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apartments

1 By Elise Knutsen 10/04/11 12:15pm

Troubling Developments

The Pavillion, 500 East 77th Street

People Who Live in Waterproof White Brick Boxes…

If you're considering moving into a white brick building, perhaps to compliment your Mad Men craze for skinny ties and dry martinis, don't. The bleached blocks, heavily used in the postwar building boom, have fallen distinctly out of style, both aesthetically and materially, according to The New York Times. Once championed as an easy solution to the wear and tear weather wreaks on traditional building materials, as well as a symbol of clean city living, highrises with white brick facades are crumbling around the city. Read More

4 By Rex Reed 7/26/11 7:27pm

movies

Speedman, Hampshire and Baruchel.

When Good Neighbors Hop the Fence

In dramatic Contrast to the usual vapid monotony that permeates most Canadian  films, Good Neighbors is a toxic thriller with unbearable intensity about an odd group of tenants in a small Montreal apartment house in the dead of a Quebec winter. Shades of Roman Polanski’s The Tenant and Alfred  Hitchcock’s I Confess come to mind Read More

8 By Robert Knakal 7/14/11 12:09pm

concrete thoughts

Blitt - Bob Knakal

Rent Regulations: the Good, the Bad and the Endlessly Ugly

While the recent extension of New York’s rent-regulation system came as no surprise to the vast majority of participants in our multifamily market, the results were still disappointing and have left many owners concerned that if this is the result obtained with a Republican-controlled Senate, what would occur with Democrats in power? Yes, the renewal terms could have been much worse, but that doesn’t diminish the negative implications this has on our housing market.

Let’s take a look at the terms of Chapter 97 of the Laws of 2011 and their potential impact. Read More

10 By Matt Chaban 7/01/11 12:20pm

Trendy

And your maintenance fees are this way...

For Manhattan Housing, No Double-Dip (Yet)

Back in April, there was much hand-wringing (and Obama-blaming) when apartment sales prices actually dipped in the first quarter. It turns out the first-time homebuyer tax credits had not so much buoyed the Manhattan housing market as put a kink in its decline that is still being worked out.

The good news was the dip meant a return to the normal, seasonal cycles, and it is reaffirmed today with the release of No. 1-in-our-hearts Jonathan Miller's report for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Read More

14 By Pamela Engel 6/21/11 3:41pm

Rent Check

apartmentdoorflickr

Manhattan’s Leasé-Faire Apartment Market

The rental market is up and the rental market is down, according to the newly released Manhattan Rental Market Report.

Although the report, released monthly, shows that rents were up by 1.82 percent overall from May to June, a closer look reveals that rents are rising in some areas and falling in others. Also, the survey doesn't include every apartment on the market—understandable, given how freaky Manhattan housing arrangements can get—but instead gives just a rough idea of pricing trends.

For example, rents are up for non-doorman studios on the Upper West Side but down for non-doorman one-bedrooms. Many neighborhoods are listed under both the "where prices decreased" and "where prices increased" categories with prices varying depending on the type of apartment, making it a little difficult to ID a trend for one neighborhood across-the-board.

Read More

1 By Robert Knakal 5/26/11 2:04pm

concrete thoughts

The Market for Apartment Buildings by Borough

Two weeks ago, this column addressed the state of the New York City multifamily market, and most of the statistics discussed pertained to the entire city-wide market. I received many e-mails and a few calls asking for the data to be broken down on a submarket-by-submarket basis, so here it is.

It is particularly illustrative Read More

4 By Laura Kusisto 3/21/11 3:20pm

Big Real Estate

Cuomo, Big Real Estate Move Closer on Rent Regs

Rent-regulation reformers could be poised for their first victory in decades.

Ninety-one state lawmakers wrote a letter to the governor this week, calling on him to include what proponents call rent-regulation reform in the budget due March 31. In a surprising turn, the governor agreed. He said at a March 17 press conference that he now sees Read More

1 By Robert Knakal 3/10/11 4:58pm

concrete thoughts

A Call for Means Testing in Rent Regulation

Food and shelter are two of life's basic necessities. For those who need assistance feeding themselves, the Food Stamp Program is available. This program issues monthly benefits that can be used to purchase food at authorized retail food stores. Food stamp benefits help low-income working people, seniors, the disabled and others feed their families. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 2/23/11 5:03pm

The Lab

Boomism Immortal

On Feb. 8, the city's biggest building-sales brokerage, Massey Knakal, blasted a press release announcing the sale of a narrow, four-story, red-brick building along First Avenue, a block southwest of Stuyvesant Town. The walk-up rested snugly between a larger building cloaked in mesh and fronted by scaffolding and a similar-sized, white building. A chicken joint Read More