A 2,848-square-foot apartment on the 38th floor of the tower at 15 Central Park West flipped for $27 million, twice its purchase price but less than its asking price.
The seller of the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath unit was listed as Coastal Protective Services, which is owned by casino developer Richard Fields.
Over the last couple of months, a number of new Manhattan hotels have opened, offering great rates, and in some cases good perks, to get visitors to walk through the door.
On December 21, a handful of rooms were made available to visitors at a rate of $195 per night at Andre Balazs' 18-story, 337-room Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District. The room price included complimentary breakfast room-service, wireless Internet access and free local calls. The hotel, at 848 Washington Street, at 13th Street, was erected on pillars over the old High Line.
Hoteliers are responding to market conditions. Room rates have been dropping as the occupancy rate has been declining,
, and revenues per available room will decline in 2009. The outlook is grim through second-quarter 2010.
Earlier in the month all of the rooms were released at the Thompson LES, a new Lower East Side hotel. The 18-story building, located at 190 Allen Street, and East Houston, has a total of 140 rooms, most of which overlook Allen Street. Average room rates are expected to range from $500 to $600, while promotional rates were available during the Christmas holiday weekend at a daily rate ranging from $219 to $259 per night.
Also this month, the long awaited Cooper Square Hotel opened at 25 Cooper Square and the Bowery in the East Village. The 21-story, 145-room hotel is
Last month, visitors were able to reserve a room at the Gem Hotel in Chelsea. The new hotel, at 300 West 22nd Street at Eighth Avenue, has 81 rooms. The Gem is part of Choice Hotels' Ascend Collection and according to a recent post on hotelchatter.com,
Home prices in New York City have fallen 7.5 percent since last year and 0.9 percent month-over-month, according to S&P/Case-Shiller Homes Prices Index data released today.
New York City's index value, which measures the average prices of single-family homes within a 50-mile radius of New York City, hit its peak in June 2006 and fell 11.9 percent by October, according to an analysis of October housing sales data.
That puts New York City "very much in the middle of the pack," compared to other cities across the country, where home prices have dropped as much as 30 percent since last year, said Maureen Maitland, vice president of index services at Standard & Poor's. Since the data does not include condo or co-op units, the report primarily reflects home prices in the outer boroughs, Connecticut, New Jersey and Westchester County.
The sales prices of single-family homes across the country plummeted in value through October 2008, the most recent month for which data is available, with 14 of 20 metro areas measured by the report showing record rates of annual decline. Phoenix reported the largest annual decline with 32.7 percent, while Dallas fared the best, with a decline of 3 percent since October of 2007.
While some regions seem to be declining slower than others, none have shown a turnaround, Maitland said.
"Unfortunately, it's not a very happy story," she said. "A lot of people are looking for the beginning of the end, and it's just didn't happen this month."
But for New York at least, there's a silver lining. At 190.04, New York has the highest index value of any city measured by S&P, Maitland said, meaning that homes in New York have held their value better than other areas. The S&P/Case-Shiller indices were set at a value of 100 in January 2000, indicating that the typical single-family home in the New York metropolitan area has appreciated by 90 percent since then. Detroit, where average home prices are lower than they were in 2000, has the lowest index value, with 86.10.
New York is "still 90 percent above 2000 prices," Maitland said, noting that a typical home in the New York area is still worth almost double what it was eight years ago. "[New York City homes have] been able to hang on to a lot of the appreciation that they saw."
The comparatively high value of home prices in New York has to do with the strength of the local economy, she said, and the fact that limited space to build in New York has prevented the inventory overhang seen in Phoenix, Las Vegas and other Sunbelt areas.
But that may change now, with layoffs pending in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown.
"Is New York going to be able to hang on to [home price appreciation]?"she said. "That's a question for the future of New York."
