SE Index up for May 2011

i think the answer will depend on how well the nouveau riche chinese fair as their property markets cool. their supposedly at risk for a credit crunch of their own. all it will take is for the rest of the world to be a bit more protectionist. if austerity is the soup of the next 2-3 yrs, you can be sure china will need to tap on their warchest of reserves to bail their shadow financial industry and their counterparties as the world demands less of its goods. we already know europe/britain is toast at the moment. nyc finance is bouncing back but it's already bounced quite a bit. there is so much anger in the world that youve got to figure policymakers will fight tooth and nail to convince those with savings to spend -- this means manipulating the stock markets. with the huge boon low rates confer to earnings statements, these two forces will put a floor on the world indexes, and barring outright mass protests and civil uprisings (which actually are occurring outside of the M.E. as well, most notably in some parts in Britain as recently as last week, not to mention in the periphery of europe), things should stay about where they are. balance sheet recessions can only be broken through increasingly bigger bets on the extention of credit. while there is massive supply to contend with, manhattan is but an island after all, so it will likely get spared given that the banks will figure of all the loans to be forced to make*, manhattan loans are likely the safest. irony. im hopeful, but not expecting anything more than flat prices. if jumbo loand supply gets cut off like it has in toher parts of the country, it'd be a slam dunk that it's a sucker's rally as the bulk of the foreigner buying is behind us for the intermediate term imo.

*you can be sure they get heat about this everyday in their lobbying sessions with politicians.

In the US, when a bubble deflates... people eat more crispy cream... IN CHINA when a bubble deflates the top fifty officials "caught" embezzling get hung on national TV.

Then the mass go after the young punk driving a Porsche and beat him to death. Then they go burn that punk's house and then go rape his wife and orphan his children. Then anyone who bitches => disappears.

The powers that be, jump on the bandwagon lest they get beaten to death... the society "cleanses" themselves and then ALL the history of this repression gets repressed.

IMHO, more chinese are buying in foreign countries bc of this very fear. The income gap is getting too large to ignore... the funniest shit is that these Chinese if and when they jump ship to NYC will have ZERO income producing assets/education and the first order of business is to sell their NYC RE holdings. Enjoy!

I think it's neither a sucker's rally nor the start (or end) of anything.
If you look at the index, it's been typically revised downward, so we have the monthly appearance of this nice incline yet the graph has shown almost no movement for the last 13 months. The index has been crawling around 1.84-1.87 for over a year now. We had our bottom (at 1.75) between October 2009 and January 2010, a reflation in the Spring of 2010, and nothing. The volume is not great, but not terrible either: holding its own against 2010, up compared to 2009, so pointing at a slow hiss rather than a blow up, and price adjustments via inflation rather adjustments. Of course, all bets are off if we experience a major financial hit.
2010 - 2011
January 463 - 365
February 458 - 364
March 518 - 444
April 541 - 477
May 531 - 508
June 711 - ???

To put it in historical perspective, ALL the index values since March 2009 til now have been circumscribed to the index value between March and June of 2005. Our bottom? a tiny bit higher than February 05. Our great big reflation? a bit lower than June 05. That feeling of excitement? just like watching paint dry.

>Then the mass go after the young punk driving a Porsche and beat him to death. Then they go burn that punk's house and then go rape his wife and orphan his children. Then anyone who bitches => disappears.

Good thing, Mr. w67thstreet Porsche driver, that you are a renter. Another plus for renting. When w67thstreet is beat to death, and his house is burned, wife is raped, and his monkey children are orphaned, at least the wife? and children won't have lost a house, because it was rented.

Maly, what are these numbers?

2010 - 2011
January 463 - 365
February 458 - 364
March 518 - 444
April 541 - 477
May 531 - 508
June 711 - ???

Interesting observation on being stuck in a short 2005 window. I guess that's what happens if a single year spans a crazy-large 20% rise.

Personal attack?

