Residential Real Estate | The New York Observer

Your Brokers on the Ballyhooed Manhattan Market Reports

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:51:59 -0400

“I glance at them,” said John Burger, a top co-op broker at Brown Harris Stevens, “but Manhattan is really eight different markets, and none of them really address the nuances."

Mr. Burger was talking about the third-quarter Manhattan housing reports from various brokerages that came out last week, and he didn't have much good to say about them. "They don’t separate out pre- and postwar architecture and there’s a huge difference between how those...

Your Open House: LIC (the 'C' Stands for Convenience)

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:04:46 -0400

Both the Foundry and L Haus, two Long Island City condo developments marketed by Prudential Douglas Elliman, seemed to be presenting themselves as urban oases—nooks of green in Queens. They offered outdoor space aplenty, plant-oriented décor in their sales offices, enormous bathtubs, green literature and logos, and, in the case of L Haus, a lime green façade.

A poster for the nearby Hunters View condos took a more practical approach. “Commute like a...

Condo Geyser! Nigerian Oilman Apparent Buyer of Centurion Spreads for $10.1 M.

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:14:28 -0400

As Nigeria deals with gruesome violence between government troops and a strict Islamic sect, one of its prominent oilmen has apparently closed on three serious pieces of brand-name New York real estate.

Last month, neighboring apartments were bought under a trio of limited liability corporation names at the new Centurion condo on West 56th Street, the first New York residential project for lordly architect I. M. Pei since his massively underappreciated Silver Towers. In city...

Weather at Distressed Investing Conference: Mostly Cloudy

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:40:08 -0400

As a thunderstorm raged outside, the mood of dozens of real estate investors at Wednesday’s Distressed Investing Leaders Forum at One World Financial Center was that of general gloom.

“The most optimistic thing I heard today is we won’t be like Japan. It won’t be 20 years,” said Jan Jekielek, the Epoch Times’ director of human resources. “What the Fed did now, it took [the Japanese] six to seven years to do.”

Unreal Estate: When Only a Scullery Will Do

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:16:12 -0400

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Unreal Estate: $32.5 M. for One-Bedroom

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:03:38 -0400

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Your Open House: Nos. 36 and 55 Montgomery Place, Near Prospect Park West

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:24:07 -0400

Amy Sohn’s Prospect Park West, a gleefully bitchy take on Park Slope moms by a former New York columnist, won’t be released until September—but as of last week, Sarah Jessica Parker’s production company was already looking to turn the novel into an HBO series. The allure of the park is hard to resist. Whether that’s as true for real estate as for chick-lit remains to be seen, but Sunday saw two open houses on...

It's Miller Time! The Affable King of Comps Aims at Rentals

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:08:38 -0400

For the last 15 years, Jonathan Miller has produced the Prudential Douglas Elliman sales reports that hold the New York real estate world in thrall. Thursday, for the first time, he released a rental report. He was excited.

“To me, this is fun,” Mr. Miller said. “I don’t do something unless it’s fun. I’m very childlike. I have four boys, and if they get a remote control car, I get a remote control car.”

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City Launching Plan to Turn Unfinished Condos Into Subsidized Housing

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 07:51:07 -0400

Will the dangling of city money be enough to get stalled condo projects moving again?

Perhaps.

The city is launching a $20 million initiative to restart stalled condo projects, turning some of the unfinished developments into below-market-rate housing. Details are still hazy, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Rafael Cestero, said Wednesday that the city would solicit proposals from developers and lenders by the end of...

After Starlet and Weeds, Hirtenstein’s 20-Room, $20 M. Manse Finally In Contract [Updated]

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:07:45 -0400

Michael Hirtenstein, a connoisseur of glitzy and enormous real estate, has one less mega-property to worry about. According to the listing for 23 Gramercy Park South, the former telecom mogul is in contract to sell the 20-room, $20 million townhouse.

Mr. Hirtenstein, who said earlier this year that he owns three places in Manhattan, four in the Hamptons and five elsewhere, paid $14.5 million for the 27-foot-wide house in February 2007, the month he sold...

