March 3 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment sellers cut prices by the most in five years last year and unsold inventory rose to the highest since 1999 as the economy retreated.
The average listing discount climbed to 4.1 percent, the highest since 2003, as buyers negotiated for reductions off the asking price. The number of condominiums and co-ops for sale jumped 41 percent last year to 9,081 even as the median price reached a record $995,000, appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today.
New York City is bracing for a drop in property values after three of the five largest investment banks collapsed. In the Hamptons, on the eastern end of Long Island, prices are already falling. Banks and securities firms have cut more than 180,000 jobs in the past year, according to Bloomberg data, as the recession entered its second year and the global credit crisis forced writedowns and mortgage-related losses of $1.18 trillion.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A 130-unit building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, declares bankruptcy
A Brooklyn real estate developer, whose lenders include former basketball great Magic Johnson, has filed for bankruptcy.
The company is the owner of 110 Green Street Development, a six-story luxury condo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, called The Viridian. Sales of its 130 units began in June. In the filing the company noted that the Viridian’s construction coincided with an unprecedented decline in the real estate market generally, and in Williamsburg and Greenpoint specifically.
A call to a representative of 110 Green Street was not returned. The Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund said it expects to recoup its investment.
The company is the owner of 110 Green Street Development, a six-story luxury condo in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, called The Viridian. Sales of its 130 units began in June. In the filing the company noted that the Viridian’s construction coincided with an unprecedented decline in the real estate market generally, and in Williamsburg and Greenpoint specifically.
A call to a representative of 110 Green Street was not returned. The Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund said it expects to recoup its investment.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Manhattan Real Estate On Sale
The 14-room Park Avenue apartment of the late socialite Brooke Astor -- which Barron's highlighted in that earlier story after its price had been cut from $46 million to $34 million -- is now down to $29 million and probably has to be cut further.
But even with dramatic reductions like that, the inventory of unsold luxury housing is ballooning. Streeteasy.com, a Website that pulls together listings and insights from a variety of brokers and buyers, now shows 795 New York apartments offered for $5 million or more, up from 518 a year ago.
Detailed data on that top tier of sales are hard to come by, but the price trends are thought to be similar to those in the mainstream luxury market, defined as the top 10% of home sales. Using that yardstick, the median sales price of a Manhattan luxury apartment topped out at about $5 million in the first quarter of last year -- well after the national housing market came unglued -- and then fell nearly 20% by the end of the third quarter, according to Miller Samuel, a real-estate appraisal firm.
But even with dramatic reductions like that, the inventory of unsold luxury housing is ballooning. Streeteasy.com, a Website that pulls together listings and insights from a variety of brokers and buyers, now shows 795 New York apartments offered for $5 million or more, up from 518 a year ago.
Detailed data on that top tier of sales are hard to come by, but the price trends are thought to be similar to those in the mainstream luxury market, defined as the top 10% of home sales. Using that yardstick, the median sales price of a Manhattan luxury apartment topped out at about $5 million in the first quarter of last year -- well after the national housing market came unglued -- and then fell nearly 20% by the end of the third quarter, according to Miller Samuel, a real-estate appraisal firm.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
A Manhattan real estate developer has pleaded guilty in federal court to participating in a $27 million mail and wire fraud conspiracy.
Ivy Woolf-turk, 52, of Port Washington, working through a Manhattan real estate development company — The Kingsland Group, Inc., and related entities –fraudulently induced approximately 70 individuals to lend the Kingsland Group over $27 million, purportedly to fund the renovation of approximately 16 multi-family apartment buildings located in upper Manhattan.
Woolf-Turk and a co-conspirator, Michael Hershkowitz, falsely represented that the lenders would hold, as collateral for the loans, interests in bona fide first mortgages in the various properties in which they thought they were investing. In fact, the lenders did not hold recorded, first mortgages in the properties. Interest was paid on the loans for some years after they were first made, but ultimately the principal on the loans was not repaid when due and it was determined that the lenders did not have valid first mortgages on the properties in question.
Woolf-Turk and a co-conspirator, Michael Hershkowitz, falsely represented that the lenders would hold, as collateral for the loans, interests in bona fide first mortgages in the various properties in which they thought they were investing. In fact, the lenders did not hold recorded, first mortgages in the properties. Interest was paid on the loans for some years after they were first made, but ultimately the principal on the loans was not repaid when due and it was determined that the lenders did not have valid first mortgages on the properties in question.
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New York City 2010