Cause......................you got nothing

...................... ZERO

No brain for intelectual debate.....just making noise from the bottom of the class

>intelectual debate

Looks like Manhattan condo sales volume numbers from SE.

Yes, it's the volume numbers month by month, comparing the first half of 2010 to the first half of 2011.

I think Manhattan is back to 2005 levels while the rest of the country is back to 2002 levels.

First in fashion, last outta bubble. Nyc, Awesome! $500psf. No doubt.

Nada, It is going up at the rate of inflation at least (my biggest reason to buy - with 3 times leverage even more). It is the same buy vs rent calculation. Most people do not care about getting risk returns of 10% of their down payment - regardless of whether they should or not. The same way, people are paying an average of $5 per sq foot per month on an average in Manhattan prime areas for ok rental buildngs with doorman. Luxury at least $6- regardless of deals you may have been able to find. BTW very happy to lock in 5 year rates pretty close to 3 percent at all in cost (including minor reno to bring it to mid-high end reno eqt quoted at 250 per sq ft on this board) of $1100 per sq ft.

i wouldnt brag mercer. youre gonna get stuffed when rates reset in 5yrs. let's hope your tax man is that good.

We always knew that w67thstreet was talented. But we didn't know he was also a contributor to the NY Post. Look for yourself:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/monkey_shoots_himself_XJduonBjHkp4QNoW873MSL

"Most people do not..."

Here's what I don't get. Lots of people believe they can do better than 3% returns and find 3% returns for long-term risky assets a joke. Hell, ConEd is a govt-regulated monopoly whose inflation-plus-improvements regulated pricing implies a pretty easy path to 7-9% returns. Go back to 2009, and it was 10+%. And lots of people do better than whatever worst-deal rentals you like to find. We've got apt23 overlooking Central Park from a terrace at $5 a sq ft, people in $3500-$4000 a sq ft Time Warner 60th floor park view apts at $8 a sq ft, people in prime-location / high-end / high-floor / awesome-light lofts at $4.5 a sq ft, newly-renovated corner apts overlooking Wash Sq Park at $4.5 a sq ft, funky awesome-light walkup artist lofts in the West Village going for $3.

You obviously worked hard to find a nice place to buy, paying the best price the market will allow, setting yourself up for maximum upside given the options. Why is it when it comes to investing or finding a place to rent, you assume incompetence for yourself? Do you really feel that these things are only for others, but not for you?

3% returns for an investment that can drop 20% or more in a year... not good.

They're not investing, they're consuming and rationalizing that they can afford it. The dp is key money they might or might not get back, but it's worth it to them because a- it's not that much money relatively, and b- they enjoy owning. I've had that conversation about owning a car in the city. To me, it's no-brainer: if you don't use your car at least 10X a month, you're better off using Zipcar. With the cost of the garage, the lease, the insurance, the repairs & maintenance, you're looking at $1,200/month for one or two weekends. Why bother, when you can rent a different car every time, and never have to worry about changing the tires? The answer is that $600 a month is not that much money, and they like the idea that they own a car, which they could drive any time they want, even though in reality they only use it twice a month.

Good analogy...

Vacation homes often work the same way.... for the amount some folks I know spend, they could spend twice as many nights in a 5 star hotel...

You're not really financially rich until you spend irrationally on a couple of luxury items.

ha

Nada, Why do not you post 5 current 2 bed room listings in prime manhattan (no fidi, 42nd and 10th, 1st or york avenue, columbia area etc, les, chinatown) less than 5 minutes walk from the subway with doorman, elevator, good renovated condition, long-term (2 years at least) rentals, between 1100-1600 square footage (with floor plans, some dimensions and a real address) to give us a current feel of the rental market. I doubt that they will be less than $5 per REAL sq foot ($4.5 per sq ft per month per stated sq foot) for decent apartement (luxury and 9 foot or higher ceilings even more). Non doorman will be a little less. Anecdotes and braggadocio do not make the market. Real current offerings do. We have no way to verify the truth.
Renters, Can you please help by sharing your experience about price per REAL sq foot if you rented recently for less than $8K per month in prime manhattan?

