From left: One57 and Extell Development President Gary Barnett; the Touraine and Toll Brothers CEO Bob Toll; and 737 Park Avenue and Harry Macklowe

In an effort to increase control and decrease costs, big condominium developers are increasingly using their own sales teams for new projects rather than hiring outside brokerages to market the units, according to the Wall Street Journal.

For example, Extell Development, which relied on the Corcoran Group to market most of the condos it built throughout the last decade, has hired its own sales staff for its massive One57 development.

“To be frank, there is an awful lot of money in sales commissions and we want to get a piece of that ourselves,” Extell Development President Gary Barnett said. [more]

Fashion designer Marc Jacobs has moved out of the 2,062-square-foot
penthouse he had been renting from Montreal Canadian hockey star Scott
Gomez at the Chelsea Mercantile at 252 Seventh Avenue since 2009, the New York Magazine reported. For $20,000 a month, he rented the property, which has an outdoor
kitchen on the terrace, five flat-screen TVs and remote-controlled
lighting. He is moving into the Superior Ink townhouse, one of six
that comprise Superior Ink, a Robert Stern-designed condominium that
reportedly includes, among numerous perks, valet bike parking for
residents. [NYMag]  [more]

Susan De Franca

Prudential Douglas Elliman has lured a top marketing executive at Related to lead an expanded development team, the company announced yesterday. According to the Wall Street Journal, luxury apartment sales executive Susan de Franca will take over as president of Prudential Douglas Elliman Developments in September, finally filling the position previously occupied by Andrew Gerringer, who departed in April 2010 to join the Marketing Directors.
De Franca was hired by Related as it was in discussions for the residential towers at the Time Warner Center a decade ago. Since then, she’s forged marketing campaigns for more that $3 billion in luxury developments in New York, Boston and Los Angeles, including the Superior Ink project in the West Village, where De Franca nabbed a free pad last year. [more]

400 West 12th Street, unit 7B

The Robert A.M. Stern-designed blockbuster condominium conversion Superior Ink is now virtually sold out, with only a couple of townhouses remaining on the market. But Stern-ophiles who missed out on buying a place now have the opportunity to rent a three-bedroom, three-bath unit in the 17-story project, located at 400 West 12th Street. Apartment 7B hit the market last week for $30,950 with Elliot Bogod of A & I Broadway. [more]

Between its celebrity residents, blockbuster sales and jealousy-inducing freebies, Superior Ink, the West Village condominium dubbed “the 15 Central Park West of Downtown,” has undoubtedly captured the spotlight in 2010. Which is why the latest sale at the Related Companies’ new trophy is likely to snap even the most weather-weary New Yorkers out of that end-of-the-year haze: unit 16C, an unlisted 3,234-square-foot one-bedroom with exposures to the north, east and west, has just sold for $258,705. That’s $80 per square foot. By comparison, unit 8C, which also contains 3,234 square feet, sold in July for $11.75 million, or $3,633 per square foot, property records show.
[more]

Stephen Ross and 400 West 12th Street

The deed for an unlisted fourth-floor condominium at the Related Companies’ recently record-breaking Superior Ink condominium was quietly transferred earlier this month to the Related mastermind himself, CEO Stephen Ross. The price of unit 4J at 400 West 12th Street? Zero dollars, of course — and it isn’t the first time. Ross currently lives in a sprawling, 9,290-square-foot penthouse at the Time Warner Center, which he “bought” in 2006 for an equally-low $0. And in June, Curbed reported that Superior Ink apartment #6D went in a freebie transfer to Susan De Franca, president of sales at Related. Ross wasn’t immediately available for comment, and since a listing for unit 4J never surfaced, not much information is available about the new spread. But by comparison, unit 3J, which went into contract last month, was last listed for $5.125 million. Click here for more.

[more]

Superior Ink and Rockets owner Leslie Alexander

Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander has pulled off a successful flip at Robert A.M. Stern’s Superior Ink with the $31.5 million sale of his unfinished penthouse, and set a new record price for a downtown Manhattan condominium to boot. The Wall Street Journal reports that a foreign, non-celebrity buyer closed yesterday on the 6,300-square-foot full-floor spread after winning a bidding war, and plans to use the apartment as a pied-à-terre. [more]

Sales of three- and four-bedroom apartments rose last year in New York City, while sales of smaller units declined, and the trend has continued, the New York Times reported. Large family-size apartments have always been a small segment of the housing market, but the number has grown as developers have started to build more of them. Within the last year, developers
of several new projects — including Manhattan House and Superior Ink — have responded to the demand by combining units to produce as many as seven bedrooms, seven and a half bathrooms and close to 6,000 square feet. In addition, prices for these larger, family-sized apartments have decreased more significantly than the prices for smaller units. Brokers say that these types of apartments are attracting families who want a suburban layout within the confines of a Manhattan apartment, as well as empty nesters moving to the city from the suburbs who want the extra room for visiting family members. [NYT]

[more]

Sales of three- and four-bedroom apartments rose last year in New York City, while sales of smaller units declined, and the trend has continued, the New York Times reported. Large family-size apartments have always been a small segment of the housing market, but the number has grown as developers have started to build more of them. Within the last year, developers
of several new projects — including Manhattan House and Superior Ink — have responded to the demand by combining units to produce as many as seven bedrooms, seven and a half bathrooms and close to 6,000 square feet. In addition, prices for these larger, family-sized apartments have decreased more significantly than the prices for smaller units. Brokers say that these types of apartments are attracting families who want a suburban layout within the confines of a Manhattan apartment, as well as empty nesters moving to the city from the suburbs who want the extra room for visiting family members. [NYT]

[more]

Anthony Caleb Followhill and Superior Ink

West Village condo Superior Ink has nabbed yet another celebrity, this time Anthony Caleb Followhill, the lead singer of popular rock band Kings of Leon, according to the New York Post. Followhill and his supermodel girlfriend Lily Aldridge are renting a two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit at 400 West 12th Street that was listed for $8,000 per month. [more]