DESCRIPTION:
Well maintained, elevator building
Fifth floor unit
Separate kitchen including appliances and new cabinetry
Modern bathroom, new fixtures
Large living room featuring a dining alcove area
Three storage closets
High ceilings
12' X 12' bedrooms, can fit a queen size bed and extra furniture
Both bedrooms have two large windows, southern exposure views
New hardwood floors
Washer and dryer in unit
Recently renovated apartment
Priced below market value
Excellent Chelsea location; near all transportation, restaurants, Flat Iron, Midtown, Union Square, Herald Square, Soho, Penn station, and Grand Central Station
As the recession takes its toll on all aspects of New York City life, one silver lining may be a drop in rental prices. Could this be a good time to search for a new apartment? And, a new option to renting an apartment may be emerging in Brooklyn – it’s called co-housing.
The commercial vacancy rate in Manhattan jumped to 10.2 percent in the fourth quarter this year, up from 7.12 percent in fourth-quarter 2007, according to Jones Lang LaSalle. It is the first time since the first quarter of 2004 that the vacancy rate has reached 10 percent, said James Delmonte, Jones Lang LaSalle's research director. Manhattan's inventory is at 424 million square feet, and starting next month, 11 Times Square's 1.1 million square feet will be added to the market. Much of the fourth quarter's increased vacancy comes from sublease space, which now accounts for more than one-third of the Class A Midtown market.
Kirk Henckels, who handles the high-end property division at Stribling & Associates, said that for a long time, the luxury market was supporting Manhattan real estate, but now the low end is seeing more buyers. Sales under $5 million are continuing, but at higher price points, there have been so few sales that no one can gauge the loss in apartment and townhouse values, Henckels said. Brokers said only a handful of deals above $8 million have gone into contract since October, and most of the closings in that price range have been for properties that went to contract earlier in the year.
Upper East Side NO FEE One Bedroom Rental - East 80S
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Jeffrey Ditri
610.781.8417
jeffrey@jadrealtygroup.com
LOCATION:
Upper East Side / East 85th Street
DESCRIPTION:
Well maintained, walk-up building
Separate kitchen including appliances and new cabinetry
Modern bathroom, new fixtures
Large living room featuring a glass block wall
10' high ceilings
Two storage closets
10' X 10' bedroom with a window
New hardwood floors
Recently new renovations
Live-in super
Priced below market value
Excellent Upper East Side location; near all transportation, restaurants, and Central Park
TRANSPORTATION:
LISTED RENT:
$1,725
CONTACT: Name: Jeffrey Phone: 610.781.8417
Upper East Side NO FEE One Bedroom Rental - East 80S
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Upper East Side Brand New One Bedroom - Below Market East 70S
For more information contact JAD Realty Group:
Jeffrey Ditri
610.781.8417
jeffrey@jadrealtygroup.com
LOCATION:
Upper East Side / East 72nd Street
DESCRIPTION:
Well maintained, walk-up building
Third floor unit
Brand new kitchen including granite counter tops and new appliances
Marble bathroom, new fixtures
Large living room featuring a southern exposure view, over looking tree lined street
Three storage closets
High ceilings
10' X 10' bedroom
New hardwood floors
Brand new renovations
Live-in super
Priced below market value
Excellent Upper East Side location; near all transportation, restaurants, Hunter College, Midtown, and Central Park
TRANSPORTATION:
LISTED RENT:
$1,595
CONTACT: Name: Jeffrey Phone: 610.781.8417
**NEW PRICE - RENT REDUCTION**
Upper East Side Brand New One Bedroom - Below Market East 70S
New rent-to-own programs are allowing tenants to use their rent toward down payments
In the rent-to-own program at the Decora in Williamsburg, all rent goes toward the down payment.
As the market sours and potential first-time buyers become more indecisive about whether it makes sense to plunk down money for a purchase, some developers are allowing them to hold off on the big decision.
