Return to normal, or condo glut and broker exodus on horizon?; commercial gets strong Predictions 2006: post-boom prognosis” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Experts’ predictions from last year varied from spot-on to sort of off Rights and Wrongs: How 2005 turned out” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Record room rates spur building surge Hotel projects on rise” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Young families among those flocking to borough for cheaper city living, but developers face roadblocks Staten Island: An offer more buyers can’t refuse” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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From psychographics to foot traffic, out-of-town chains get smarter in NYC debuts When national retailers take a bite of the Big Apple” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Enclave has highest vacancy rate of any Manhattan submarket, but new leases may change all that [more]
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Exhibit (class) A: Demand by finance means commercial realty in Connecticut city offers high rents, [more]
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Landlords opting more for the security of national chains, brokers say [more]
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Boutique lodgings capitalize on city tourism boom and rising room rates [more]
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As the housing market cools, equities may soon trump property as a sure investment How stocks stack up to real estate now
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Despite an increasingly tight commercial market, brokers keep creatively hunting for tenants [more]
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Churches, synagogues sell more property in 2005 than any other nonprofit group Nonprofits in black with record building sales” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Smart commercial shoppers make the submarket more than a cheaper also-ran to Midtown Midtown South emerges as a top office space choice
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Brokers say relationship between job growth and vacancy rate isn’t always a direct one Since they’ve leased it, will jobs come?” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
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Debate over whether compensation should be same as resales; some ponder end to commission model [more]
As home prices plateau and demand ebbs, brokers adjust to keep sales going [more]
The last big buyer’s market was 15 years ago. Is Manhattan due for another? [more]
Real estate newbies can still get ahead, experts say
Small investors: Hope for the little guy” class=”read-more-link”>[more]Real estate buys can mean lots of work, creative approaches [more]
Location may be very important, but branding may be just as important, especially for new developments Branding: the second rule of New York real estate” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
With its $505M acquisition, the developer could pair condos, posh fitness space [more]
The housing market has cooled, but the boom times are not over: Let Pam Liebman explain it to you. The Real Deal Podcast: Pam Liebman” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
East Village
331 East 8th Street
The five-unit condominium, designed by Kutnicki Bernstein Architects, has three two-bedroom lofts with terraces, a duplex penthouse with three terraces and a private roof deck, as well as a duplex with a 796-square-foot private yard. The units have 9-foot ceilings and private storage spaces. Helix Partners are the developers. Prices range from $1.275 to $2.05 million. Rob Gross of Prudential Douglas Elliman is the exclusive broker. Contact: 212-727-6130.Gramercy
Landmark 17
233 East 17th Street
Originally a convent and later a Hazelden clinic, the Victorian Gothic-style building — built in 1877 — is being converted to 13 condominium units. The façde will remain intact, while the inside will be gutted to create two- to four-bedroom homes. The chapel will be transformed into a four-story apartment with 23-foot ceilings. Eight of the apartments will have private gardens and terraces. Sales will begin this month, with a summer 2006 move-in date, the New York Post reported. Prices are expected to start at $1.5 million for a two-bedroom, according to Tamir Shemesh of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Contact: www.landmark17.com.Harlem
2002 Fifth Avenue
The seven-story, 24-unit building was designed by Alexander Compagno. Many residences have private outdoor space. Prices for the one- to three-bedroom units start in the mid $400,000s. The building also features a 24-hour doorman, a residents’ terrace, fitness center, and a parking garage. Prudential Douglas Elliman is marketing the property. Contact: www.2002fifth.com.Midtown
610 Lexington Avenue
A hotel-condo tower is going up at the site of the former YWCA, the New York Times reported. The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the transfer of unused development rights from the Seagram Building on Park Avenue and 53rd Street to allow for the construction of the building. In return, the owners of the Seagram, RFR Holding, must permanently maintain that building’s modernist exterior.Soho
350 West Broadway
