Inside the unit at 998 Fifth Avenue and agent Cornelia Zagat Eland of Stribling & Associates

The building that Guggenheims and Vanderbilts have called home is ready to welcome a new resident.

A roughly 5,000-square-foot co-op at 998 Fifth Avenue, designed by McKim, Mead & White, the architecture team behind the much-lauded original Pennsylvania Station, has hit the market for $24 million, even as a pricier unit there owned by private equity investor Steven Rattner languishes without a buyer, according to public records. [more]

Tony thoroughfare go loafer to loafer on sales

From the June issue: The rich are different, and so are their comps. Just take Fifth and Park avenues. The two tony thoroughfares, between East 59th and East 96th streets, share much in common: large apartments in architecturally striking doorman buildings, with socially prominent neighbors on leafy Upper East Side blocks. Yes, Fifth Avenue units are almost always more expensive, a premium that can be explained by their proximity to Central Park. But for the last decade, the difference in prices has varied wildly year to year, from as little as 8 percent to as much as 38 percent.

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Tony thoroughfare go loafer to loafer on sales

From the June issue: The rich are different, and so are their comps. Just take Fifth and Park avenues. The two tony thoroughfares, between East 59th and East 96th streets, share much in common: large apartments in architecturally striking doorman buildings, with socially prominent neighbors on leafy Upper East Side blocks. Yes, Fifth Avenue units are almost always more expensive, a premium that can be explained by their proximity to Central Park. But for the last decade, the difference in prices has varied wildly year to year, from as little as 8 percent to as much as 38 percent.

[more]

Stribling listings in Tuscany

From the May issue: Many New York City brokerages expand in attractive vacation locales, but Stribling & Associates has gone via Italia. The luxury residential brokerage best known for its high-end Manhattan homes now represents about a dozen multimillion-dollar properties in some of Italy’s most sought-after locales, including Tuscany and the Umbria region. The Italian project took off after the brokerage reeled in a big client: the president of Rolls Royce. The head of the luxury carmaker listed his Italian property with Stribling three years ago, encouraged by a friend who had sold through the brokerage. From there, “it kind of snowballed,” said Barbara Evans-Butler, a senior vice president with Stribling. Today, Evans-Butler said, the company has listings ranging “from a monastery to a castle.” Evans-Butler, who is also a Manhattan specialist, and Irene Grassi, who is originally from Italy, are at the helm of the brokerage’s burgeoning Italian portfolio. [more]

From left: Ashley and Mary Kate Olsen, and images from inside the 1 Morton Square penthouse

For the Olsen twins, perhaps the third time will be the charm for their 1 Morton Square penthouse in the West Village, which has just reentered the market, according to Curbed. The twins, who reportedly never lived in the apartment, tried unsuccessfully to flip the property — once in 2005 for $9.45 million and again in 2007 for $11.995 million. [more]

HGTV’s new realty reality show, “Selling New York,” premiers tonight at 9 p.m., promising to showcase the “top of the real estate food chain.” The show follows Gumley Haft Kleier’s Michele Kleier and her broker daughters, Samantha Kleier Forbes and Sabrina Kleier Morgenstern, as well as Core’s Shaun Osher, among other brokers from each firm as they maneuver their way through some of the city’s most high-end real estate transactions. In honor of the debut, The Real Deal did some digging to find out which of the city’s prized properties are slated to be featured this season. Among them: a four-bedroom loft at the Chelsea Mercantile listed for $22.45 million, the 25 Murray Street loft for which former Giants star Michael Strahan is asking $1.85 million, a $17 million landmarked townhouse at 109 East 69th Street, and a 2,295-square-foot spread at highly-anticipated One Brooklyn Bridge Park (see slide show of many of the homes above). Click here for more information about the residences expected to appear in the upcoming season.
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Leonard Steinberg, managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman

From the March issue:
It’s not your average buyer who can afford a Manhattan townhouse during the good times. And now, because the wealthy have been hit hard by the downturn and have less purchasing power, the pool of townhouse buyers has shrunk even more.

This month, The Real Deal talked to analysts and townhouse brokers about how one of the most specialized residential sectors of the luxury market (a market that has suffered severely since the downturn started) is holding up. According to one report, townhouses have seen an average sale price drop of 32 percent over the past year.

Some townhouses have seen even greater declines. One broker cited 16 West 12th Street, which was listed for $25 million and ultimately sold for 40 percent less, at $15 million.

Despite those price cuts, another broker said townhouses are still the most overpriced sector of the residential market, joking that there should be a tour called “Overpriced Townhouses in the 70s.”

For more on what kinds of homes are faring best and worst and who is still in the market to buy, we turn to our panel of experts.

Click image for larger version

From the February issue: The fourth-quarter market reports revealed that the recession’s worst-hit Manhattan neighborhood isn’t newly gentrifying Harlem or even the recently residential Financial District. Midtown — one of the city’s most well-established neighborhoods — saw the sharpest price decreases, the most price cuts and the longest days on the market. What happened? Experts say Midtown West, in particular, fell prey to a hotbed of speculation during the boom, fueled by an abundance of new condos, and the area is now paying the price. During the mid-aughts, thousands of new condo units were built in Midtown and quickly snatched up by investors eager to flip them for six-figure profits in the wildly escalating market of the time. Now, while overall market activity is on the rise again, falling prices have dampened demand from investors, leaving Midtown with an oversupply of condos — and absentee owners frantically trying to unload them. Around 42nd Street, “there are large, monolithic new development buildings, with a lot of investors and pied-à-terre buyers who are now desperate to sell,” explained Sofia Song, vice president of research at StreetEasy. [more]

The Real Deal has ranked the top listing agents of the week based on the highest priced residential deals filed with the city.

Some of the top agents of the week, from left: Fritzi Kallop, Maria Pashby, Alexa Lambert, Iris Marden, Eileen Teich, Joanna Pashby and Cornelia Zagat Eland

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The return of Wall Street bonuses, albeit largely in stock form, is proving a boon to the lower end of the luxury market, brokers say. After a year of going without, financiers who have bonuses coming to them once again are now looking to take advantage of a perceived trough in the real estate market — and quickly. “People are hearing about bonus money and think they’re going to miss out,” said Michele Kleier of boutique brokerage Gumley Haft Kleier, who said she received a flurry of calls in response to her high-end listings last week. Other luxury brokers experienced similar surges, an unusual event for what is typically a “quite sleepy” January market, said Stribling’s Kirk Henckels. Buyers in the $2 million to $3 million range are particularly active, with Manhattan contracts between $1.5 million and $5 million up 171 percent for the month that ended Jan. 15 over the year-ago period, according to Streeteasy.com. [NY Mag]