Poor Little Rich Kids! Hedge Fund Spawn Gets $2.7 M. Duplex, Paltrier Than Princedoms of Yore

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:54:52 -0400

Back when the New York real estate market was still so barbarically lush, the children of barons lived well. The Turkish billionaire Husnu Ozyegin’s son bought a $6.2 million apartment on East 66th Street, which was smaller than the $7.25 million Soho duplex that Time Warner magnate Steve Ross’ youngest child got, which was smaller than the new $16.5 million townhouse for Pittsburgh billionaire Henry Hillman’s grandson, which was smaller than the $32 million...

Nora Would Be So Jealous! Apthorp Slashes Condo Prices

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:39:45 -0400

The 32 condos available at legendary Upper West Side apartment house the Apthorp now start at $1,575,000—practically a steal!

Nora Ephron, the subject of an Ariel Levy profile in this week’s New Yorker and one of the building’s many famous former tenants, once reminisced over the magic of paying $1,500 per month for a rent-stabilized apartment at the Apthorp. The post-condo conversion prices may not be as big of a bargain, but they do...

Marisa Noel Brown's Madoff-Tainted Townhouse Gets A Deal: $9.75 M.

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:40:21 -0400

"The five Noel women have made a name for themselves by shoring up the virtues of a nearly extinct aristocracy," said a 2002 Vanity Fair piece on Fairfield Greenwich Group founder Walter Noel's pristine daughters. "They’re well educated and well married, and they’re raising a pack of well-behaved, multi-lingual children while keeping their string-bikini figures intact ... with not a divorce or scandale among them." The scene was a lawn party thrown for youngest...

Inside Nicholas Cage's Museum Tower Condo

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:25:47 -0400

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Cold Case: The Domed Central Park Penthouse That's $7.25 M., Not $14.5 M.

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:08:49 -0400

When the domed duplex penthouse at 285 Central Park West came on the market 15 months ago, the asking price was $16.5 million. Less than three weeks later the tag was down to $14.5 million, according to the listings Web site StreetEasy, which became $12,999,000 in September, $11.7 million in October, and then $9.9 million in November.

This week it fell to $7.25 million, less than half of the penthouse's original price.

"I've been through this...

Nicolas Cage's $9.75 M. Museum Tower Condo Comes Back on the Market

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:56:15 -0400

Last November, Nicolas Cage put his 3,550-square-foot, 48th-floor, five-bedroom, two-unit apartment in the Museum Tower on the market for exactly one day: The $9.75 million condo was pulled once a reporter called the actor's broker to ask about it.

Eight months later, his apartment is back on at the same price. Its interior photographs are insanely great: The master bathroom, which has a tub and steam shower, is caked in lights and what seems to be...

Is the Manhattan Housing Market Growing Up? Condo Party Busted

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:55:49 -0400

The new condo was the ubiquitous symbol of Manhattan’s housing boom. Tens of thousands—as many as 9,000 in 2005 alone, according to an analysis at the time by The Real Deal—either were proposed for the borough or developed and sold.

Not surprisingly, condos eventually outpaced co-ops in sales—a not insignificant trend given that, even with the condo-building explosion, co-ops still outnumbered condos roughly 3 to 1 in Manhattan. In the second quarter of 2009,...

Back to the Future on Manhattan Housing: How This Movie Ends

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:35:55 -0400

The New York Times on the local housing market: “Even at the peak of the spring buying season, brokerage offices across the city have been eerily quiet, buyers have been holding out for steep discounts and the inventory of unsold apartments has been growing.”

That was June 1989. A years-long wave of co-op conversions had helped drive the market to dizzying heights, altering not only neighborhoods, seemingly forever, but the very perception of home...

The 2Q Manhattan Housing Market Reports: Key Stats

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:34:51 -0400

Second-quarter Manhattan housing reports are out from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel; the Corcoran Group and PropertyShark; Brown Harris Stevens; and StreetEasy.

Here are comparisons of key stats to the second quarter of 2008. (Keep in mind the reports generally cover deals closed from April through June. The deals could have been negotiated months earlier.)

For analysis on where the hell the Manhattan housing market's headed, click here.

Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel:

Average sales price:...

