Real Estate Trends

Braving the Elements

On March 6th, Read More

Construction Activity in New York Remains Steady

While the year 2002 was marked by the economic ups and downs of a turbulent stock market, the lingering effects of September 11th and fears over new terrorist attacks and impending war in the Middle East, the real estate market and the construction industry showed remarkable stability. Read More

Living Downtown

Eventually, Manhattan's lower tip could have an economically diverse population, a variety of new retail shops to service them, and more green space. If things go as Mayor Michael Bloomberg hopes, that is. Today, the region's weekday streets turn dark and empty shortly after the sun goes down, while on weekends, they teem with thousands of World Trade Center site tourists. Stabilizing and revitalizing Lower Manhattan is a task that is occupying the efforts of a score of government and community organizations; some focusing on attracting and retaining the downtown residential community, others on reestablishing commercial concerns below Houston and Canal Streets. Read More

You Can Go Home Again

As we head towards the second quarter of 2003, the world is a very different place than it was at the turn of this new century. Back then, New York City was riding high on the crest of the "New Economy,"� toasting success in a rocket-fueled, dot-com stock market, making money hand over fist, and sinking multimillions into super-luxe, showpiece apartments in Manhattan's most fashionable neighborhoods. Read More

Let's Go Expo

Once again, the time is drawing near to mark your calendars and program your Palm Pilots to remind you of The Cooperator's annual Co-op and Condo Expo, which is descending on Midtown's New York Hilton, 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, on March 6th for a jam-packed day of information-sharing, free advice, new products and service demos, networking opportunities, raffles, door prizes, and (of course) lots of freebies. Read More

Supersize Me!

Here in the land of birdfeeder-sized apartments (otherwise known as New York City), people will do just about anything for more space. And while sordid tales of deception and skullduggery abound, there are some legitimate means of expanding your domestic sphere of influence, and merging two apartments into one "megapartment"� is one way to do it. But how do you go about performing this sort of architectural surgery? What will my co-op board have to say about it? What will this do to your property values, shares, and maintenance fees? Well, fear not - included here is everything you wanted to know about merging apartments but were afraid to ask. Read More

Let's Go Expo

Once again, the time is drawing near to mark your calendars and program your Palm Pilots to remind you of The Cooperator's annual Co-op and Condo Expo, which is descending on Midtown's New York Hilton, 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas, on March 6th for a jam-packed day of information-sharing, free advice, new products and service demos, networking opportunities, raffles, door prizes, and (of course) lots of freebies. Read More

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The NORCs Are Coming!

The population of the United States is graying. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of Americans aged 60 and older grew by almost 4 million. Improved health care and resources are enabling people to lead longer, healthier lives, forcing many co-op and condo buildings to confront the issues of an aging ownership. In complexes where at least 50 percent of the residents have one family member over 60, a growing elderly population may now require specialized support, services and facilities that may not have been planned for when the typical population of the building, and even the building itself, was much younger. Read More

Market Review and Forecast

After an era of giddy figures–with the average price of an apartment in Manhattan closing in on $1 million–New York City’s residential real estate market has started to lose its sense of certainty. Any broker asked about the state of affairs in mid-2001 would’ve responded things are just fine, thanks. None denied the boom was over, but they would invariably maintain the almost fail-safe optimism that characterized Manhattan’s residential market following the astonishing trends of 1999 and 2000. However, while evidence of an outright panic following the World Trade Center attacks didn’t materialize at the time, recent reports confirm that the real estate market did indeed take a hit in the fourth quarter of 2001. Read More

Residential Forecast

No market can continue to sustain the astonishingly high prices that New York cooperatives and condominiums brought last year. The moderation of prices we are experiencing in 2001 represents a return to a more rational marketplace in which demand still chases a limited supply of product. Read More

Cross-Country Real Estate

The new millennium has taken the real estate industry for a pretty wild ride. Nothing but up, up and away have gone prices, with inventory availability down to a severe low, keeping it interesting. Yet real estate is a still hot commodity…and a solid investment. Despite last year’s nail-biting stock market fluctuations, patience-trying political transition and worry-provoking issues concerning the national economy, real estate has stood tall through it all, especially in major cities. In fact, economists say we’re enjoying one of the healthiest real estate markets in history, and anticipate no chance of a downward cycle within the next two years. Add to the mix solid job growth in major metro areas plus lowered interest rates to inspire even skeptical buyers, and you can bet real estate will continue to weather the storm as a top performer as predicted. Read More

Is it Really a Trend?