Lighthouse Real Estate Ventures has received a variance permitting residential development of the existing three-story building, which has been vacant since its construction in 1987, GlobeSt.com reported. The newly renovated building will be 11 stories tall and contain 19 one- to three-bedroom units. At street level, the property will have 6,800 square feet of retail space. Rogers-Marvel Architects and Elliot Vilkas designed the expansion, which is expected to be ready for occupancy in October 2007.Tribeca
1 York Street
Sales are about to begin at the 40-unit condominium complex designed by architect Enrique Norten. The complex occupies an entire block and splices a modern 14-story glass tower with a revamped seven-story building from the 1850s. Prices will range from $1 million for an 850-square-foot one-bedroom to $15 million for the 3,160-square-foot penthouse. A two-bedroom unit with 1,820 square feet will sell for around $2.4 million. Stanley Perelman of Jani Real Estate is the owner and developer. Construction is expected to be completed in April 2007, the New York Times reported. Cantor-Pecorella is the marketing agent. Contact: www.1york.comTribeca
414 Washington Street and 415-423 Washington Street
The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved in December certificates of appropriateness for the two buildings, the New York Observer reported. Both are designed by Joseph Pell Lombardi and Associates and will be clad in red brick and have multi-paned, arched windows. The building at 415 Washington Street will have eight stories and be called the Fairchild & Foster Atelier. The building at 414 Washington Street will have eight stories and be called the Pearline Soap Atelier. Although both properties sit in a manufacturing zone, the Department of City Planning is expected to rezone the North Tribeca neighborhood soon, allowing for residential uses.Upper East Side
995 Fifth Avenue
The former Stanhope Hotel is going co-op, the New York Times reported. The hotel’s 185 rooms will become 26 private residences designed by John Simpson, the architect of the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. Studio apartments for cooks, drivers, and maids are available on the ground floor for about $1 million. Upstairs, half- and full-floor apartments, 4,000 and 8,000 square feet each, begin at $10 million. The asking price for a duplex penthouse — 7,000 square feet with 5,000 square feet of outdoor space — is $47 million. The Corcoran Group is selling the units. Contact: 212-634-6500.Upper East Side
1393 York Avenue
The Sheldrake Organization bought the Church of the Epiphany site and will build a luxury 25-story residential condominium, designed by Polshek Partnership, and a new church. The entrance for the condo tower will be on East 74th Street, and the church’s entrance will be on York Avenue, the New York Sun reported.Vinegar Hill
99 Gold
99 Gold Street
One of the neighborhood’s largest condo conversions will open for sales in early February. Housed in a former toy factory, the building will offer 88 lofts. Units range from 750-square-foot loft studios to 1,200-square-foot two-bedrooms and are expected to fetch $350,000 to $1.35 million, the New York Post reported. Additionally, there are five 1,450-square-foot duplex apartments with individual rooftop cabanas. Most units will have terraces or private gardens. The building also has a basketball court, garage, roof deck, and gym. Occupancy is expected in spring 2006. Contact: www.99goldstreet.com.Construction Update
Fashion District
125 West 31st Street
Construction is under way by development partners Sidney Fetner & Associates and the Durst Organization on the mixed-use development, the Sun reported. The project includes a residential rental building of 47 stories beginning on the 13th floor. Of the 480 units, 20 percent will be reserved for affordable housing.Lower East Side
East Houston Street at the Bowery
AvalonBay Communities’ second building in the Cooper Square Urban Renewal Area is currently under construction on the north side of East Houston Street. It will rise nine stories and have 206 rental apartments. The building will have a roof terrace and fitness center for residents, along with 20,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. The first residents are expected to move in by the end of 2006, the Villager newspaper reported. Contact:www.avalonchrystieplace.com.Williamsburg
184 Kent Avenue
The landmark saga seems to have ended. The Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2005 designated the Austin, Nichols warehouse as a landmark, thereby throwing into doubt plans for condos on top of it. The City Council overrode the commission — only the second time it’s done so since the early 1990s. Then, Mayor Bloomberg overrode the council and sided with the commission. But, on Dec. 8, the council overrode the mayor’s veto and left the warehouse without landmark status and ready for development.Financing
Windsor Terrace
35 McDonald Avenue
Longview Capital Advisors arranged $10.3 million in financing provided by Doral Bank for what will be a five-story, 38-unit condominium developed by Basile Builders. One- and two-bedroom units from 700 to 1,400 square feet range in price from $379,000 to $1 million. Completion is expected in spring 2006.Sales Update
Carroll Gardens West
71 Carroll Street
Sales are under way at the five-story, 13-unit condominium by Basile Builders. Prices for the one- to four-bedroom apartments in the brownstone-style building range from $475,000 to $1.8 million. Occupancy is slated for spring. Andy Booth and David Perez of the Corcoran Group are the sales agents.Downtown Brooklyn
The Smith
75 Smith Street
