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]

Home sales slowed in Manhattan during the fourth quarter of 2010, but aggregate prices increased as consumers bought larger homes, according to fourth-quarter market reports released by the city’s major brokerage firms today. The median price of homes sold in Manhattan in the last three months of 2010 increased between 3 and 11.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009, according to market reports from Prudential Douglas Elliman, the Corcoran Group, and sister companies Halstead Property and Brown Harris Stevens (which use the same data to produce their reports). [more]

Streeteasy.com has unveiled a new feature it says will help brokers leverage the site’s power to assist clients. The popular real estate listings website has introduced a system of “folders” to help users organize their search, explained Streeteasy’s Jared Kleinstein.

Users — whether they’re home-seekers or brokers picking out listings for clients — can create a folder for properties they’re interested in. Users can share the folder — along with their ratings and comments on each listing — with their clients, roommates or spouses, who can in turn make their own comments. Streeteasy.com sends updates about all of the properties simultaneously to everyone who shares the folder, Kleinstein explained. [more]

Judging based on price discounts, time on the market and ratio of closed sales to available listings, Sofia Song, vice president of Streeteasy, compiled a list of the 10 most populous Manhattan precincts and “most sellable” type of apartment likely to find buyers. Topping off the list was the Upper East Side, where post-war two-bedroom co-ops are most popular, followed closely by pre-war two bedrooms, with a median closing pricing of $995,000, according to New York Magazine. Post-war condominium studios with a median closing price of $549,885 was number two on the list, with pre-war two-bedroom co-ops in Midtown West ranking next, with a median closing price of $675,000. Rounding out the top five were pre-war two-bedroom co-ops in Chelsea, followed by pre-war one-bedroom condos in Greenwich Village. [NY Mag]

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From left: Faith Hope Consolo of Prudential Douglas Elliman, Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs.com, Pamela Liebman of the Corcoran Group

As part of its 2010 “Neighborhoods Issue,” New York Magazine asked 10 real estate experts about their picks for the New York City nabes that will offer buyers the most bang for their buck by 2014. Pam Liebman, president and CEO of the Corcoran Group said West Harlem, while Streeteasy.com’s Sofia Song chose Morningside Heights. Melissa Cohn, president of Manhattan Mortgage, said that while southern Yorkville “hasn’t been popular in years,” it’s likely to appreciate in price over the next five years with the advent of the Second Avenue subway line. Retail veteran Faith Hope Consolo of Prudential Douglas Elliman picked the Garment District, where storefront leases are being snapped up west of Penn Station and there are plenty of new condominiums to house their customers. Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs.com chose the Financial District and Jed Walentas of Two Trees Management chose the Far West Side, in the 50s. Other experts had their eyes on the outer boroughs’ Flushing, Bushwick and Prospect Heights neighborhoods. [NY Mag] [more]

The pricey Manhattan townhouses that have been languishing on the market during the downturn are reportedly beginning to get more bites. Brokers and owners are anecdotally noticing more interested buyers and first-quarter numbers show that townhouse sales doubled to 41 this year, compared with the same period in 2009, according to Streeteasy.com. The number of signed contracts has tripled to 33. At the peak of the market, prices skyrocketed as the city’s relatively tiny supply of townhouses met with plenty of buyers with pockets that were eight figures deep. When the buyers disappeared, sales activity dipped by more than 40 percent. Lately, steep price cuts appear to be fueling the upturn. The four-story home at 234 West 11th Street, which has been on the market for three years, is now listed for $7.85 million, a 19 percent cut from its original asking price. A home at 12 East 63rd Street just went into contract for $24.5 million, 15 percent below its listing price two years ago. [Crain's]