From the outside, it’s impossible to tell a co-op from a condo–there’s no physical difference between the two. However, as more and more are considering the concept of co-op to condo conversion, real questions about its possible benefits and downsides–indeed the overall feasibility of such an undertaking–arise, starkly pointing out the differences between the two forms of ownership. And as it turns out, more and more experts purport the benefits of condo ownership. Read More

Hot Enough For You?

The following is the text of a speech Adrienne Albert, president of Manhattan real estate brokerage firm The Marketing Directors, gave at the monthly luncheon meeting of Associated Builders and Owners this past September. Read More

Survey Says!

Manhattan’s Upper East Side, at least in the prime real estate areas, is chock-full of parks and greenery, but lacks a convenient subway line. Wall Street area residents, on the other hand, have great subway accessibility–but not much of anything else. Read More

A New Millennium or More of the Same?

In the final years of the 20th Century, buyers of Manhattan residential real estate faced the Herculean task of facing the capital gains tax law, which eliminated the "rollover" of capital gains from the sale of one primary residence to the purpose of another, severely constricted the transfer of properties in the high-end, upscale Manhattan market. The resulting shortage of product, coupled with booming equity markets and abundance of available funds, has brought about the most competitive market for housing in this area since the World War II era. Read More

Round-Up of 1990's

By all accounts, 1999 was a banner year for New York real estate. On virtually all fronts, 1999 broke all previous records both in the market in general, and here at William B. May. Prices at every level have increased. Large apartments were in the biggest demand and were being bid up incredibly; townhouses sold in record quantities; new construction, especially of larger units hasn’t been able to keep up with demand; the popularity of one-bedrooms reached an all-time high; and studios also increased in price dramatically, in some cases doubling what they might have sold for just two years previously. Read More

The Cooperator: 1999: The Year in Review and What's in Store for

1999: The Year in Review and What's in Store for the New Millenn

1999: The Year in Review:Preparing for New Millennium

Round-Up of 1999's Read More

A Look Back at a Wild Year

 The year 2008 is likely to go down in history as one of the most disappointing  (or maybe flat-out alarming) for the U.S. economy in general. To be fair, the  city hasn’t suffered as much as most of the nation has—but the co-op and condo market has not escaped the crisis unscathed. Read More

A Look Back at an Active Year

As 2007 came to a close, it seemed that the real estate market in nearly every part of the country had cooled. But in New York City, although movement had slowed, the market did not take a downturn as many had expected. Co-ops and condos continued to move—although perhaps without the buying and selling fervor that characterized the earlier part of the decade. Read More

The Battle for Brooklyn

East of the busy intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues in Downtown Brooklyn, where the Long Island Rail Road and almost 10 subway lines intersect, one finds, in the shadow of the landmark Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, the Vanderbilt Rail Yard. At this rather unattractive open-air facility, trains that terminate at the LIRR's Brooklyn terminal rest between rush hours are cleaned and serviced. Read More

New Economic Changes the Game

 Despite the collapse in housing prices in much of the country and a definite  slowdown in sales, new residential development in New York City—and Manhattan in particular—continues, though at a much more modest pace than in recent years. The Big Apple  may not be experiencing the all-out freeze on new growth that’s stalled other markets, but the impact of the mortgage crisis and financial  meltdown is definitely being felt in the form of fewer new projects, slow sales  in projects near completion, halts to some new condos in the pipeline, and a  much tougher market for developers trying to get financing for new buildings. Read More