Those developers, who are predominantly in Brooklyn, are trying to woo would-be buyers with deals that allow them to rent a unit in a condo building while at the same time putting their monthly rent checks toward a down payment.
The so-called "rent-to-own" programs, which started popping up in the last few months, collect the rent money in escrow until the end of the lease period.
Early last month, the real estate Web site Curbed.com reported that Toll Brothers was offering units at the first tower in their Williamsburg waterfront development Northside Piers on a rent-to-own basis. A week later, the site reported that another Williamsburg condo, the Decora on North 10th Street, was doing the same.
It turns out that they are not the only ones.
In Fort Greene, the Clarett Group is mulling doing the same thing for its condo, the Forté, where sales have been sluggish.
"Because of the overall economic climate, potential buyers are having trouble making decisions about whether to buy now," said David Von Spreckelsen, Toll Brothers' vice president.
"And even once they do decide, they are often having difficulty lining up mortgages that suit them," he added. "So, offering a rent-to-own scenario allows them to get into our building now, but allows them to make the ultimate decision later — and hopefully then, much of the confusion in the mortgage market will have abated.
"We are confident that once these potential buyers are living at Northside Piers, they will want to stay, and will become buyers," he said.
Von Spreckelsen said that at Northside Piers, potential buyers sign a one-year lease, but must be prequalified by a mortgage company to purchase the unit they will be leasing. If the renter decides they want to purchase, a portion of the rent they've been paying will go to a down payment on the condo.
The cut that goes toward the down payment depends on how quickly the tenant commits to buying.
The faster he or she decides, the more rent the developer diverts to the down payment, Von Spreckelsen explained.
The fine print on an advertisement for a rent-to-own unit at Northside Piers noted that 100 percent of the rent will go to closing costs if the tenant commits to buying the unit within six months, while 50 percent of the rent will go to toward closing costs if he or she decides to buy six to nine months after a lease is signed.
At the Decora, the rent-to-own program involves a 14-month lease, according to Justin Daly, the rental director for the Developers Group, the brokerage that represents the building.
Daly said the math works out so that rent on a Decora unit over 14 months equals 10 percent of the condo price — and all of the rent paid goes toward the down payment.
Decora's units start at $530,000, which means that a tenant who opts into the rent-to-own program at the building will have paid $53,000 over
14 months.
"Most people looking to do this want to buy," said Daly. "Otherwise, you're going to waste your money on a very high rent. It's an installment plan, and we think it appeals to people just out of grad or medical school who don't have enough savings to buy otherwise."
Elsewhere in Brooklyn, the Clarett Group is considering instating a rent-to-own program at the Forté, a 108-unit condominium building that is about one-third sold.
"It's interesting, because it's like a forced savings," said David Perry, the Clarett Group's director of sales.
Perry said Clarett is entertaining a program that would involve a renter deciding after six months whether to exercise their option to buy. From a developer's perspective, he said, there's not much risk involved with the program.
"The only potential risk I see is getting someone in the building who is basically renting there and is not a real purchaser," said Perry. "If that happens, you have to clean up the unit after they vacate and make it new again. But on the other hand, the rent they've paid can help pay for those costs."
Baltic House, the condo at 360 Baltic Street in Cobble Hill, has seven units up for rent on Streeteasy.com. According to Halstead Property, the project's exclusive broker, the rent-to-own program is now available for the rental units. Rents for three-bedroom units are $4,200 to $4,500 per month, two-bedrooms are going for $3,500 and one-bedroom apartments are $2,900.
Brokers say the down commercial market is a good time for companies to trade up to better buildings and better built-out spaces. A large downtown block of space that's available and fully built-out is Citigroup's 1.2 million square feet at 125 Broad Street, at South Street. Citigroup notified landlord Mack-Cali Realty Trust that it won't be renewing its space there at the end of 2009, and can make space available sooner as some of the floors are sitting empty.