Sales are under way at the 50-unit condominium designed by Nick Dine of Dine Murphy Wood. Prices for the one- to three-bedroom units range from $550,000 to $1.295 million. The project includes eight duplex penthouses with private terraces. Residences will have 9-foot ceilings and oversized windows with skyline views. Leviev Boymelgreen is the developer; Meltzer/Mandl are the architects. Occupancy is slated for January 2007. The Sunshine Group is the exclusive marketing and sales agent. Contact: 718-339-2500, www.75smith.com.Greenwich Village
88 Washington Place
All but two three-bedroom units have been sold, according to the Post. The Corcoran Group is handling sales. Contact: www.88washington.com.Harlem
104 West 123rd Street
Sales are under way at Rosetree Development Company’s four-unit brownstone condo conversion. The units, which have exposed brick, private terraces and wood-burning fireplaces, are priced at $600 a foot. Financing was provided by Signature Bank. The exclusive sales brokers are Lawrence Comroe and Tony Oakley of the Corcoran Group. Contact: 212-875-2942, www.123condo.net.Lower East Side
Blue
105 Norfolk Street
Sales are under way at the 16-story, 32-unit condominium. More than 700 inquiries were fielded before the units officially hit the market on Nov. 16, according to a release from the building’s sales office. Barrie Mandel leads the Corcoran marketing team representing the building. Contact: 212-533-8822, www.bluecondonyc.com.Lower East Side
107 Avenue A
The 10-unit condo conversion has been on the market since Labor Day without a single sale by brokers, although developer Gary Vinbaytel has privately sold two of the units, the Post reported. The apartments, all one-bedrooms measuring 580 to 751 square feet, were originally put on the market in the $650,000 to $710,000 range. Prices have been slashed 10 percent since then, according to Vinbaytel, who will drop them another 2.25 percent.Roosevelt Island
The Octagon
Twenty-one tenants so far have been lured by amenities like daycare and tennis courts to the converted tower, according to New York magazine. Rents in the former New York Lunatic Asylum, across the water from East 78th Street in Manhattan, range from $1,400 a month for studios to $4,100 for three-bedrooms.South Park Slope
The Liberty
207 22nd Street
Aguayo and Huebener is marketing the nine-unit condominium developed by John Polanca and John DeSilva. The starting price for a 1,150-square-foot two-bedroom unit has been set at $599,000. The five-story building includes two ground-floor duplex apartments and a penthouse with views of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.Times Square
The Orion
350 West 42nd Street
At the end of October, 474 of the 551 units had been sold in the 58-story condominium, the Sun reported. Occupancy is scheduled for 2006.Development in Brief
Manhattan (from north to south)
743 Fifth Avenue
The 10 upper floors of the slender Italianate loft building may turn into residential condos, the Post reported. Centurion Realty owns the property.500 West 23rd Street
Leviev Boymelgreen will construct a 15-story rental of over 100,000 square feet, the Post reported.140 West 22nd Street
Cronus Capital and Vintage Group bought the 12-story, 70,000-square-foot commercial building and plan to convert it to condos.Third Avenue between 13th and 14th streets
Toll Brothers has bought the site of the old Variety Theater and intends to build a 77-unit condo tower, the Post reported.173 MacDougal Street
Property Markets Group will be closing on an acquisition of Church of Christ, Scientist in 2006, the Sun reported. It plans to redevelop the site, building a new church and residential condos.16 Warren Street
The three-year-old Tribeca Rock Club is closing and will be razed to make room for luxury condos, Curbed.com reported.127 Fulton Street
New owners 127 Fulton LLC plan to convert the eight-story, 27,000-square-foot office building into condos, according to Helmsley-Spear.
The developer’s parade of fresh projects sparks excitement – and some alarm Ripples still cascading from Extell’s 2005 splash” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
Units at 20 Pine The Collection to offer rugged Wall Street aesthetic; too many high-end condos Down Boymelgreen hopes buyers like cut of Armani condos” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
Three new buildings on one Lower East Side block may test area’s popularity with high-end buyers On Norfolk Street, a profusion of new projects” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
The real estate boom in neighboring Dumbo has upped sales prices and development in tiny enclave Developers see sweet spot on Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
Phoenix tops nation in housing appreciation
Phoenix remains one of the most lucrative housing markets in the U.S. The city’s metro area led the nation in housing appreciation during the third quarter as well as during the 12 months ending Sept. 30, according to data from the Office of Federal Enterprise Oversight. During the third quarter, the housing of the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale area appreciated 8.32 percent, and during the 12 months, it appreciated 34.37 percent well ahead of the national averages of 2.86 percent for the quarter and 12.02 percent for the year. The desert city also leads the nation in drawing condo converters, according to the Slatin Report. During 2005, investors spent $1.3 billion to convert 11,862 units an increase of 1,384 percent from 2004′s $91.9 million spent for 961 conversions.