Moderating Along with the Market

As the housing market boomed in the early parts of the last decade, apartments in New York City seemed to be snapped up mere days (sometimes mere hours) after being put on the market. As the trend continued, thousands of people set out to get their real estate license and become professional brokers in hopes of cashing in on the frenzied market. Read More

Back to the Future

An old adage of the real estate game speaks of the importance of "location, location, location," meaning that value goes up (or down) depending on where a property for sale is located. The hot 'location' in New York is constantly moving. Also moving is the overall real estate landscape of a shifting economy and the changing needs of new demographics. Read More

The Sky is Falling...Prices, Too.

 On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers investment bank went under in the largest  bankruptcy of all time. The economy was already on the decline, other august  companies had already foundered, and both presidential candidates were  proclaiming the situation as the worst economic crisis to face the U.S. since  the Great Depression. Read More

Defying an Uncertain Market

When one looks at the real estate market in New York City—which, excluding such homeowners’ havens as Bay Ridge, Bayside and Staten Island, usually means the apartment market—one sees a picture similar to last year. All over the country, one hears about “the real estate bubble bursting,” but that metaphor doesn’t seem to have reached New York yet. Read More

The Sky's the Limit

While the real estate market across the country has cooled in general, it's still going strong in New York. The New York City market has always stood apart from the rest of the country, for reasons that everybody here practically knows by heart: limited space, high demand, lots of people with lots of money, and highly desirable, one-of-a-kind properties. Whether buyers hope to reside in historic buildings or state-of-the art modern architecture, New York's real estate market without question offers some of the most sought-after properties in the world. Read More

Staying Afloat in the Co-op/Condo Market

 Bad economic news is pretty much inescapable these days. You can’t turn on the TV without hearing about another round of layoffs or plummeting  consumer confidence. The stock market is a roller coaster, retirement funds are  shedding value, the housing market has gone mad and each day seems more  uncertain than the last. Read More

Changing Markets, Evolving Expectations

In the 1950s, televisions were pieces of furniture the size of deep freezers. In 2008, TVs are flat and hang on a wall. The 50’s were about jukeboxes; the 80’s saw the Walkman and CD player and, today, it’s the small-but-mighty iPod. And computers? In the 1950s, they took up a whole room. Today, they are held in the palm of your hand. Read More

Apartments Sell—But Who's Buying?

Thirty-eight of the 400 individuals on Forbes magazine's list of the richest Americans—almost ten percent—call New York City home. All thirty-eight are billionaires. Some of them, like Ralph Lauren and Donald Trump, are household names. Two of them are Rockefellers. One of them, Michael R. Bloomberg, is the mayor. Read More

Not Everyone In Favor of Flip Taxes

 Everyone is feeling the crunch of the ongoing recession and as building  communities look for ways to raise revenue without adding to their residents’ current financial worries with large assessments, flip taxes are becoming a hot  topic. Read More

The Process of Building Residential Housing

If one aspect of New York has remained constant since the city’s founding, it’s that nothing remains constant. New York’s own Washington Irving, the writer for whom Irving Place is named, groused in his September years that the city he recalled from his youth no longer existed. Too much had changed, he lamented. And that was in the 1850s, before the Civil War, skyscrapers, and Donald Trump. Read More

Smart Choice In Hard Times? Maybe, Maybe Not

 For a building to run in accordance with the law and to deliver its owners and  tenants the rights they deserve, good management is crucial. Most co-ops and  condos hire a management company to provide the guidance they require;  management companies make it their business to know the current rules and  regulations for the buildings they handle, and provide services ranging from  cleaning the lobby to signing off on multi-million dollar service contracts. Read More

The Industry's Biggest Trade Show Returns

Spring means many things to many people—but for anyone involved in the tri-state area's residential real estate industry, The Cooperator's 21st Annual Co-op & Condo Expo—to be held this year on Tuesday, April 29th on three floors of the Hilton New York—is as much a part of the season as budding trees and warmer temperatures. Read More