Condo conversion development in the Financial District is slowing down. During the first nine months of this year, 2,278 converted condo units in FiDi went on the market. Coming up in 2009, there are only five conversion projects scheduled to open, according to the Downtown Alliance, all with less than 15 units each. The bulk of big residential projects expected to open in the area over the next two years are new developments, including a 189-unit building at 201 Pearl Street scheduled to open next year. Marketer Michael Shvo attributes the condo conversion slowdown to the cessation of tax abatements, the credit crisis and economic downturn.
REDUCED TO RENT - RENT STABILIZED ONE BEDROOM IN GRAMERCY PARK
EAST 17TH STREET AND IRVING PLACE
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Jeffrey Ditri
mobile: 610.781.8417
jeffrey@jadrealtygroup.com
LOCATION:
Gramercy / Union Square / Irving Place
DESCRIPTION:
Well maintained, walk-up building
Newly renovated kitchen including appliances and new cabinetry
Marble bathroom, new fixtures
Living room featuring an exposed brick wall
11' X 11' bedroom, can fit a queen size bed and extra furniture
Two storage closets
Wall of windows in bedroom, bright
Southern exposure view
New hardwood floors
Rent stabilized unit, priced below market value
Excellent Gramercy location; near all transportation, restaurants, Irving Place, the East VIllage, and Union Square
TRANSPORTATION:
LISTED RENT:
$1,595
CONTACT: Name: Jeffrey Phone: 610.781.8417
REDUCED TO RENT - RENT STABILIZED ONE BEDROOM IN GRAMERCY PARK
EAST 17TH STREET AND IRVING PLACE
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Chelsea/Flat Iron Two Bedroom Rental Available - Washer and Dryer!
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Jeffrey Ditri
mobile: 610.781.8417
jeffrey@jadrealtygroup.com
LOCATION:
Chelsea / Flat Iron / West 27th Street
DESCRIPTION:
Well maintained, elevator building
Fifth floor unit
Separate kitchen including appliances and new cabinetry
Modern bathroom, new fixtures
Large living room featuring a dining alcove area
Three storage closets
High ceilings
12' X 12' bedrooms, can fit a queen size bed and extra furniture
Both bedrooms have two large windows, southern exposure views
New hardwood floors
Washer and dryer in unit
Recently renovated apartment
Priced below market value
Excellent Chelsea location; near all transportation, restaurants, Flat Iron, Midtown, Union Square, Herald Square, Soho, Penn station, and Grand Central Station
TRANSPORTATION:
LISTED RENT:
$2,495
CONTACT: Name: Jeffrey Phone: 610.781.8417
*Brand New Listing*
Chelsea/Flat Iron Two Bedroom Rental Available - Washer and Dryer!
Please contact JAD Realty Group for showing times:
Massey Knakal announced that it has been retained to handle the sale of an East Village portfolio, 17 walk-up apartment buildings throughout the East Village. Fifteen of the buildings are mixed-use and the remaining two are purely residential. These buildings were originally purchased by developer Extell in 2006 for $72 million and then sold to Westbrook Partners for $97.5 million in 2007. Many of the retail and commercial tenants have since left the properties. The buildings are listed individually -- and
Rents in some Manhattan neighborhoods plummeted nearly 7 percent in November, according to a Manhattan rental market report released today by the Real Estate Group New York, while rental vacancies have skyrocketed in the months since Wall Street's meltdown.
Rental vacancies in November increased 7.5 percent from October, and 17 percent from September, the report shows.
The 17 percent is "a very large number," said Daniel Baum, COO of the Manhattan-based rental and sales real estate firm Real Estate Group. "It's a lot more inventory than we thought was out there."
He said the true figure may be even larger since many landlord don't list all the apartments they have available for rent, preferring to keep the true number of vacancies under wraps to help control asking rents and the pace of rentals.
To arrive at its figures, the Real Estate Group incorporates data from more than 10,000 listings culled from the company's proprietary database and other listings databases, such as On-Line Residential, also known as OLR.com.