$3.6/mo/sft in Tribeca. Non doorman loft. Re-signing for $3.7.

Thanks Malthus. Renovated, elevator, real 2 bed rooms with windows?

Malthus, do you have a ceiling? How about a toilet you don't hand pump. How about running water? Can you build a plaster dildo into the wall? How many miles to the nearest whole foods? R there any minorities living next to you?

Will Ollie's deliver to your door or do you have to meet them at a 'safe' corner?

My name is mercer, I've lost my downpayment. Can someone please help me find her? It answers to 'precious'. Thxs

We haven't yet seen a monkey able to reproduce Shakespeare, but wee have gotten an ape to write half coherently on Streeteasy. One small step for primate-kind.

W67: If the wife rides the stationary bike fast enough we have enough juice to power the transistor radio.

300: elevator, 2 BR, windows.

lmao w67...rofl

rofl? rolling on the floor laughing? like a dog?

:]...i love dogs

w67, Your comment is funny. I am not the least bit offended by it (some other posters may be) as I realize that I posted a bullish view on a bearish board.

"Nada, Why do not you post..."

Because I am not in that market at the moment and don't want to waste a few hours finding the handful of well-priced-and-will-be-rented-imminently listings in the sea of been-on-the-market-for-months listings. Besides, every time someone post something, you always find some lame excuse. See your disbelief / inquisition of malthus above.

So there's malthus at $3.6 for non-doorman elevator loft in TriBeCa with 2BRs AND windows. Do you think he's lying? Is that sort of thing only for others, but not you? Or are you thinking "I bet he doesn't have a Sub-Zero fridge; I'm sure if he had that, it'd be $6 instantly."

I know you think I have this magic ability to find unbelievable rental deals for myself that the average person cannot. You're right, but I'm really off the deep end. If I normalize to your definition of "decent apartment" prime Manhattan $1000-$1100 a sq ft space based on conservative sale comping, I pay $2.5 a sq ft. With a stinkin' Sub-Zero.

Now I'm good, but I'm nowhere near 2x better than what a normal person could find with some effort.

inonada
2 minutes ago
ignore this person
report abuse "Nada, Why do not you post..."

Because I am not in that market at the moment and don't want to waste a few hours finding the handful of well-priced-and-will-be-rented-imminently listings in the sea of been-on-the-market-for-months listings. Besides, every time someone post something, you always find some lame excuse. See your disbelief / inquisition of malthus above.

So there's malthus at $3.6 for non-doorman elevator loft in TriBeCa with 2BRs AND windows. Do you think he's lying? Is that sort of thing only for others, but not you? Or are you thinking "I bet he doesn't have a Sub-Zero fridge; I'm sure if he had that, it'd be $6 instantly."

I know you think I have this magic ability to find unbelievable rental deals for myself that the average person cannot. You're right, but I'm really off the deep end. If I normalize to your definition of "decent apartment" prime Manhattan $1000-$1100 a sq ft space based on conservative sale comping, I pay $2.5 a sq ft. With a stinkin' Sub-Zero.

Now I'm good, but I'm nowhere near 2x better than what a normal person could find with some effort.

33 comments

"don't want to waste a few hours..."

Why not nada? Finally decide to become a productive person>? You've wasted plenty of time here, arguing your inane points with complete strangers. Why not indulge this one>?

Putz

300_mercer, here's a couple I found rather quickly (some have pretty nice outdoor space):

http://www.halstead.com/rental/ny/manhattan/tribeca/11-lispenard-street/1980542
$3.9/sqft
http://www.corcoran.com/property/listing.aspx?Region=NYC&listingid=2166209
$4.7/sqft
http://www.elliman.com/new-york-city/manhattan/flatiron-district-apartments/sky-house--11-east-29-street--unit-21a/11-east-29-street/pdpsffv
$4.9/sqft

http://www.bondnewyork.com/nyc_apartment_listing_43765.htm?page=details&id=43765
$5/sqft
http://www.elliman.com/new-york-city/manhattan/chelsea-apartments/campiello-collection--151-west-17-street--unit-3h/151-west-17-street/gulokms
$4.5/sqft

nada, I would honestly pay you to help me find a rental next time I'm in the market.

