From left: Town Residential’s David Salvatore, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Sonia Stock and Fredrik Eklund, UrbanDigs’ Noah Rosenblatt and Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats

With the stock market posting its best first quarter in 14 years, real estate agents and brokers are beaming about the effect it’s having on interest, sales volume and open house attendance in their day-to-day business, despite little data to definitively confirm a causal relationship between the performance of stocks and the real estate market (see charts prepared for The Real Deal by Miller Samuel after the jump). [more]

Long Island City

Apartments for families are all the rage in Long Island City, the New York Times reported, and new developments slated for the area are prioritizing amenities such as playrooms, capitalizing on the relative affordability, commuting possibilities and the suburban feeling of the city.

In the first quarter of 2011, the average size of a unit sold was 822 square feet, while in the fourth quarter it had jumped to 1,364 square feet, according to data provided by Jonathan Miller of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. [more]

From left: prospective mayoral candidates Christine Quinn, Bill de Blasio, Scott Stringer and John Liu

From the February issue: With all the coverage surrounding the upcoming presidential election, New York City’s 2013 mayoral race feels a long way off. But that’s not the case for the politicos running for mayor — or even those rumored to be considering it.

Most have already been collecting campaign contributions for months or years, in many cases from prominent figures in the city’s real estate industry. [more]

Russell Simmons and 14 Buckingham Drive in Alpine, N.J.

From the February issue: It’s a question many New Yorkers, especially those with children, ask themselves at some point: Buy an apartment in the city, or spend the same amount on a spacious house in the suburbs? When choosing the latter, New Yorkers often flock to the stately homes, McMansions and well-tended lawns of a few affluent counties just outside the city’s borders: Westchester and Nassau counties in New York, Fairfield County in Connecticut and Bergen County in New Jersey (see charts of the top five sales in each county after the jump). [more]

From left: Seann Birkelund, vice president of business development for Education.com, the interactive map tool and Ammanda Espinal of Elliman

While marketing a building on the strength of the school district it lies within is forbidden by the Fair Housing Act, a new interactive map designed by Education.com provides homebuyers with the tools to do their own research, without the help of a broker.

California-based Education.com, a website that offers advice and information to parents of school-age children who are in the market for a home, launched the new interactive map called “School Boundaries” with school district assignment information yesterday. The map, the company said, is a valuable tool for apartment hunters and brokers, who often have a hard time accessing these kinds of information cheaply or without significant offline research. Also, it’s not information that brokers can legally share. [more]

From left: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Joshua Muss of Muss Development, Bob Sanna of Forest City Ratner and Lynne Brown of NYU (credit: Jonathan Fickies)

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is pushing hard for New York University to further expand in the borough, he said at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable luncheon today.

“NYU and their future belong in Brooklyn,” Markowitz told a crowd of real estate pros at the event, held at the Brooklyn Historical Society in Brooklyn Heights. [more]

A screenshot of Tiny Tower

From the February issue: Wannabe developers who fancy themselves the next Stephen Ross or Gary Barnett can now practice building their own city skyscrapers, thanks to a new iPhone application.

Called “Tiny Tower,” the addictive game lets players build their own high-rises — and collect rent from the “bitizens” that inhabit them — in real time. Designed by NimbleBit, a Solana Beach, Calif.–based company founded by twin brothers Ian and David Marsh, “Tiny Tower” launched in June, and was named Apple’s 2011 iPhone Game of the Year. [more]

Alan Rosenfeld

Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested yesterday that Alan Rosenfeld, a Queens teacher and real estate pro who hasn’t set foot in a classroom for almost a decade, put his property knowledge to good use to help the city, the New York Post reported.

The teacher, who hasn’t had any contact with children since he was accused in 2001 of making inappropriate comments to students (but not charged), continues to make $100,000 per year for making occasional photocopies and spends his days developing his $10 million real estate portfolio, including the acquisition properties in Queens, Great Neck, and Florida, the Post said. [more]

From the December issue: Real Estate rocked New York City last month. No, there isn’t another mortgage crisis on the way. This Real Estate is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band, who played the Bowery Ballroom last month before heading to Europe for the last lap of their 2011 tour. The band released their second album, “Days,” with Domino Recording Company this fall.

Real estate — at first blush, a very unhip concept — may seem like an odd choice for a band name. But it made sense for this trio, composed of guitarists Martin Courtney and Matthew Mondanile and bassist Alex Beeker. The three, who grew up together in suburban New Jersey, have parents who work in property sales.

And they aren’t the only band with a real estate-related moniker. “Apartment,” a four-piece rock band, formed in London in 2005, and there’s an alternative New York City rock band called “Condo.” [more]

New York City lost 900 construction jobs in September and added 100 real estate sector jobs, according to an Eastern Consolidated report with the most recent city employment data from the New York State Department of Labor.

Overall, the city lost 13,500 jobs last month, including 8,700 private sector jobs, marking a correction in an otherwise positive trajectory of job growth.

“Since bottoming in September 2009, New York City has added 82,200 jobs, or 2.2 percent. The U.S. has added 2.09 million jobs since its nadir, February 2010, a growth rate of 1.6 percent,” the report says. “The city is 36,400 private sector jobs short of its peak in April 2008, or 1.5 percent below. The U.S. remains 6.26 million private sector jobs short of its peak in January 2008, or 5.4 percent below.” – Katherine Clarke [more]