While Manhattan rents are still jaw-droppingly high, they are dropping slightly across the board, as demand slackens along with the slowing economy. The average rent for a studio in a doorman building in Manhattan was $2,430, down from $2,471 in October, according to the report, one of the few that tracks changes in rents on a monthly basis. The average rent for a non-doorman studio was $2,005, down from $2,051 in the previous month. Doorman one-bedrooms rented for an average of $3,510, down from $3,550, while non-doorman one-bedrooms were $2,777, down from $2,789 in October. Finally, doorman two-bedrooms saw rents dip to $5,380 from $5,452, while non-doorman two-bedrooms fell to $3,844 from $3,876.
"Thirty-five hundred for a one-bedroom -- for someone who lost their job -- that's a tough pill to swallow," Baum said. "Even if you bring it down to $3,200, it's a tough pill to swallow. People are looking for ways to conserve money, and that's definitely affecting our rental market."
He added that an increasing number of available high-end rentals may be keeping average asking rents artificially high, since many renters are looking for cheaper apartments in the face of layoffs.
The steepest drops were in Gramercy Park, where the average asking rent for non-doorman studios fell 6.74 percent in November to $2,102, and 6.11 percent to $2,412 for doorman studios. Harlem was a close second, with non-doorman one-bedrooms dropping 6.43 percent in November, while rents in doorman one-bedrooms fell 5.31 percent. Non-doorman two-bedrooms in east Midtown fell 5.16 percent, and doorman two-bedrooms in west Midtown dropped 4.19 percent.
In the face of falling rents and a build-up of available apartments, landlords are beginning to panic, Baum said, adding that one landlord asked the Real Estate Group brokers to "just bring me bodies."
"People have more vacancies than they've had in more years than they can remember," Baum said. "It's got them concerned."
The problem goes back to this spring and summer, Baum said, when many landlords resisted lowering their rents despite decreased demand, as the economy showed the first signs of distress. Now, apartments that failed to rent are sitting on the market as we head into December, traditionally the slowest month of the year for real estate.
"Owners didn't pay enough attention to what was happening out there," Baum said. "We've had vacancies that have rolled over as demand is weakening. It's only compounded each month."
To cope with the situation, landlords are willing to do almost anything to rent their units, said Baum, from being more flexible with income requirements to paying brokers' fees to offering American Express gift cards to tenants. Baum said one landlord, the owner of roughly 50 New York City rental apartments, recently announced that pets would now be allowed, after years of prohibiting them. In another instance, a former client of the Real Estate Group's came to the firm for advice negotiating with his landlord for lower rent, and ultimately got his rent reduced to $7,000 a month, from $10,000 a month. "The landlord didn't want to take the risk of losing him as a tenant," Baum said.
All of these factors ultimately benefit renters, especially if they're currently looking for an apartment.
"December is going to be the month that landlords are willing to do whatever it takes to get you into an apartment," Baum said.
Sales started last year at the Jasper condo, at 114 East 32nd Street, between Park and Lexington avenues, but developer Harry Jeremias is now returning deposits to buyers and turning the building into a boutique hotel. Just 43 of the 80 units were in contract, and faced with an uncertain market and the need to provide millions of dollars to cover cost overruns, Jeremias decided to pull the project. The developer has entered into agreement with a European investment fund to convert the 18-story building into a 200-room hotel expected to open in a year. The hotel plans will keep some of the condo's features, like the pool, floors, fixtures and most of the lobby.
Landlords are starting to offer more amenities to keep tenants in their rental buildings. Manhattan Skyline Management is putting in a concierge service in all of its buildings. At the Octagon on Roosevelt Island, owned by developer Bruce Becker, residents are now being offered discounts at the on-site day care center, which is also being renovated. Water taxis are also in the works for the development. "We want to keep the buildings full and we want to be prudent," Becker said.
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