I was just thinking the same thing. Nada, would you mind writing your how-to-get-a-great-rental manual?

And you should definitely charge for it. hones will lose his mind.

@Malthus. I'm surprised you were able to bring a stationary bike up the stairs ;)

@jimnutz..... Double dongle putz to you. You rental key sherpa.

@mercer. Bull/bear? U think we are talking about how to punish a 11yo for pocketing some $.05 lollipops? Flmaoz. W67 is talking about the evils of raping, killing and genocide of an entire generation of people. And now that the jig is up, the powers that be have decided if we just slow down the raping, killing and genocide we can all stay in power for a few more years and book our profits to cash!

At bubble minus 15% prices, it's a zero sum game. Your seller thanks you as does his future spawn.

I had written some stuff on another thread, but I'll make a summary here free of charge.

1. Wait until the ideal window to begin your search, which is the last possible moment. For condos, this'll be something like 6-7 weeks before your target move-in date. The point here is to be able to go into negotiations with an implicit "I'm the last shot you have of having a tenant occupy your place come Jan 1". With condos, there's a 1 week window to determine a place, a 1 week window to stamp out a lease, and 2-4 week lead time on approval from the condo board (though it can often be sooner). At 6-7 weeks out, that's extremely tight on "being sure you have a place to move into at the end of the month" and pretty much no one else will go any tighter.

2. Come the week of your search, scour StreetEasy with as wide a net as possible. I skip craigslist, NY Times, rental buildings, and rental brokers. You don't get all the inventory from SE, but it's the most bang for the buck in terms of time. I start with an extremely wide net (say several hundred listings), do a super-quick filtering to the top 100 or so. This amounts to just getting rid of the "crap that no one would touch" listings. It should take no more than 15 seconds to reject things, but keep an eye out for poorly-marketed gems in your filtering. From this 100, the spend some more time to filter down to say 20 places you like best. This whole process should take a few or several hours.

3. Prepare form emails to brokers at all 20 places, picking a date early in the week (like early Tue morning), describing yourself and that you are interested in seeing listing X for date Y sometime in the next few days & if they could let you know their availability. Send them all out at the same exact moment. Within an hour or two, you'll be deluged with 10+ responses (by day-end, it'll be 15+). This is good. Given availability and location, pack viewings tightly back-to-back. Like 4 places between 8:00 and 10:00 in the morning before you go to work, 4 places between 5:30 and 7:30 after work. The beauty of mid-week is that it might be a pain work-wise for you, but brokers' schedules are completely open and therefore can accomodate a time like 9:10AM that allows you place viewings back-to-back with 5 minute walking times in between. There'll be some scragglers that will be harder to schedule, but the bulk can be banged out. Viewing everything for the first time should take several hours, and you should have 15 of 20 places seen.

4. Once you've seen the majority of your list of 20 after a few days, formulate your form offer email to the top few (I did 5 or 6). Say how you liked the place, how it's one of a few places you're most interested in (hint, hint -- you've got competition), details on what a great tenant you make financially & otherwise, blah-blah. Put in the price & terms you like, don't be afraid of asking for too much. I came in at 10-20% off asking price in all cases (this was late 2010 after the market had supposedly recovered), got responses in all cases, and in about half the cases the responses were closer to the offer than the ask. Send the offers out simultaneously to all places.

5. With simultaneous offers, you'll get simultaneous responses. This is good. Because you will have backups, you know what you can push for. If some place is willing to play ball at say $3500, that's the number to beat. If someone doesn't give you a better deal, you can always go with the $3500. So you negotiate softly with the $3500, knowing you have a $3700 backup. And you can negotiate hard with $3700 knowing you have a $3500 backup. Use the few days of negotiating time for doing backup viewings at places that are willing to play ball to your satisfaction.