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AtlantaResidential/Commercial
Developers of one of Atlanta’s most prominent high-end residential projects announced that the 26-story St. Regis hotel and condo complex would open in 2008 in the Buckhead neighborhood. Starwood Properties said the project will include 150 high-end hotel rooms, plus a spa, two restaurants, butler service, and a 9,200-square-foot ballroom with an assembly hall, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The complex on West Paces Ferry Road will also include 50 condos averaging about 4,000 square feet each and priced at more than $2 million a unit.Boston
Residential
A cooling housing market in Massachusetts has pushed brokers to use selling incentives not seen in the Bay State in more than a decade, the Boston Globe reported. As of mid-November, there were 25,656 houses for sale in Massachusetts, 39 percent more than were on the market the same time in late 2004, according to MLS Property Information Network. This overabundance has driven brokers, the Globe reported, to offer buyers free plasma TVs and other deal sweeteners. Also, brokerages are now giving their agents cash bonuses for selling properties that are sitting on the market.Residential
As the market for houses continued to weaken in and around Boston as 2005 disappeared, the condo market in the area actually remained strong. Condo sales were up 15 percent in October over October 2004, the Globe reported, and the median price of the 1,777 units sold in October was 0.5 percent higher than September’s $271,350.Chicago
Residential
Even before the year ended, 2005 was a record for the downtown Chicago housing sales market. During the first three quarters of 2005, 6,937 housing units were sold downtown, the Chicago Tribune reported, the highest annual total since the downtown building boom started in 1997. In all of 2004, 6,298 units were sold. The numbers include newly constructed condos and townhouses, redeveloped lofts, and rental conversions.Residential
A planned 71-story skyscraper could transform the south end of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. The skyscraper, a hotel-condo hybrid, would replace the north tower of the InterContinental Chicago hotel on Michigan Avenue, according to the Chicago Tribune. If approved by the city, construction on the skyscraper could start in mid-2007.Las Vegas
Commercial
At least seven malls are planned or under construction in the Las Vegas Valley. They include the 1.5-million-square-foot Great Mall of Las Vegas being built at the corner of U.S. 95 and Interstate 215 and set to open in 2008, according to the Las Vegas Sun. Also planned are the Summerlin Centre and another yet-unnamed mall in the southwestern part of the valley, the Sun reported; both are slated for 1 million square feet. The biggest new mall the 1.7-million-foot Town Square at the intersection of Interstates 15 and 215 is expected to open in mid-2007, with 250,000 square feet also planned for offices.Los Angeles
Residential
Los Angeles’ housing market didn’t collapse toward the end of 2005 but it did level off. The median price was still up by more than 21 percent compared to the same period in 2004, according to the California Association of Realtors. But month to month, the tale of the market was different: Sales declined more than 22 percent from September to October, and the median price dropped 0.6 percent, too.Commercial
The Los Angeles office market should continue to tighten in 2006. Net absorption in the L.A. area office market in the third quarter totaled 3.3 million square feet and the overall vacancy rate dropped to 11.3 percent from 12.6 percent the quarter before, according to a report from Colliers Seeley International. With the area’s economy expected to stay healthy, demand for office space, the report said, should remain strong for at least another 10 months.Memphis
Commercial
As the market for Class A space tightens in Memphis, the city may be headed this year for a rare office building boom. The availability rate for Class A space in the 385 Corridor reached 10.4 percent by the end of the third quarter, according to a report from CB Richard Ellis; for East Memphis, the city’s other major commercial district, the rate was 6.2 percent. These vacancy rates are the lowest that the Memphis office market has seen in years, the Memphis Business Journal reported, fueling speculation that the city will see fresh Class A construction as current space continues to disappear.Miami
Residential
The once mighty South Florida housing market cooled decisively as 2005 drew to a close. Like most of the nation, the market there had been coming down off record highs since the summer, but it was data for October that really turned heads. Sales of existing single-family homes plunged 48 percent in Miami-Dade County and 44 percent in Broward County compared to the same month in 2004, according to data from the Florida Association of Realtors. These were some of the steepest monthly declines in recent memory, the Miami Herald reported.Commercial
Western Broward County is one of South Florida’s most active areas for new office construction. More than 912,000 square feet of office buildings were in various stages of development in the area toward the end of 2005, the South Florida Business Journal reported. The average rent for Broward’s 26.8 million square feet of office space was $24.90 a foot, with rents in downtown Ft. Lauderdale, the county’s biggest city, at $28.51 a foot.Philadelphia
Residential
Philadelphia’s also-ran status among major East Coast cities may actually benefit its housing market this year. With the current median price of a house in the city roughly half that of a house in Washington or New York, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, price growth in Philadelphia could be near 10 percent in 2006, even as the rest of the nation is expected to see a price growth of 5 percent. Plus, the Inquirer reported, Philadelphia’s job market is generally strong and its housing market doesn’t have the same speculation-driven investor interest as places like Las Vegas or Miami.San Francisco
Commercial
It’s a foreign investor’s market when it comes to commercial real estate in San Francisco. Foreign and institutional investors dominated the office sales market there in 2005, investing nearly $2 billion in it as of the end of November. About 54 percent of all office buyers in San Francisco were both institutional and foreign, the San Francisco Business Journal reported. REITs and other publicly traded entities made up 17 percent of the year’s purchases leaving private owners with the remaining 29 percent. That’s a decidedly different breakdown than the rest of the nation, according to the Journal, where one-third of office buyers were foreign or institutional in 2005 as of early December.Washington, D.C.
