Riding the wave of reality television’s Faustian draw, developer BFC Partners’ Toren
residential development has launched a new ad campaign featuring
residents at the Downtown Brooklyn building “collectively and honestly
sharing their experiences at their new homes.” Residents at the
building were given flip cameras for two weeks, to document their
experiences in the 240-unit condo at 150 Myrtle Avenue. Since then, the
Toren team has posted the videos on its sales site, to “reach an
audience directly,” said Don Capoccia, managing partner with BFC.
Prices range from the mid-$300,000s to $1.7 million, according to the
developer, and the building is roughly 65 percent sold. Sales launched
March 2008, with Halstead Property exclusively handling marketing for
the development. In the video above, two neighbors cavort over a
haircut in a Toren unit. TRD

[more]

From the April issue: In the midst of the real estate downturn, reams of new condo buyers — facing job losses or simply spooked at the sudden drop in the values of their apartments — refused to close on their units. Equally spooked developers responded by sticking to their guns, refusing to return deposits that often reached six or seven figures. For a time, the resulting flurry of lawsuits and complaints to the Attorney General effectively crippled the new development market. While some developers are still taking a firm stance on deposits, others are starting to negotiate with buyers who want out of their contracts. Given the high cost of litigation and the long wait for resolution by the AG, many prefer to cut a deal with unhappy buyers and move on to the next sale. [more]

Downtown Brooklyn residential development Toren Tower at 150 Myrtle Avenue is drawing praise from World Architecture News, which described the 240-unit condominium as “worth waiting for,” due to its perceived aesthetic prowess. Almost a year after it was planned to be ready for move-ins, the Federal Housing Administration-approved Toren is aiming to receive a gold LEED certification. BFC Partners, Toren’s developer, told The Real Deal last year that the condo saw 40 of its units sold in a lottery.

The Toren condominium and a rendering of its just-completed pool

Downtown Brooklyn’s long-awaited Toren condominium at 150 Myrtle Avenue has won its bids for both Federal Housing Administration and Fannie Mae financing, Brownstoner reported, making the building’s 50 percent unsold units much more accessible to new homebuyers with less-than-stellar credit scores and limited supplies of cash. The FHA program allows such buyers to finance up to $729,750 for their homes with down payments of only 3.5 percent. In other news at BFC Partners’ 38-story building, Toren’s indoor pool has been completed, just in time for buyers who’ve already closed to start moving in. [Brownstoner] [more]

Roberta Benzilio, an executive director of sales at Halstead, and Toren

The developer of Toren, the long-awaited condominium at 150 Myrtle Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, has applied for Federal Housing Administration financing and is scheduled to begin closings by the second week of December, officials said. FHA financing, if approved, would help individual buyers close their apartment contracts, with low down payments and less-than-perfect credit scores, said Roberta Benzilio, executive director of sales in Brooklyn for Halstead Property, exclusive broker for Toren. “I think the FHA approval will help with the buyers who were initially only looking to put 10 percent down,” Benzilio said. “Some people don’t have the cash available.” The FHA program allows new homebuyers to finance up to $729,750 for a new home. The buyers only need a 3.5 percent down payment compared to 20 percent or more required for most bank loans in the current market. [more]

189 Bridge is now partly rental

From the November issue: Like many other development firms, the Clarett Group rode the wave of
the real estate boom expertly, building successful condos in Manhattan
and other markets across the country. Like a host of other developers,
however, the company hit a damaging riptide in Downtown Brooklyn. A few
months ago, Clarett’s condo, the Forté, went back to its lender,
Eurohypo AG. The move was the most boldface example thus far of the
difficulties developers have encountered selling condos in Downtown
Brooklyn, generally defined as the section of the borough bounded by
Nassau Street to the north, Ashland Place to the east, Schermerhorn
Street to the south and Court Street to the west. That catch zone
encompasses several micro-neighborhoods, including the western edge of
Fort Greene. Several big developers are feeling pain in the saturated
area, which has been generating a lot of attention lately because three
new luxury rental towers are preparing to launch. [more]

From left: the L Haus in Long Island City, the Toren in Downtown Brooklyn

A spurt in sales activity over the summer strengthened the Brooklyn and Queens housing markets, though prices and sales volume are still weaker than last year, according to a third-quarter market report released today by Prudential Douglas Elliman. “It’s good news taken with a grain of salt,” said Jonathan Miller, the president of appraisal company Miller Samuel and the preparer of the report. “The wild card is going to be if we see an elevated level of activity going forward.” The number of home sales in Brooklyn leaped 29.3 percent to 1,847 in the third quarter, up from 1,428 in the second quarter. But sales were still down 19.6 percent from 2,298 in the third quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, the median sales price of a co-op, condo or house in the borough increased for the first time in two years, jumping 7.9 percent to $476,000 in the third quarter from $441,090 in the previous quarter. It’s still some 6.7 percent lower than the $510,000 median sales price in the third quarter of last year, however. [more]

From the October issue: Brooklyn’s official motto may be “Fuggedaboutit,” but the borough’s
real estate industry is not having an easy time shaking thoughts of
double-digit price drops and troubled residential projects. Overall,
the median closed sales price in Brooklyn has already fallen back to
2005 levels, dropping 19 percent over the past two years, according to
StreetEasy. Rental listing prices dropped 12 percent over the past
year, not including all of the concessions landlords are throwing in
these days. Meanwhile, a city tally early last month found that
Brooklyn had more stalled construction sites than any other borough
with 214 — a stunning 47 percent of all 448 projects citywide. What’s worse, most experts agree that the market has yet to reach bottom.

Between the thousands of condominium developments in various stages of development and the reduction in sales volume, it is not surprising to learn that lenders are taking back the keys for high-rise condo projects or forcing developers to turn their condos to rentals. During the first week of the month, Fortress Investment Group took over the defaulted mortgages and acquired possession of the Sheffield 57, the condo conversion of the 50-story building at 322 West 57th Street. The property was purchased in 2005 for $418 million by a partnership of Kent Swig, Yair Levy and Serge Hoyda.  [more]

Sales have slowed at environmentally friendly buildings since January, according to statistics compiled by Streeteasy.com and New York Magazine. At the Laurel, at 400 East 67th Street, the Lucida, at 151 East 86th Street, and the Edge in Williamsburg, there have been no buyers since the beginning of the year. Sales were slow in the first quarter at Toren in Downtown Brooklyn, though the building has had three apartment sales in the past three weeks. Sustainability is not a deal-breaker for most condo buyers, said appraiser Jonathan Miller, especially when they are more focused on their jobs and the state of the economy. [more]