Manhattan’s condominium market remained relatively flat in December, with contract volume down 2 percent for the month, compared to one year ago for the same month, and inventory down by 3.2 percent, according to Streeteasy.com’s Manhattan condo market index, released today.

Median listing prices went up 3.1 percent in Manhattan compared to a year ago, the report shows. The Upper East and Upper Manhattan markets had listing median price declines of 12.5 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively. [more]

In some of the city’s most desireable neighborhoods, prospective buyers are eschewing bargains and hedging their bets on rentals till the market returns.

In Riverdale, an affluent residential neighborhood in the northwest portion of the Bronx, listings have skyrocketed, but sales have dropped, the New York Times reported, with available properties having increased by 80 percent over two years.

In fact, it would take approximately two years for buyers to absorb the current sales inventory in Riverdale, according to data from Streeteasy.com, more than double the time it might have taken even two years ago. [more]

Dottie Herman, president
of Prudential Douglas Elliman

Though pricing indicators were mixed, the volume of Manhattan residential sales increased in the third quarter of 2011, creating an overall picture of stability in Manhattan’s residential market, according to quarterly reports issued today by the city’s largest real estate brokerages.

The market’s bright spots included an uptick in sales at the most expensive end of the market — larger or relatively high-end properties (those at $5 million and above) — as well as an overall decrease in inventory, which buoyed prices, and an influx of foreign buyers investing in condominiums, experts said.

The median sales price hardly budged since last year, dropping a mere 0.3 percent to $911,333, an increase of 7.2 percent over the previous quarter, according to a report from Prudential Douglas Elliman. As The Real Deal reported in the October issue, the number of sales rose 16.7 percent year-over-year and 17.2 percent since last quarter, hitting 3,106, the report said. [more]

National real estate listings website Redfin.com has added a free feature to its site allowing users to track the performance of individual brokers in select areas across the country such as Long Island, the New York Times reported. The tool can help sellers find agents who are active and who have had success in their specific neighborhood, said Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s CEO.

With the service using information from local multiple listing services, where agents list the home they are representing for sale, the “Scouting Report” tool provides data on roughly one million agents, he said. [more]

From left: RentJuice’s David Vivero, Noah Rosenblatt of Urbandigs and a screenshot of RentJuice

San Francisco-based online rental management company RentJuice, which launched in 2009 and expanded to New York earlier this year, has launched a new Facebook-inspired feature.
The RentJuice Directory offers real estate pros the ability to browse and search for other real estate companies in their area, establish new partnerships, and send and receive a continual stream of rental listings, via one dashboard, the company said.
Sharing rental listings has always been tricky, with new property listings coming from various different sources, including big-money brokerages as well small, independent real estate firms. Sites such as listings and real estate information site Streeteasy.com and Brooklyn’s Multiple Listings Service,have made strides in bringing all the listings to one place, but the battle is never completely won.
While the majority of brokers say they embrace the market’s ever-growing transparency, some have responded by becoming less willing to share information than before. Hoping to give themselves an advantage in the market, some brokers hang on to listings and keep stum. [more]

Bedford-Stuyvesant, the area bordered by Clinton Hill, Bushwick, Williamsburg and Crown Heights, famous for its African-American history and tree-lined streets, saw a bout of foreclosures after the development boom morphed into a recession, the Wall Street Journal reported. Prices dropped and developers switched their condominium plans to rental plans.
Prices in Bedford-Stuyvesant however, though still far from 2008 levels, are on the rise, according to Streeteasy.com. The median sales price of homes that closed in the first half of 2011 was $373,500, an 8 percent jump from the same period last year. The volume of sales in the neighborhood has increased too, in contrast to a citywide trend, the data shows. [more]

Clockwise from left: a screen shoot of the application, Streeteasy’s Sofia Song, Steve Dawson of Sotheby’s International Realty, Warburg’s Richard Steinberg and Rutenberg’s Kathy Braddock

The still somewhat mysterious world of brokerage has become more transparent.

New York sales and rentals listings website Streeteasy.com has launched a new feature allowing users a unique way to asses a real estate agent’s performance through data about the deals they’ve closed. The feature, called “Shop for a Broker,” links property with closed sales data from the city, letting users view completed transactions by price point, type of property and neighborhoods.

“This is the first product in New York that’s done anything like this,” said Jared Kleinstein, manager at Streeteasy. The tool will be accessible to consumers with Streeteasy.com insider accounts, which cost $10 per month. Starting today, prospective homebuyers and sellers will be able to identify the most qualified broker to work with, judging by their deal history and how long their listings sit on the market. [more]

Dawn Doherty, former vice president of strategic development at sales and rental listing website Streeteasy, has moved to brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman to assume the newly created role of chief digital officer, Doherty and Elliman have announced.

Doherty was the driving force behind Streeteasy.com, which she joined in 2007, about a year after its launch. “When I first started, the site had under 2 million page views a month,” she said, and “now, it’s about 20 million.” The website will survive without her, she said. [more]

Zeyn Soylemez is charged with burglarizing Turtle Bay buildings, including 238 East 50th Street. A super says Soylemez worked with a male partner.

A woman accused of burglarizing a string of Turtle Bay buildings claimed to be a real estate broker to get in to at least one of them, witnesses say.

Zeyn Soylemez, 37, who was arrested on March 29, faces 16 counts of burglary and possession of stolen property for incidents at five apartments in two buildings, though she appears to have gained access to other addresses, too.

Soylemez does not appear to be a broker; her name does not turn up on the website of the Department of State, which licenses them.

But last year, at 344 East 49th Street, Soylemez and an unidentified man (whom the district attorney’s office is looking for, according to sources) told Mike Perman, the building’s superintendent, that they were brokers and interested in showing a pair of empty second-floor apartments. [more]

The Aldyn

From the March issue: The 40-story Aldyn is the latest in a wall of luxury towers, and the fourth by Extell Development, to sprout up on Riverside Boulevard in the West 60s.

This largely glass building, however, is a condo-rental hybrid — an option that, as The Real Deal has reported, has become increasing popular for developers since the economy soured because it helps them hedge against the uncertain sales market. The Related Companies has a hybrid project at 440 West 42nd Street, and J.D. Carlisle Development Corp. has the Beatrice/Eventi combination on 29th Street.

But the hybrid model is a first for Gary Barnett’s Extell, which has also built the Avery and the Rushmore, both condos, and the Ashley, a rental, on this patch of Riverside South, a site extending from 59th to 72nd streets. [more]