Residential/Commercial
More than $1.5 billion in office, housing, and retail development was recently completed, is planned, or is under construction along the long-neglected H Street corridor from North Capitol to Blandensburg Road and 17th Street NE. The corridor, according to the Washington Post, never fully recovered after the 1968 riots. Now, though, more than 30 new shops and various developments, including the Security and Exchange Commission’s new 1.5-million-square-foot headquarters, are either done or going up along H Street.
Gentrification’s push into eastern Williamsburg sparks debate over the future of Bushwick High hopes for Bushwick… er, East Williamsburg” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
A small historic district weathers the change from quiet enclave to real estate hot spot – but owner A Long Island City oasis dries up” class=”read-more-link”>[more]
Bill would nix advertising zoning changes
The City Council is considering a bill that would prohibit brokers or developers from advertising that a change in land use or zoning regulations for a particular area has occurred or will, or that the change may result in a decline in property values, the New York Sun reported. Some council members contend that that’s exactly what brokers or developers sometimes do: Tell homeowners that their property’s value is about to drop because of a zoning or land use change in order to induce them to sell.Brooklyn Bridge Park to open ahead of schedule
The Brooklyn Bridge Park may be finished well ahead of schedule, according to the New York Daily News. Controversial for the luxury condos that will be inside it, the $150 million public park stretching from Atlantic Avenue to the Manhattan Bridge was originally supposed to start in 2008 and take four years to complete. Now, planners say, construction will start in the spring of 2007, and most of the park will be done by the end of 2010.City Council tries to combat neighborhood noise
Responding to complaints from Downtown residents, the City Council in late December voted to revise the city’s noise code. The revision seeks to curb noise coming from bars and clubs, the Sun reported, but it did not address the noise created by people outside such clubs and bars. The revision also requires police responding to noise complaints to measure the noise with meters rather than by their own ears.Planning Commission gives nod to Bronx mall
The city Planning Commission in late December approved a plan by the Related Companies to build a $394 million mall on the site of the Bronx Terminal Market just south of Yankee Stadium. The 16-acre mall would include 1 million square feet of retail space, a hotel, and a banquet facility. Final City Council approval is pending.EPA to test apartments south of Canal
The Environmental Protection Agency announced that residents south of Canal Street can ask to have their apartments tested for four types of hazardous materials related to the building collapses of September 11. Apartments where contaminants exceed benchmark levels set by the EPA will be cleaned for free, the New York Times reported.City to restore federally-owned properties
Starting early this year, the city will for the first time buy federally owned properties in distressed areas and turn them into homes for low-income families, Crain’s reported. Areas with low home-ownership rates or high numbers of foreclosures, including Bedford-Stuyvesant and Cypress Hills, will be targeted for the up to 360 one-to-three family homes.HPD establishes forgivable home loans
The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, has established the HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance program, Cityfeet.com reported. HomeFirst provides qualified homebuyers with a forgivable loan of up to 6 percent of a home’s purchase price. The loan can be applied toward down payment or closing costs on a new home, condo, or co-op in one of the HPD’s Homeownership Zones.State names head for Moynihan Station effort
State officials last month announced that Robin Stout had been named president of the Moynihan Station Development Corporation, the government body behind the renovation of the Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue into a major transit and commercial hub. Stout had spent four years negotiating leases for the Empire State Development Corporation’s 42nd Street Development Project, working on deals like the New York Times headquarters near the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the Bank of America Tower in Midtown. He’s also worked recently as the legal counsel for the ESDC’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Expansion Project. The Moynihan Station is expected to open in 2010, and will cost an estimated $818 million to build.Silverstein postpones bid for Liberty Bonds
Developer Larry Silverstein in late December postponed his bid to get tax-free Liberty Bonds to help finance the new World Trade Center, the Daily News reported. Silverstein, facing stiff criticism from Mayor Bloomberg over building more housing rather than office space in Lower Manhattan, said he wanted more time to negotiate a building timetable with the city and the state.Downturns from past decades offer advice for coping with a soft – or a hard – landing Comments
Payoffs between brokers, lenders targeted by Feds; settlements up six times over 2004 [more]
Toughened rules expected in 2006 for mortgages that allow 1 percent payments [more]
REBNY listing service casts wide net
Your article “Weaving Webs In Online Property Hunting” in your December 2005 issue made a number of inaccurate statements. Of note, the article stated that “… the major internal, proprietary system brokers use is R.O.L.E.X., which distributes listings between firms and is backed by the brokerage behemoths in Manhattan and owned by the powerful Real Estate Board of New York.”