Unreal Estate: Stalking Exotic Quarry in $24.5 M. Marble House

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:25:12 -0400

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Cold Case: Five Years After Woody Allen, $30 M. Rothschild Mansion Stays Unsold

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:50:46 -0400

It's almost impossible to exaggerate the wild absurdity of high-end Manhattan real estate: On any given day, the price of one five-floor penthouse will be lowered to $27.9 million (even if its original price was twice as high), while the tag for an equally glam penthouse will be hiked from $25 million to $39 million. It's not that the huge real estate brokers who are handling these properties are fools; it's just that no...

A Businessman, a Berlusconi and a Recession Walk Into the Plaza … Zunino on Hook for $45 M. Sprawl

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:03:43 -0400

Amid all the snickering about the Plaza’s conversion into mega-haute condominiums, all the guessing about what will happen to its re-listed apartments (which, The Times said this weekend, are asking more than $250 million in all) and all the gasping about Russian billionaire Andrei Vavilov’s suit over his penthouse triplex, awfully little attention has been paid to a third-floor drama that may be the most lip-smacking of all.

There, according to two sources, the troubled...

Rainbow! Steve Wynn Wants $25 M. for Fifth Ave Condo Damaged in the Flood

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:32:37 -0400

On the one hand, if a Fifth Avenue apartment couldn’t sell six years ago when it was asking $15 million, and then suffered a flood that damaged walls, ceilings, floors and furnishings, it’s slightly disconcerting that the place would hit the market again for $25 million.

But the seventh-floor condo at 817 Fifth Avenue is no mere apartment. It is a Steve Wynn experience.

“I will tell you,” said Roger Erickson, the casino magnate’s broker, “it...

Roger Erickson, From Captain Kangaroo to Park Avenue

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:22:46 -0400

Location: You once complained that 2002, when you sold $62 million of real estate, was ‘a relatively slow year.’ How is 2009 comparing?

Mr. Erickson: Well, last year was about $200 million. This year, sales for me have only just started significantly. … Unfortunately I’m terribly optimistic by nature.

What’s your goal? You can’t do $200 million again.

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First-Time Buyers Officially Ascendant in Grim Manhattan Market; Luxury Takes a Holiday

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:17:11 -0400

According to several first-quarter Manhattan housing reports released today - including ones from the Corcoran Group and Property Shark (PDF); Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel; Brown Harris Stevens (PDF) and Halstead Property (PDF); and StreetEasy - condo and co-op sales have fallen precipitously from last year. Corcoran estimates that sales have fallen by 52 percent and Douglas Elliman reports a 47.6 percent fall, for instance.

Either way, you get the picture and it...

The Local: Condo Buyers Beg Off

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 20:22:22 -0500

When New York’s real estate market was at its peak, condo buyers and investors were not in the position to quibble if the ceiling of their new apartment was a few inches shorter than the one in the sponsor’s offering plan or if common charges were a couple hundred dollars more than expected. Now that the market is in the throes of a recession, those same buyers are finding themselves with the upper hand...

The Local: FiDi--Now, More Than Ever, Almost 24-7

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:08:23 -0500

When Jongmin Park and his wife Soye moved from Battery Park City to a condo at 90 William Street three years ago, the conversion of the Financial District into a 24-hour retail and residential neighborhood was just beginning.

When they first arrived, all the restaurants and stores closed on the weekends and the neighborhood turned into a “ghost town,” he said. Things have changed so much since then that Mr....

The Local: McCondos in Bay Ridge

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:56:10 -0400

It's been over three years since the city passed a contextual rezoning of Bay Ridge to limit "out-of-character development" in the low-rise neighborhood, but tensions between nostalgic residents and developers who continue to squeeze three- and four-story apartment buildings into plots once occupied by single-family homes show no signs of abating.

The "Green Church" looks like it is slated for demolition despite the last ditch-effort of local activists; a seven-story apartment building will...

Focus, People! American Housing Obsession Unhealthy: Expert

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:08:57 -0400

Enough already!

That's the clarion call of Amity Shlaes, economic historian with the Council on Foreign Relations and Brooklyn Heights resident, who argues, with the help of Nobel laureate and economist Edmund Phelps, that Americans need to stop obsessing about the "housing crisis" and focus on things more integral to our economic health -- like, oh, say, productivity?

"It used to be said that the business of America was business,''...

My Rental Broker: 'I'm Just Concerned With Getting You a Place You Love'

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:22:59 -0400

I just signed a lease for a one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea and my relief at having finally found an acceptable living space on Tuesday after I had all but given up has been somewhat tempered by the sheer absurdity of the whole rental experience.