6. Once you've got your favorite, get a lease signed promptly and keep the a backup or two warm conscientiously during this process. Nothing like "Hey buddy, I told you I'm a straight shooter and am going with your place above the others, but if you want to hemm and haww on the terms you agreed to three days ago, you're going on my shitlist and I'm gonna start talking to the others again."

FYI, the $2.5 normalized-ppsf number was a large outlier even by my standards. It was a combination of being the best-priced thing to begin with, plus a willingness to play ball very close to my 15%-below-ask offer. The next best options (of which there were several) were in the $3.5 normalized-ppsf range, like malthus's place.

While I don't deny the existence of places asking $5 normalized-ppsf, these don't even come close to making the top-100 list. And while finding a $2.5 place and several $3.5 places might be extreme, I'm guessing most people can find one place at $3.5 with reasonable effort. My search & negotiations & everything took 20 hours total.

Thanks!

> My search & negotiations & everything took 20 hours total.

Sounds like time well spent...

Who is Nada and how do we hire him? :)

Nada is someone whose job begins after 10am and ends before 5:30.

>Wait until the ideal window to begin your search, which is the last possible moment. For condos, this'll be something like 6-7 weeks before your target move-in date. The point here is to be able to go into negotiations with an implicit "I'm the last shot you have of having a tenant occupy your place come Jan 1".

>From this 100, the spend some more time to filter down to say 20 places you like best.

So, 100 condos, 20 of which you like, all available in your price range, and within the exact time frame you want to move in.

>If some place is willing to play ball at say $3500, that's the number to beat. If someone doesn't give you a better deal, you can always go with the $3500. So you negotiate softly with the $3500, knowing you have a $3700 backup. And you can negotiate hard with $3700 knowing you have a $3500 backup.

All of these condos of course are identical in all respects, except price and ownership, right?

>Nothing like "Hey buddy, I told you I'm a straight shooter and am going with your place above the others, but if you want to hemm and haww on the terms you agreed to three days ago, you're going on my shitlist and I'm gonna start talking to the others again."

Uh oh. The "shit list".

So you tell the party they might get onto the shit list, and you still want to get into a 1-2 year landlord/tenant relationship with that party? Brilliant.

Hfs...you're jealous.

Very unbecoming.

inonada - great piece! I am bookmarking this thread for future reference.

Hey columbiacounty, the apartment you saw that had a shower in the window that drove to rant about it on streeteasy, did that go on your "shit list"?

Also, I was just wondering, the outhouse you have up in columbia county, is there a window there?

Pathetic. Too bad for you.

Google search for columbia county outhouse reveals:

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Toilet - Columbia County NY, New York Local Yellow Pages by Yellowbookwww.yellowbook.com/yellow-pages/?...columbia+county%2C+ny - CachedResults 1 - 10 of 236 – Results for "toilet" in "Columbia County, NY" ... County Outhouses & Septic Tank Service Inc. 223 PO BoxGhent, NY 12075 (map) ...

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Conveniently located on Route 9 in Valatie,, NY Golden Harvest has helped make Columbia County synonymous with big, fresh apples for 4 generations. ...

Does this make you feel smart?

Columbiacounty, when you searched for a rental, how did you get taken to an apartment with a window in the shower, knowing that you would still feel the repercussions of it years later?

columbia, don't you wish you had inonada's advice when you were searching? How did you get so taken advantage of?

Wow.

Very impressive.

Does your family still check in with you on occasion?

Keep it going.

You are blowing us away.

shut the window, then your frail self won't be blown away.

Hey, how's the arbitration going?

Is this how you add value?

You are certainly showing up nada.