First, R.O.L.E.X. is not and has never been owned by the Real Estate Board of New York. Second, the phrase “backed by the brokerage behemoths,” attempts to imply that R.O.L.E.X. is controlled by the large firms. That is also flatly wrong.
The truth is that more than 280 firms of every size participate in the sharing of their exclusive listings through their participation in the REBNY Listing Service. No one firm or small group of firms control in any way the system of cooperation between the REBNY Listing Service participants, or more importantly, the residential brokerage industry. Through REBNY, these firms have established rules and regulations that benefit the entire industry and more importantly, the buying and selling public.
Steven Spinola
President, Real Estate Board of New York
ManhattanBroker licensing remains robust
Your story in last month’s issue (“The market cools, and the brokers don’t bail,” December 2005) asserts there has been a slowdown in the number of people getting their real estate license. The article quotes Esther Muller as the source for this erroneous claim. As the owner of the largest real estate school in Manhattan, I can tell you the number of people getting their salesperson license has increased this year and the number of firms recruiting new salespeople has increased dramatically.
Your reporter allows Ms. Muller to contradict the data that was provided by the Department of State in the same article which clearly shows record increases every year since 2000. Contrary to the gloomy picture incorrectly portrayed by Ms. Muller, the real estate brokerage industry remains robust, the number of independent brokerage firms continues to grow and they are actively recruiting new agents on a daily basis. Also, as The Real Deal can attest to, the circulation [of the magazine] at the New York Real Estate Institute has increased from 350 to 1,000 copies per month.
Richard Levine
President, New York Real Estate Institute
ManhattanReal estate education must adapt
The real estate market is changing, and those who truly want to succeed need to sharpen their skills. As The Real Deal recently reported (“The market cools, and the brokers don’t bail,” December 2005), there are more salespersons and brokers chasing fewer transactions in a slower market. Only those with greater skills will flourish.
Real estate has become more of a profession requiring specialized knowledge in finance, construction, zoning, and even energy conservation. Institutional real estate, dealing with large portfolios and advanced asset management, now requires a very high level of sophistication. Once PhDs were rare in real estate, and the few who held them did not necessarily even put that credential on their business card. Now, large insurance companies, REITs, Wall Street firms and brokerage firms routinely use MBAs and PhDs.
In short, the real estate professionals who will succeed will need to know more as well as work hard. Informal, on-the-job training is by itself no longer sufficient; growing firms offer in-house or support outside advanced education. What surely does not work are the quickie (but often expensive) highly hyped speakers (No Money Down! Get Rich Quick!) which are at best motivational but mostly irrelevant.
There is a wide range of legitimate real estate educational opportunity. By choosing the right course, and then finding the most effective education to follow that course, real estate professionals will provide themselves a greater opportunity to accomplish their goals.
Barry Hersh
Associate director, the Steven L. Newman Institute, Baruch College
ManhattanA story on Internet “spiders” that collect residential property listings incorrectly referred to the ownership of R.O.L.E.X., the major internal, proprietary listing system that Manhattan brokers use. It is owned by RealPlus LLC.
A story on the rental market in the December issue incorrectly referred to the managing director of sales at the Brooklyn Heights office of Brown Harris Stevens. He is Chris Thomas.
