Bubble Wrap

Hamptons market report shows mixed bag

The Real Deal reports on the 3rd Quarter 2009 Homes Sales Report from Town & Country Real Estate. Amongst the findings is that volume of sales in the Hamptons has dropped only 2.5% from the previous year, from 257 to 251 transactions.

Five of the 11 East End markets analyzed in the report (all on the South Fork but for Shelter Island), Amagansett, Bridgehampton and East Hampton Village, Shelter Island and Westhampton, saw an increase in sales, with East Hampton Village showing the steepest climb in sales volume at 169 percent.

Deeds & Don'ts

Hamptons Cottages and Gardens looks at the mixed real estate market with pockets of activity entering into the Fall. Brokers are optimistic, but with prices not clearly going in one direction or the other, buyers are taking their time and looking at more properties than ever.

The current debate among buyers—and sellers—is what is market value is these days. Will it recover to old highs set in 2007 or will prices linger for a couple of years until the next big upturn—or downturn occurs? Those who still persist in overpricing their properties are ignoring world events.

Some pundits feel that significant appreciation is a long way off. Others are all too eager to see price spikes spiral upwards.

Market Reports: Spring Kinder to the Hamptons than Winter

Curbed Hamptons wraps up the Miller Samuel/Elliman market report on the Hamptons, which brings no big surprises. The report reveals mostly everything in a state of decline except the number of transactions, which is up from Winter.

Elliman cites ‘historic low mortgage rates and seasonal trends’ to explain the slight upturn in sales, while blaming declines expanded inventory, long marketing times and sellers who list homes at prices higher than ‘current conditions support’. (PriceUppers, that’s you.) When broken down by location, North of the Highway median sales price declined just 18.1% to $712,500 from the same time last year, but South of the Highway homes saw a 41.9% drop to $900,000. Noting the under-used dividing line, the Shinnecock Canal, it seems prices to the east fell 13.1% to $999,750, while west saw a steeper 20.3% drop from 2008 to $490,000.

Breaking the Hamptons' clubhouse mindset

The July issue of The Real Deal looks at the practices of the tight-knight group of brokers that control real estate in the Hamptons, which are seen as unethical by many.

During the real estate boom, as properties changed hands for eye-popping prices, many homeowners were blissfully unaware of unsavory behavior. But now that the market has come to a screeching halt, the region’s notorious lack of transparency is worsening the downturn, locals say.

The fact that the downturn hit Wall Street — the Hamptons’ lifeblood — so hard may, ironically, help change things for the better on the East End.

The Hamptons Stress Test

Vanity Fair’s Michael Shnayerson explores this year’s decidedly different Hamptons season, which is characterized by the multitude of stories each mansion and their famous owners can tell, along with shocked brokers and bottom feeders.

But something more fundamental than prices has dropped with the times. The outrushing of money from the Hamptons, like the outflow of water from Georgica Pond when the coastal barrier has been breached, has left a stench, like pond-bottom muck, of fear, anger, and quiet desperation. Titans have been brought low, fortunes lost, a world transformed. And through that muck, curling around one Hampton estate after another, is the slithering trail of Bernie Madoff.

Slow season yields shorter rental terms

27 East looks at this rental season and the new trend of partial season rentals emerging from landlords who won’t lower their prices and potential tenants looking for vast discounts. Although the rental season got off to a slow start, brokers now claim activity is picking up.

Jay Flagg, managing broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that thanks to the hectic May, his office has already booked more rental agreements in 2009 than it did in 2008, which was widely regarded as a strong rental season. But, like Mr. Manger, he said that the trend toward partial-season rentals means that far less money is actually changing hands in the transactions.

Hamptons Homes Drop Most Since Realtors Kept Records

Bloomberg reports on the Hamptons market, which has been particularly hard hit, with sales down 67% and median prices down almost 30% from a year ago.

The number of unsold homes in the Hamptons rose 15 percent to a record 1,673 in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to data compiled by New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Sales have declined the most in the 27 years that broker Town & Country Real Estate has kept records for the Long Island beach towns about 100 miles east of Manhattan.

Slowing Foreclosures May Mask Bredth of Woes

The Wall Street Journal reports on the changing foreclosure landscape. Reports out later this month will most likely show a decline or leveling off of foreclosure filings, but this is most likely due to new state and municipal laws that put a temporary moratorium on foreclosures. Critics of these laws say they are just covering up the deep housing crisis.

Several other states are following, including New York which passed a bill last week that requires lenders to send a preforeclosure notice to certain borrowers at least 90 days before foreclosure proceedings may be initiated.

Bloomberg Proposes Neighborhood Parking Permits

Crain’s reports a new piece of the Mayor’s congestion pricing plan Now, neighborhood parking permits?

Designed to give residents preferential parking treatment in their own neighborhoods, the plan would restrict parking in certain spaces during a 90-minute period for those without permits.

Under the proposal, which could come to fruition as early as next fall, individual neighborhoods could opt in to the program through their Community Board, with additional approval from their City Council member and borough president.

City officials hope the plan will prevent commuters from driving into neighborhoods and parking for the day, while using the subway to get into Manhattan. The proposal could be particularly beneficial for neighborhoods that include Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Long Island City, and the Upper East and West Sides of Manhattan.

Paulson Calls Housing Crisis Significant Risk to Economy

Wall Street Journal Online reports Treasury Secretary Endorses Standards for Mortgage Brokers, Expects More Declines in Housing Starts

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson offered a sobering view Tuesday of the pressure the housing market was having across the country, saying the decline stood “as the most significant current risk to our economy.”