I don't give false hope to people by leading them down a pretend path. Even here in NYC, there aren't going to be 20 near identical apartments that fit one person's particular price range, within the exact period of time required for move-in. I don't lead people to believe that you can play nasty "hardball" with condo owners (who are a very different breed from institutional landlords - to the condo owners, their tenant is personal).

I don't tell a renter who is renting a studio on a first floor of a co-op, that his or her experience is similar to the experience of someone looking for a $23,000 - $27,000 / month apartment.

I don't talk about my big "bazooka" on negotiation skills.

But of course you wouldn't know one way or the other, either. When you went to find a rental, you were taken to apartments that you yourself acknowledge are embarassments. After losing your money in the stock market, selling at the market low, destroying your career and prospects and burning your bridges, and being estranged from your family, you are no shining example for people to follow here.

As noted, you're jealous.

Hilarious.

Jealous of inonada or you?

Jealous.

Not becoming.

No longer only about you.

Jealous of your impotence and incontinence? Jealous of your poor financial decisions or disasterous business decisions? Jealous of your estrangement from your family or your closeness with w67thstreet?

Nobody responds to you except me.

Everyone is impressed with nada.

No one is interested in you.

Poor, poor you.

So you pick up after nada?

Everyone likes nada like everyone likes Bernie Madoff. 12% steady returns sounds great. Finding 20 apartments you can play off against each other sounds great.

None of it is reality.

Oh sour, sour grapes.

Poor you.

So much time invested and no one cares about you.

No one.

Surprising.

"So much time invested and no one cares about you."

you seem to care about him a great deal. some might go as far as to suggest he's your reason for living. what else would you do with yourself?

columbiacounty has made so many life mistakes that his heroines are w67thstreet and inonada, no matter how flawed those two are. Whereas columbiacounty has acknowledged being jerked around when he looked for a rental (e.g. the window in the shower - what a horror), he looks to inonada's strategy for renting, maybe for the next time, even though inonada's strategy is based on falsehoods like 100 identical and available condo apartments from which a renter can choose, and a negotiation strategy based on antagonism (the big "bazooka") despite the fact that landlord and tenant have to ultimately have an ongoing business relationship with each other.

nada, that was great, thanks for taking the time. Hopefully it doesn't get glossed over amidst all this gray malarkey that seems to have been posted since.

Bjw, all of a sudden you are worrying about being a renter? Go find us 100 nearly identical condos that you can narrow to 20 and negotiate at the same time.

The one thing I agree with columbiacounty on is that you are a weak idiot. You thought you could get a tax deduction on prepayment of your mortgage - as cc put it, you clearly have no idea the difference between principal and interest. You shouldn't be an owner if you are that much of a fool. No surprise you have a columbia.edu email address, maybe w67thstreet was your TA.

Not worried about being a renter (where did I even imply that?). Of course, it's quite possible I might rent again sometime in the future, but it ain't anytime soon. Not sure where the harm is in discussing things that aren't necessarily helpful to me right now. Plenty of other posters seem to find nada's strategy useful. Maybe you have some helpful suggestions on finding a rental? Or just complaints about others' ideas?

How about we get some reports back from people after they try out ininada's strategy before you praise it as useful.

If someone comes up to me on the street and asks for directions from Times Square to Williamsburg, if I don't know, I say I don't know. Inonada might appear helpful when he says to take the G subway line because it passes through Williamsburg and says it with a smile, but ultimately, when the person can't find the G from Times Square, the advice from inonada has actually been harmful.

Why don't we wait til we get some reports from people after they try out inonada's strategy before you condemn it as harmful.

the real reason that it isnt useful is that it presumes a renters market, that the owner/broker will negotiate, and that everyone should be equally happy in any number of apartments so long as it is a good deal financially. also, most agents i know wont submit a verbal offer to an owner on a rental, applications must be filled out, credit run, deposits made. the purpose is to insulate the owner from the kind of bullshit that nada proposes. so not practical.

So, I think we have inonada answer... index still just sitting there (last move slightly down, slight up before then)... hoveround around 14% off peak...