A 250,000 square foot lease at 500 10th Avenue for DHL listed in the December deal sheet incorrectly referred to the building owner. It is Mitchell Rutter, president of Essex Capital, and Jacob Frydman, CEO of White Acre Equities.
Ken Krasnow’s new role as executive vice president and director of brokerage services at Trammell Crow Company will involve spreading that commercial firm’s current relatively small reach to more of the tri-state area. To do that, he says he’ll recruit brokers from other firms.
“As a company,” Krasnow told The Real Deal, “Trammell has been pretty public in terms of building and growing their brokerage platform not just in New York but elsewhere, and they’ve now had pretty good success in Chicago and L.A.”
Now, the firm wants to focus closer to its growing Manhattan wing, and Trammell Crow recruited Krasnow from Cushman & Wakefield – and created the brokerage services director position – to help do that. Krasnow, 41, spent his entire 18-year career until December at Cushman & Wakefield, rising to become executive managing director and the global firm’s New York area leader. An oft-referenced Manhattan commercial market expert familiar for his talks at Cushman & Wakefield’s quarterly breakfast presentations – sometimes held at the Midtown power eatery Michael’s – Krasnow had a long roster of corporate tenants. These included the United Way, CBS, JP Morgan Chase, Benetton-USA, and Chubb Insurance. Krasnow also represented buildings such as 51 West 52nd Street (commonly dubbed the Black Rock), 730 Fifth Avenue, 555 Madison Avenue, and 450 Park Avenue.
At Trammell Crow, he will invariably rely on the connections he made at Cushman & Wakefield to grow the firm’s broker force. “Right now,” Krasnow said, “the New York office has about 20 professionals. While I think it’s important for us to have a focus in numbers, it’s also going to be about building the right culture and the right atmosphere.”
As part of that, Krasnow said that over the next 12 to 24 months, he will recruit aggressively for new talent at area colleges and graduate programs, and will “be talking to brokers at other companies” about jumping to Trammell Crow.
If you’re a New York City-based rental broker who lists on Craigslist, the free ride is over. It’s only a matter of when this year and by how much.
News trickled out in early December of the phenomenally popular Web site’s plans to charge a fee starting in 2006 to brokers in New York, but details were scarce. But Craig Newmark, the “Craig” in Craigslist, recently shared some tentative details with The Real Deal.
First, the fee will be nominal. Newmark wrote in an email that it will probably be around $10, and that brokers will be able to charge it to credit cards through the San Francisco-based site, which gets about 10 million unique visitors monthly. Craigslist will probably not offer discounts, according to Newmark, even if brokers buy a lot of listings at once. Also, the fee would only apply to rental brokers in New York City.
Newmark laid out questions the site must answer before it starts charging the fee, including whether $10 is too much for smaller brokerages and whether landlords listing their rentals directly should be charged.
Citing “the need to be fair to pretty much everyone,” Newmark stressed the tentativeness of any details. The privately held company that Newmark founded a decade ago currently makes all of its money – CNNMoney.com estimated its 2005 revenues at around $20 million – by charging employers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York a fee for listing jobs. Everything else listed on the site, including rentals, can be posted for free.
For now.
Aim low. That’s not normally the advice commercial brokerages take to economic heart in New York.
But one Manhattan brokerage has partnered with a real estate investment adviser to do just that – aim for the low-slung buildings, the non-Class A space dotting the city. Brokerage Colliers ABR recently announced a partnership with Boston-based AEW Capital Management to buy as much as $300 million in mostly Class B office and retail space throughout the metro area. About a week after the announcement, the venture closed its first purchase, buying a 156,000-square-foot office building at 229 West 28th Street for $35.5 million.
The venture will welcome risk in its investment properties, with an eye toward turning each around within three to five years of purchase. “We’re not a cash-flow investor per se,” Anthony McElroy, Colliers ABR’s managing director for acquisitions, told The Real Deal. “We’re sort of looking for the exit.”
The 12-story, loft-style 229 West 28th Street purchase is a telling example of the venture’s investment plans. It has a good location – near Penn Station and the future Moynihan Station transit hub – and it has tenants now paying below-market rents. Plus, it was essentially an off-market deal, McElroy said, with the potential for a re-leasing at market-rate rents. A large block of space, he added, will be available within the next several months. Other deals are pending, McElroy said in late December, and they could be cut in Brooklyn and Queens, in particular, and as far afield as Westchester.
