A rendering of 422 West 20th Street
Manhattan’s lower-end home-seekers are recognizing that market conditions favor a purchase and it’s beginning to show up in the data. Citing Prudential Douglas Elliman data, Crain’s reported that sales of starter apartments, defined as studios and one-bedrooms that attract price-sensitive buyers grew to account for 56.2 percent of all closed transactions in the first quarter of this year, up from a 10-year average 50.9 percent. [more]
A Pinterest screenshot (click for larger view)
From the April issue: “Getting pinned” has taken on a new meaning for the 11.7 million monthly visitors to the hottest new social media website: Pinterest.
Not surprisingly, New York City real estate professionals have also gotten in on the action. And they’re finding that the photo-focused site is ideally suited to property sales, perhaps even more so than Twitter or Facebook. [more]
From left: Charles Brophy, Elliman executive and former owner of Charles G. Brophy Real Estate, and Elliman President and CEO Dottie Herman
[Updated at 5:30 p.m. with comments from Elliman CEO Dottie Herman and Charles Brophy]
Prudential Douglas Elliman marked the grand opening of its second Riverdale office, a two-level space located at 6048 Riverdale Avenue at West 261st Street, with a ribbon cutting last week, home to residential firm Charles G. Brophy Real Estate, with whom Elliman merged in September 2011. The office has been operating under the Elliman name since the merger.
A total of eight agents currently work in the office, said Charles Brophy, the office’s new executive vice president and former head of Charles G. Brophy Real Estate, and the plan is to hire up to 25. The office spans 500 square feet on the street level and 700 on the second level. Only one agent from Brophy’s former firm crossed over, five Elliman agents previously with other offices made the move to the new Riverdale office and two others were recruited from other firms. [more]
Prudential Douglas Elliman has hired Westchester residential real estate veteran Amy Kane, the firm announced today in a statement.
Kane will join the company as director of sales in both the New York City and Westchester County regions, although she will work from Elliman’s 90 Hudson Street office and interface with Elliman’s six Westchester offices. She will help “the firm to continue its expansion in the New York suburban marketplace, as well as having a role in the management of sales in Manhattan,” according to the statement. [more]
From left: Rick Rosa, manager of the forthcoming LIC office, 47-37 Vernon Boulevard, Adrian Lupu, manager of NestSeekers' LIC office and Modern Spaces CEO Eric Benaim
In beating the other major Manhattan brokerages to Long Island City, Prudential Douglas Elliman says it’s ahead of the curve, but at least one existing firm in the area said the brokerage behemoth is already too late.
Elliman announced Wednesday it would be joining a burgeoning real estate row on Vernon Boulevard in LIC, opening an office at 47-37 Vernon Boulevard, directly across the street from a Modern Spaces outpost that is situated next door to a NestSeekers International location. [more]
Marion Hedges, an agent at Elliman
Marion Hedges, the Prudential Douglas Elliman agent who suffered brain damage and the loss of vision in her left eye after a shopping cart was dropped on her at an East Harlem shopping center last October, will return to real estate after her recovery, an associate at Elliman told The Real Deal. According to her co-worker at Elliman, Margarita Barrera, Hedges attended a closing recently for a sale she made before the incident, and will return to work when her injuries permit. [more]
From left: Dottie Herman of Elliman, Kirk Rundhaug now of Elliman and Shaun Osher of Core
Kirk Rundhaug, a longtime Core agent and senior vice president, has departed the firm to join Prudential Douglas Elliman as an executive vice president, Elliman told The Real Deal today. His departure is the 10th from the firm in the last three months; the most recent departures were David Grossman and Veronica Matto, who both joined Town Residential earlier this month, and Lawrence Rich, who returned to Elliman after five months at Core, last month. [more]
From left: Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, David Maundrell, president of aptsandlofts.com, Elliman executives Steven James, Kenneth Haber and Wilber Gonzalez and Corcoran agents Sarah Bond and Dario Mannarino
For years, when a licensed New York state real estate broker or salesperson admitted to violating state licensing law, few people would ever know about it.
Each year, dozens of the so-called consent orders were quietly negotiated between the state Department of State, which licenses and regulates New York real estate brokers and agents. While technically public information, the admissions of guilt were not published online and were difficult for the public to obtain. [more]
Stuart Parr and his marble-clad swimming pool room (credit: Curbed)
Film producer Stuart Parr of “8 Mile” fame has listed his 9,079-square-foot Tribeca condominium unit nicknamed the “Marble House” for $20 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Corcoran Group brokers Deborah Grubman and Carol Cohen (Cohen is no longer with Corcoran) first listed the unit in February 2009 for $24.5 million, according to Streeteasy.com. Several days after its listing, it was taken off the market, but returned to the market that April. The listing price decreased that September to $21.5 million, then decreased again in March 2010 to $18.5 million. That August, the Marble House was taken off the market again. [more]
Dennis Mangone (credit: Interview Magazine)
Power broker Dennis Mangone likens the profession of selling apartments for celebrities to partying with them back in the days of Studio 54 (interestingly, Mangone helped hotelier Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager sell an $11 million four-bedroom duplex penthouse at 285 Lafayette Street last year, and they live in the same building), Interview Magazine reported.
The Prudential Douglas Elliman broker, who The Real Deal ranked as the top Soho luxury resale broker last year, said he’s seeing a boom in half-floor trophy apartments, those valued at $40 million and up. [more]
