October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Alison Gregor
Despite its prime waterfront location and its disproportionate amount
of cutting-edge "green" architecture, Battery Park City is getting
slammed by the downturn more than many other Manhattan neighborhoods. Stephen and Mary Lacoff, for instance, have been trying to sell their
1,158-square-foot two-bedroom at 2 South End Avenue for more than a
year now. Despite dropping the asking price from $1.385 million to
$999,000, they've received no offers. The apartment -- which, like everything in Battery Park City, is in a
land-lease building -- has some of the higher ground rents in the area,
contributing to common charges of $2,003 a month, or $1.74 a square
foot. "There has been some intermittent interest, but no offers,"
Stephen Lacoff said. "What I'm taking from that is there's not a huge
demand."
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Candace Taylor
Zhann Jochinke, an associate broker at Argo Residential, put an alcove
studio on the market last year for $525,000. But the offers that came
in were as low as $390,000. "People were putting bids out there just to
see if the person had to sell," he recalled. More recently, however, he
convinced the seller to drop the price to around $490,000. Offers began
coming in at "5 percent or less off the asking price," he
said. Now, the listing is in contract, and expected to close in the
next month. After months of uncertainty, Manhattan buyers and sellers
are finally
making a market.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Adam Pincus
As commercial buildings change hands and landlords seek to squeeze more
profit out of their properties, full-service brokerage firms are
sharpening their knives for what insiders believe will be a feeding
frenzy for new office leasing opportunities. A building's leasing agent -- a firm such as CB Richard Ellis or
Cushman & Wakefield -- represents the landlord in leasing
negotiations, and such contracts often are packaged with overall
building management. Unlike the residential new development condo market, where buildings
change marketing agencies frequently, most agents at commercial
buildings remain in place at a building for years with very little
turnover, records show.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Steve Cutler
Its staggering decade-long, rags-to-riches rise made a revitalized
Harlem the media superstar of the Manhattan real estate boom. Which makes its steep fall all the more tragic. According to data from
Miller Samuel, Harlem saw only 83 co-op and condo sales in the first
two quarters of 2009, a more than 51 percent plunge compared to the 171
sales from the same time last year. But at least one bold and unique new project is coming to market and
could be a new bellwether for future residential activity there. Indeed, strong sales at PS90 Condominiums -- a $40 million conversion
of a century-old public school that just opened its sales office last
month -- could be an important boost for the Harlem market.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By David Jones
As the real estate industry scrambles to unwind billions of dollars in
distressed inventory, a number of high-profile deals are stuck in
neutral as lenders battle it out with each other to see who will get
paid and who will be left holding the (empty) bag. While creditors often turn on each other during a workout, the massive
number of securitized loans with multiple lenders and third-party
servicing firms managing the funds is creating a level of complexity
that may take years to sort out, analysts said. Unlike the previous downturn in the 1990s, the majority of large deals
during the recent real estate boom were made using securitized loans --
or at least loans with large syndicates, or groups of lenders sharing
the burden of a single loan.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Gabby Warshawer
Few buyers who bought fancy condos in the last few years could have
predicted that their building would end up as a poster child for the
failed real estate market in the city. But at some buildings that's
exactly what's happened. Satian Pengsathapon, who is 30 and works in the advertising industry,
purchased a unit in the Forté tower partly because he liked that the
well-known architecture firm FXFowle designed the building. And having
gone to school at the nearby Pratt Institute, he was also a fan of the
neighborhood, Fort Greene. "I haven't had buyer's remorse," Pengsathapon said. "If anything, I wonder why people aren't buying in this building."
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By C.J. Hughes
If imitation is flattery, as the saying goes, Soho, the downtown
Manhattan neighborhood that gets its name from its location "South of
Houston Street," has admirers far and wide. Indeed, many once-derelict industrial sections of U.S. cities, where
warehouses have given way to loft-style apartments, now boast similarly
styled names melded from the landmark points that make up their
location, whether San Francisco's SoMa ("South of Market Street") or
Denver's LoDo ("Lower Downtown"). But buyers, particularly out of towners, haven't forgotten the
original, which has fared better than other upscale parts of Manhattan
during the real estate downturn.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Candace Taylor
The past year has seen a seismic upheaval of wealth. Billions of
dollars evaporated during the financial crisis, and much of what's left
is changing hands at a breathtaking clip. Developer Kent Swig -- the
once-moneyed son of a real estate dynasty -- warned, for example, that
he may soon file for personal bankruptcy protection now that his
beleaguered Sheffield57 condo development has been sold at a
foreclosure auction to hedge fund Fortress Investment Group. Former
Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, who watched his net worth all but
disappear in the last months of the company's existence, sold his
16-room Park Avenue co-op for $25.87 million in late August.