I assembled my financial information on Wednesday morning and my application was approved that afternoon. The broker that I had spent all of one hour with was giving...

Fifth Avenue World's Third Most Expensive Residential Street

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:53:11 -0400

With apartments fetching an average price of $7,500 per square foot, Fifth Avenue ranked third place in a new survey of the top 10 most expensive residential streets in the world from Barclay’s Wealth Bulletin. But if you thought top-tier residential prices in Manhattan were stratospheric, take a look at the two most expensive streets on the survey.

Avenue Princess Grace in Monaco ranked No. 1 in the survey with homes fetching...

Top Chef Cast Quiet In Williamsburg: 'They're Not Allowed To Talk To Anyone'

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:16:59 -0400

It's more or less an open secret, but we've learned that the Top Chef cast has definitely been living for about two weeks now in a terraced duplex penthouse in Williamsburg overlooking McCarren Park.

So far, the chefs have pretty much kept to themselves, said an extremely well-placed source, leaving around 8 or 9 in the mornings for a soundstage in Greenpoint and coming straight back in the evenings.

“They’re...

Clock Tower to Plaza: Watch Us Get Russians (And Donatella!)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:01:48 -0400

The Plaza and 15 Central Park West better watch out, because a new ultra-luxe condo is coming to town and its developers are already claiming they will have the edge with an emergent, but increasingly lucrative, segment of the residential market: the Russians.

Earlier this week, Lev Leviev's Africa Israel Investments announced that it had contracted Versace to spearhead the interior redesign of the Clock Tower Building and convert...

Amy Sedaris Stays In West Village, Buys $1.3 M. Co-Op

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 16:28:07 -0400

Funny lady Amy Sedaris appears to have an ambivalent relationship with New York City.

On the one hand, she seems to appreciate the little urban conveniences that you can't find anyplace else--for instance, last October, she told The Observer about her "good memories" of getting pot delivered to her house--but will just as quickly complain about the noise pollution from the West Village Halloween Parade.

Back...

OMFG! Manhattan Rents Drop a Bit in June

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:00:35 -0400

For the most part Manhattan remains a brutal market for renters this month, especially if you’re set on living below 23rd Street. But economic uncertainty has brought bargains (in the New York sense of the word) to some neighborhoods in the middle of a season when rents usually peak, according to the June rental report (PDF) released today by The Real Estate Group New York.

The good news is you can still find...

Grand Theft Auto Mogul Prefers 'Vacuous' Neighborhoods

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:25:14 -0400

In an interview with New York magazine today, Rockstar Games mogul Dan Houser talks about his inspirations for the godly New York video game Grand Theft Auto IV: "You've got the angry sleeping-pill-popping sort of Sex and the City type woman, you know, whose looks are just beginning to fade ... The people in Soho are expensively dressed and into shopping and vacuous in their own way."

Mr. Houser would know.

As The Observer wrote...

Parents, Put Away Your W-2s! Manhattan Insurer Will Be Your Kid's Co-Signer

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 12:15:34 -0500

Finally, no more embarrassing calls from fairly well-employed thirty-somethings to their baffled parents in the sticks. "Dad, can you co-sign?"

Manhattan-based Insurent Agency Corporation announced Tuesday a new program to insure renters whose income levels do not meet the ridiculous 40- to 50-times-the-monthly-rent formula required by greedy landlords citywide.

Full details below.

NEW YORK’S RESIDENTIAL LANDLORDS

BEGIN TO TAP INSURENT® FOR LEASE GUARANTEES

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Hey Sheiks! Leisure-Suit Jerry Is Renting-Out Bowery Hotel Penthouses--Just $30K a Month!

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:00:56 -0500

Downtown's swanky Bowery Hotel is looking for "an A-list actor, studio executive, oil sheik or titan of industry" to rent out its two-bedroom penthouses -- just $30,000 a month, according to an e-mail sent to The Observer.

That's only $6,000 more than late actor Heath Ledger's $24,000-a-month, three-bedroom SoHo loft.

Read the Corcoran listing here.

Developer Jerry Rosengarten, also "inventor of the leisure suit," is promising to provide the "private living experience that moguls and movie...