Mr. Paulson even acknowledged that problems in credit, mortgage, and housing markets were much more severe than anticipated.

“The ongoing housing correction is not ending as quickly as it might have appeared late last year,” he said in a speech to Georgetown University Law Center, according to prepared remarks. “And it now looks like it will continue to adversely impact our economy, our capital markets, and many homeowners for some time yet.”

NYC not totally immune

Crain’s New York Business reports NYC braces for foreclosure surge

The number of New York City homeowners facing foreclosure is on track to reach the highest point in more than a decade.

Lenders have started foreclosure actions on 7,000 homes since January, according to the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project. By the end of the year, the number is expected to exceed 14,000, which would represent a 60% increase over 2006.

Gehry Playground at the Battery

From Gothamist, Frank Gehry Designs His First Playground for NYC

At the Battery Conservancy’s gala last night, Mayor Bloomberg and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe announced that Gehry would design his first playground in Manhattan. Benepe said, “It is fitting that the Battery, the birthplace of New York, will be home to another first Frank Gehry’s newest creation will be a truly innovative play experience for New Yorkers and visitors alike, for the young and the young-at-heart.”

City Got Stonewalled

From the New York Post, Apt. Bosses ‘Knew Collapse Was Near’

The collapse of a massive stone wall on the Henry Hudson Parkway two years ago could have been prevented if the property owner’s engineers had alerted the city to the danger and done more than try to tie the structure to a tree, a scathing city report has found.

A nearly two-year probe of the collapse at Castle Village in Washington Heights determined that the managers of the apartment complex and an engineering firm brought in to examine the wall knew the structure was at imminent risk of falling.

Pier 40 plan runs into wall of opposition

From Crane’s New York Business

A proposal by The Related Cos. to develop Pier 40 ran into stiff opposition at a public hearing held by the Hudson River Park Trust on Thursday night.

The hearing drew about 1,500 people to P.S. 41 on Thursday night, witnesses say. The crowd, rallied by a coalition of parents and community leaders who are against Related’s plans, spilled out of the school’s auditorium and into the street for the meeting, which started at 7 p.m. and continued past 10 p.m.

Top Five Price Cuts

Based on StreetEasy research, New York Magazine covers the top five price drops in The Year of the Price Cut

So is it a soft market, or isn’t it? The consensus is forming: Sellers just can’t overreach and expect a huge payout the way they did a couple of years ago. New York asked Streeteasy.com, an online database that gathers information on most listings in the city, to run the numbers and find the largest price drops of the year (leaving out mixed-use and multiple-unit buildings and new developments). Bargain-hunters and bonus-toters, this may be your moment.

Mayor's priorities for managing growth: more housing, parks and mass transit

Crain’s New York covered Bloomberg’s remarks made in a speech to the League of Conservative Voters in “Mayor Bloomberg sets goals for growing City” regarding his vision of how the city should manage its expected population growth to nine million by 2030.

That growth, coupled with an aging infrastructure, will take its toll on the city’s environment and require some sweeping changes. “Growth is a challenge that can produce great benefits, but only if we prepare for it and guide it,” said Mr. Bloomberg.

His top three goals are to create enough housing for the expected surge in population, to ensure there are enough parks and green space, and to add capacity to the regional mass transit system.

NYC Real Estate '06 Review

Over at the NY Post, Max Gross does a solid review of the NYC real estate market highlights from 2006. In The Big Picture: The Highs and Lows of 2006, and What to Expect in 2007 , Gross takes a good look at 15 CPW and other important developments, as well as the factors contributing to the overall tone of the market as we enter the new year.

And appraiser Miller Samuel reports that the average price of a Manhattan apartment ($1,323,923) was 7.5 percent higher in the first three quarters of 2006 than the first three quarters of 2005, although units have stayed on the market an average of 35 days longer this year.

“You saw the separation of the men from the boys,” says Shaun Osher, CEO of Core Group Marketing. “Well-conceived product is selling as well as ever. Not-so-well-conceived product is not selling.”

Whitney and City sign agreement for High Line site

The NY Times reported today, in Whitney’s Expansion Plans Are Shifting South, to the Meatpacking District that while subject to review, an agreement has been reached for a new art museum at the southern end of the High Line.

The Whitney recently reached a conditional agreement on Wednesday night with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to buy the city-owned site, at Gansevoort and Washington streets, officials at the museum said yesterday. Plans call for the new museum to be at least twice the size of the Whitney’s home on Madison Avenue at 75th Street, they said, and to be finished within the next five years.

South Bronx Greenway gets $30M and green light

Crain’s NY Business reports on the latest South Bronx initiative to clean-up the Hunts Point area and provide better access to the waterfront.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a $30 million plan on Monday for the South Bronx Greenway, a key component of a broader vision to revitalize the Hunts Point Peninsula.

As part of a wider plan for Hunts Point, which was first outlined in 2005, the city will implement the “Greenway plan” with four short-term projects and additional improvements that will add 1.5 acres of open space and 2.3 miles of pedestrian routes.

When it’s completed, the South Bronx greenway will encompass 1.5 miles of new waterfront greenway, 8.5 miles of new green streets, and nearly 12 acres of new waterfront open space.

Governors Island Reprimer

In New Fake Plans for Governors Island Unveiled! Curbed follows the spin-anything-you-can, keep-hope-alive news from the plan-less island.

let’s spirit across the bay to Governors Island, which is still seeking some sort of development plan months after the four proposals drawn up last year got brutally shot down.