More
October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Candace Taylor
Since 1986, Steven Spinola has been the president of the Real Estate Board of New York, a 12,000-member trade association that represents the industry before numerous legislative and regulatory bodies. Earlier this year, REBNY lobbied in Washington for the first-time homebuyer tax credit, and was instrumental in defeating a proposed state tax on capital improvements for property. The organization, which helped push for luxury decontrol of rent-stabilized apartments in the past, this year has lobbied against proposals to extend the reach of rent regulations.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Steve Cutler
Back in 2006, when Glenwood Management began assembling parcels on the
eastern edge of the then newly rezoned Hudson Yards district to make
way for Emerald Green, it knew the project would have plenty of company
when it opened. Thousands of high-end apartments in several massive
rental projects were slated to hit the market in the emerging
neighborhood at the same time or soon after. What they didn't anticipate was the mess of a market they'd be entering. The 24-story, two-tower building, located at 320 West 38th Street, has
just begun renting its 569 apartments, not long after the release of a
quarterly market survey declaring the past year a disaster for rentals.
More
October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Adam Pincus
Like a vertical ghost town, 11 Times Square, the city's largest
speculative office tower, remains entirely unleased more than two years
after breaking ground in the summer of 2007. Some experts give the owners -- a partnership between developer SJP
Properties and a fund managed by Prudential Real Estate Investors
called PRISA -- little chance of holding on to the 1
million-square-foot building without a significant debt restructuring,
if at all. They cite the current weak economy, the 25 percent decline in rents,
and the cost of the building, a pricey $1,100 per square foot. Those affiliated with the building, which is located at 640 Eighth
Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, have put on a brave face,
however. They say there is a great deal of activity at 11 Times Square,
which is being marketed by commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Sarah Ryley
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.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Alison Gregor
They're known as "dog" lines: the vertical row of apartments in a condo
building that are hardest to sell. They may lack a view, be oddly laid
out, or be smaller than their neighboring units down the hall. While dog lines tend to sell last in any market, they can be
especially difficult for developers to deal with in a downturn like
this one. David Sigman, a senior vice president and principal with the
development group LCOR Incorporated, which has several New York
projects, said that developers may be particularly vulnerable to dog
lines if they negotiated minimum sales prices with their lender and the
offers for apartments are coming in below that amount.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Catherine Curan
Like a truly recession-weary New Yorker, this year restaurant mogul
Steve Hanson has opted to swap foie gras for burgers and fries. In January, Hanson, founder of the B.R. Guest restaurant empire,
stunned foodies by shutting down his three-star Italian gem Fiamma, a
Soho spot famous for its $92 prix fixe menu laden with indulgent foods
like foie gras and quail eggs. In published reports, Hanson blamed the recession's decimation of Wall Streeters' dining dollars. Now he's firing up the grill for a far more modest American culinary staple: burgers. Hanson has leased the former home of barbeque joint the Hog Pit at 22
Ninth Avenue at 13th Street in the Meatpacking District for Bill's Bar
& Burger. It's slated to open later this month, serving up turkey
burgers and perhaps even spiked milkshakes.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Candace Taylor
New condos -- the black sheep of the real estate industry for much of
2009 -- are finally beginning to move again as construction progresses
and developers find ways to circumvent stiff presale requirements for
mortgages. For example, the Tempo condominium in Gramercy, which sat virtually
buyerless for months after it went on sale in September 2008, sold 10
units this summer. In Lower Manhattan, District on Fulton Street sold
10 units in August alone. The Fairchild at 55 Vestry Street in Tribeca,
which had sold only one unit in April and none in February or March,
put five units in contract in August and even saw a bidding war, the
developer said.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Amy Tennery
It's often said that the devil is in the details -- and for many New
York City buyers and sellers, that's increasingly become the case in
the down market. New development brokers and real estate lawyers say many of the
attempts they are seeing among buyers to get out of contracts are from
those arguing that the measurements on their condos are different from
what they were promised. They say that sometimes buyers will invoke the
claim over a minor quibble, such as small floorplan discrepancies or an
inch or two difference in ceiling height. Meg Goble, a real estate lawyer and a partner at Hanley & Goble,
said buyers must prove that there are "significant and material"
differences between the representation made to the buyer and the
finished product. However, there is little spelling out of exactly what
that means.
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October 01, 2009 07:00AM
By Adam Piore
"Stupid, stupid, stupid cheap." That's how low prices have to fall
before the commercial real estate market hits bottom, Steven Roth, the
chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, predicted earlier this year. In a
letter to shareholders in April, the square-jawed mogul confided, "I
think we are now at the third and last stupid." Not that he's buying
yet. But in recent months, the 67-year-old real
estate titan, along with CEO Michael Fascitelli, the other half of the
so-called "Vornado Tornado," has been building a war chest to go
shopping. And when Vornado gets ready to shop, there's good reason to
pay attention.
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