall real estate market may be changing, too.

Autumn has traditionally been one of the busiest times of the year for residential sales, along with spring — the season of tax refunds and bonuses.

But real estate brokers say the fall selling season has declined in importance over the past few years, thanks to factors like the city’s dependence on bonuses and later-than-usual Jewish holidays.

It’s too soon to say whether the shift is permanent, but some say it could be a long-term trend rather than a temporary side effect of the topsy-turvy, post-Lehman economy. [more]

From left: The Douglass, Windows on 123, the Livmor and Parc Standard

Last year real estate insiders and prospective homebuyers worried about the glut of new development inventory in Harlem. But that’s no longer the case, thanks largely to price cuts on the units in those buildings, some of which are selling for less than $500 per square foot.

Many buildings introduced to the market in the last year are now mostly filled. The 72-unit Livmor, the 28-unit Parc Standard and the 38-unit Douglass, all on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, are sold out. Meanwhile, introduced this summer, the 73-unit co-op 88 Morningside is 71 percent sold, the 86-unit Gateway is 90 percent sold and Windows on 123 is on its second phase of sales. [more]

The extremely tight residential rental market in Manhattan may be having a positive impact on sales in Brooklyn. Home sales activity in the Borough of Trees skyrocketed and the median home price showed significant gains, according to a third-quarter market report released today by residential brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman.

“Brooklyn is showing signs of firm growth,” said Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel and preparer of the report. “The key driver of that growth this quarter is the condo market, which I think is benefiting from the high rents in Manhattan combined with the falling interest rates.”

Overall, there were 2,219 sales in Brooklyn during the third quarter, 18.1 percent greater than the number of sales in third quarter of 2010. Simultaneously, median sales price in the third quarter rose 5 percent from the prior-year quarter to $510,000. The growth in those two categories denotes a healthy market, Miller said. [more]

From the October issue: It’s conventional wisdom that low interest rates stimulate home sales, but in today’s roller-coaster economy, conventional wisdom does not seem to apply.

Despite the optimism of real estate and mortgage brokers, analysts say low rates, as a symptom of wider economic malaise, may actually hinder home sales in New York.

“Brokers may use low rates as a reason to [convince clients to] buy, but the flaw with that argument is that you can’t just look at rates and dismiss investors’ confidence,” said Noah Rosenblatt, the founder of Manhattan-based UrbanDigs, a property consulting and analytics firm. The industry headed into autumn with mortgage rates at all-time lows: Freddie Mac reported early last month that 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages were at historically low levels of 4.12 percent and 3.33 percent, respectively. [more]