You may have been to one of his parties. You’ve probably at least gotten an invitation. After all, Aaron McCann, 28, has been throwing quarterly real estate networking parties ever since he arrived in New York City from Boulder, Colo., nearly five years ago.
They started very small, says McCann, a former broker (“for all of three months,” he told The Real Deal) who now works in the acquisitions division of real estate investment firm Bern Investments. “It was six or seven of us,” he said, “sitting around a bar in Midtown after work just talking about real estate.”
In December 2003, that started to change. A party in the Serena Bar in the basement of the Hotel Chelsea drew more than 80 people, and, from there, the parties every quarter got bigger. The latest one, a December soiree in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, drew 1,925 RSVPs in one week; about 1,500 people, McCann says, showed, making for a cocktail-enhanced meeting of the minds involving just about every aspect of the New York real estate community – financiers, brokers, developers, journalists, and attorneys. That was pretty much McCann’s idea all along.
“I could tell when I got into New York real estate that who you knew was equally as important as what you knew,” McCann said. “The concept is that it’s an informal networking event that draws every aspect that comprises the New York City real estate development industry.”
McCann works with a planning committee that meets eight days before each party. He deliberately invited people from throughout the industry to be on the committee, and it now has 50 members. The committee doesn’t accept corporate sponsorships for the parties – the key here is keeping things informal – but it will work with a venue to set things in motion. The committee, McCann says, worked with the Trump Organization for months to organize December’s party.
More are, of course, planned, says McCann, a native of Omaha, Neb., who now lives in Williamsburg. “Each one,” he said, “has been bigger and bigger than the last.”
The views from music mogul Russell Simmons’ condo are crystal balls into the future of Lower Manhattan. One view from the 11th-floor condo at 114 Liberty Street overlooks Ground Zero, including the soon-to-open 7 World Trade Center and the space that may in a few years cradle the Freedom Tower. Another view stares down on the renovations to Liberty Plaza Park, set to re-open in the summer. Yet another – this one from one of three terraces – looks out at new buildings on the Jersey Shore across the Hudson.
But perhaps the shiniest crystal ball is the view from the roof right above Simmons’ condo. From there it’s possible to see dozens of blocks uptown to the MetLife Building on 42nd Street – and all the bustle of the city in between.
With plans for as much as 10 million square feet of office space and at least 11 new residential buildings either planned or recently opened in Lower Manhattan, the area could in a few years be jumping again – transformed from a neighborhood that shuts down after dusk to one also bustling with activity 24-7. Whoever plunks down the $8.2 million or thereabouts for Simmons’ condo could be a part of that, says Lisa Maysonet, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman who’s brokering the condo’s sale for Simmons and his wife, the designer Kimora Lee Simmons.
“I tell people this place is for a visionary,” Maysonet said as she stood at the top of the spiral wood staircase separating the condo’s two (indoor) floors. “Because this neighborhood’s going to be completely different years from now.”
Simmons, a Queens native who co-founded Def Jam Recordings and helped shepherd hip-hop into the mainstream, bought the condo in the late 1980s and tried to sell it in 2001. Just as he neared a sale to Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, the September 11 attacks happened across the street. The condo was severely damaged, and the views went quickly from beautiful to profoundly melancholy.
Four years passed. The condo was renovated, re-emerging with a sweeping floor plan punctuated by at least five bedrooms and five bathrooms, with 12-foot ceilings and as many as 40 windows. And with a bit of trivia: Bill Clinton once dined there.
Now, back on the market since November, Maysonet hopes to sell the condo soon. The views, it’s clear, are one of her most potent selling points.
Live in a luxury condo and want to make people (even more) jealous? How about turning on the A/C from San Fran? Or the CD player from a cab in the middle of Times Square?
A handheld control box that will hit New York early this year should allow you to do just that. Developed by Miami-based home automation firm Cimax USA, the box – dubbed the Vertical Integration Panel, or VIP – is basically a wireless remote control for nearly every aspect of a home: contacting the building concierge, opening the blinds, turning on the DVD player, etc. The VIP itself works within the residence only; but it can also be controlled through the Internet.
All this to make the typical New York luxury condo owner seem – to themselves, at least – even more omnipotent. “Once it gets going,” says Christopher Mathieson, managing director of brokerage JC DeNiro & Associates, “it’ll really take the city by storm.”
Cimax USA is in negotiations with 25 “high-end Manhattan properties,” says George Fallica, the firm’s co-owner, including the Plaza Hotel. The system will be installed into the buildings, with developers picking up the tab for the server, where all data and software will be stored.
