Enjoy this July 4th weekend with some shots of the city by Heddings Property Group team member Jennifer Breu:
Some people still want to be told that housing market is just peachy. Like this guy in Phoenix. This is exactly the type of person who would hire a broker who says (in a sinister voice), “The market is sizzling. What bubble? Your home is worth ONE BILLION DOLLARS! Ah ha ha ha ha!”
Wake up sir! The press does tend to create mass hysteria, but it is true that markets nationwide, including yours in Phoenix, are experiencing a significant cooling period. By the way, I love Phoenix. If it had an ocean, I’d move there myself! Perhaps it will have an ocean soon if we don’t do something about global warming but that’s an entirely different topic.
According to Ryan Chittum of The Real Estate Journal Wall Street is starting to feel more like home:
The south side of Wall Street from the exchange to the East River is almost all residential now or being converted to it. The fusty former headquarters of J.P. Morgan is being converted into Downtown by Philippe Starck, where condo units go for a minimum of $1.2 million. The new HermËs is moving into the first floor. Tiffany will set up shop next door at 37 Wall Street at the base of the former Trust Co. of America building, now being turned into luxury apartments.
Down the street model Naomi Campbell, actor Bruce Willis and movie producer Harvey Weinstein are moving into the former 55 Wall Street, which once housed the stock exchange, last was a luxury hotel and now is being souped up as the pricey Cipriani Club Residences. Last week real-estate broker Dolly Lenz flew to London to host a lunch for the Duchess of York and 80 of her closest friends — to promote the Duchess’s coming book and to help sell luxury condos at 55 Wall Street. By the end of a seven-hour event that also included breakfast, tea and cocktails, Ms. Lenz sold two luxury apartments at the building to friends of the Duchess.
This is an excellent article! In my 15 years in the business, I have never heard more promises about “the next frontier” than I have about Wall Street and its surrounding areas. My skepticism, fueled by the lack of retailers in the area, appears to be unfounded.
According to Chittum’s report, since 9/11 the residential population of the area is up 61%. Retailers are paying attention to these numbers as well as the current luxury condo projects hitting the market. It appears that a Financial District renaissance is finally well underway.
That said, it is going to take much more than a BMW dealer, a Tiffany and Co., and a Bobby Van’s Steakhouse to create of full fledged “neighborhood” surrounding Wall Street. I have sold in that area and my friends and colleagues who live in the area maintain that it still feels like a ghost town at night. Many who live there claim to like it, while others are looking for more services to stay open past the early evening hours.
Perhaps the time has come with such residential growth that area merchants and retailers will seize the opportunity to capture the “evening” marketplace? That will likely spur more growth and a true “neighborhood” feeling around the stock exchange. Who’d-a thunk it?
Check this out. Most extreme dirty real estate tricks I have ever heard of, and frankly, I have never even heard of anything like this in the U.S.
WNYC’s Danyel Smith will be interviewing Toni Schlesinger and TrueGotham’s Douglas Heddings this evening for The Conversation.
It should be at about 8:40pm on AM 820. You can listen online, too. The topics promise to include: the influx of new real estate agents, how real estate professionals are perceived, technologies that are changing the game, crazy stories from the front lines, and more.
UPDATE: Listen to an MP3 of the show by clicking here. MORE UPDATE: The MP3 on the WNYC server doesn’t seem to be working at the moment. Hopefully more information to follow.
I have been friends with Douglas Heddings for years. And it’s a great thing to be friends with a good Manhattan broker–because if you need to make a big decision about buying and selling, you can call him for free advice.
It occurs to me that, thanks to the magic of podcast technology, I can now call him ask those same questions, record it, and make it available to the world.
So here it is. If you were a friend of Doug’s, and you were considering selling your apartment, this podcast is what he would tell you.
Some of the topics he covers:
- How to tell whether or not it’s time for you to sell.
- Why you shouldn’t hire the broker who tells you a bunch of good news.
- A whole bunch of ways the wrong broker can cause you trouble, and a whole bunch of ways to find the right broker.
- The best question to ask when you’re interviewing brokers.
- Two documents to get your broker to sign before you sign an exclusive contract with a broker.
Click here to listen to the whole thing. (It’s under twenty minutes.)
Despite the lull in the real estate market, large firms continue to hire like crazy from real estate agent courses that are still jammed with peoplewho signed up to reap the rewards of a market that was recently booming.
For those of you who are thinking of leaving your jobs on Wall Street or Madison Avenue for the easy money of real estate, think long and hard. Even the top agents are puzzled by today’s market, and a very real option is that we are in a waiting period with fewer transactions.
That’s bad news for would-be agents. The “new agent revolving door” is picking up momentum (you can almost feel the breeze) just as it did in the late 80’s and early 90’s when people like myself could barely scrape together enough deals to stay afloat. I was one of the fortunate ones who survived that period, but I watched countless people enter and leave the industry sometimes in as few as three months. Many new agents are begging for business right now. They’re volunteering to help at open houses, exchanging long hours for a chance of coming into contact with a potential buyer or two.
Further evidence of the desperation is the story of the agent who agreed to a seller’s notion of a fair price (which was in fact absurdly high) just so she could find potential buyers of other properties from the listing.
The cooling of the market, combined with the mass hiring of new agents, is dramatically changing the face of the industry. Take it from someone who has been around for 15 years–whether buying or selling–there is no more important time to have an experienced agent to guide you through a market as complex as this one. Buyers know that, and it’s really not the best time to be a novice in New York real estate. The best advice for those of you who are new to the market? See if you can partner up with a veteran who can help you operate with confidence even in a slow market. That can make a big difference to you and your clients.
As we have talked about before, some new Manhattan developments have not been moving inventory like they hoped. But others are full steam ahead with their plans to bring more condos on the market.
I just found out Anbau Enterprises has secured financing for a $52M condominium project at 120 West 72nd Street. The 16-storey, 24-hour doorman building will offer fewer than 30 units (a combo of 2BR’s and full floors) for occupancy in late 2007. The developers are also planning a 4,000-square foot first floor commercial space and a recreational center for residents at the garden level. Although the location is just steps from Central Park, it is also on a very commercial block that desperately needs some residential presence.
I am curious to see how developers react to the cooling marketplace. The big players like Related seem to be hedging–with hybrid projects that combine condominiums with rental units. It will also be interesting to see if any of these new development projects try to do what was unthinkable a few years ago when the opposite really started happening: to convert some condomininums to rentals given the current and projected strength of the rental market.
We see a lot of charts that attempt to explain the reality on the ground in New York. This is one of the most accurate I have ever seen.
David Seifman of the Post reports that renters have been getting killed for years:
New York City residents who didn’t have the foresight to buy their own home and are living in a market-rate apartment got hammered by a 68 percent increase in costs over 15 years, Comptroller William Thompson said yesterday.
(Via the Real Deal)
Anecdotally, I have heard several stories and first hand accounts of landlords raising rents 20% for those whose leases are up for renewal. I met someone yesterday who is considering purchasing because his rent is going from $2000 a month to $2500 a monnth with only a one year lease promised by the landlord (which seems the writing is on the wall for another increase next year).
Soaring rents may in fact bring many back to the purchase market, particularly as the market has cooled and there are some excellent buys out there right now for the shrewd shopper.
