Let's Talk About the Recovery...

I think the worst is past. We have stabilized faster than I would have expected since the vaccine became available as quickly as anyone could have hoped & distribution has gone stunningly well.

That said it still something / more of a buyers market than anytime in last 4+ years probably?
Unclear where/when the next big leg up is.

The people I know who bought were bargain hunting, the pricing either dragged their purchase earlier by a couple years, or they got more bang for the buck.

Closings (and listings) I am seeing in buildings I am familiar with are not great for the seller unless they bought let's say pre-2015... and that's at low listing volumes. So buyers are still getting deals without the market being flooded.

Was just talking to a junior co-worker looking at renting entry level 1BR and I have to say I was still shocked at how low the sticker price rent was in addition to the number of free months on top.
I know lots of young people moving in to entry level rentals as pricing has hit the lowest they've seen in their career so they figure they can live in Manhattan a few years now instead of Jersey City, Stamford or mom&dads basement.

After Labor Day is when the sea change happens in terms of office worker fully returning into whatever the "new normal" is, whether that be 100%, 80% or 50% in office.. depending on firm.

Just coming back to say - the Manhattan rental market remains insane right now, it's like the bottom just totally dropped out. The listings at this price aren't even being absorbed quickly, as I see them sitting there for months.

I am seeing some nice doorman rentals in UWS at 2011-2012 prices, no fee, plus some have a free month on top. That's nominal dollars too, plug it into an inflation calculator and you are 15-20% the real 2011-2012 price!
Don't forget back in 2011 renters were all paying brokers fees too!

Definitely a nice time to be looking for a rental.

I mostly pay attention to the high-end Manhattan market, and the state of NYC RE is aligned with my thinking from 12 months ago. The real opportunity, for a person inclined to think as I do, was to reap. E.g., signing a long-term lease to pay 1.5x rent for a 2.5x place seemed like a once-in-a-generation opportunity, much like the stock market of 2009. Didn’t really want it, but too good an offer to pass up. I expect this to revert over the upcoming year partially and then fully over some years.

This vlog basically tells the story of what we're experiencing. 399 contracts signed in Manhattan last week. The Brooklyn Market is just brutal, I'm almost ready to throw the towel in and take the summer off, it's been that frustrating.

We've got offers 200k over asked on a townhouse, all cash at ask on a condo, and it's like pulling teeth to get the listing agents to call you back as they are sorting through other offers they're receiving!

If you're expecting a discount because of covid, or thinking all the rental inventory and discounts should be putting pressure on sales prices. Watch this:

https://youtu.be/FoPb7SpVEng

Also curious on what your thoughts are on the sustainability of the exponential price increases in the recently stagnant real estate markets in the tri-state area?

Is there any reason you feel those markets are more bulletproof or sustainable than the New York City Market? After the real estate market crash of 2008, which was actually earlier for many markets such as Arizona, Nevada and Florida, these markets took significantly longer to recover than New York City. And until covid it would appear many of them hadn't recovered fully.

I liken it to the bump in city-adjacent property prices that we saw after 9/11.

People wanted out of NYC, and there was a move to the near suburbs, but also to more far flung communities that still had quasi-easy acess to NYC (upper Hudson Valley, Delaware Water Gap). The price bump wasn't sustainable -- the idea of full-time WFH was still not much of a reality for most office workers. COVID has given these same locations another bump and cleared out most of the stagnant inventory, but unless there's a sustained ability to work from home, I think it will taper off, with prices ultimately dropping back a ways. Worst case, there will be a crash in prices as people abandon Nowhere and come back to the city full-time.

I think the assumption that businesses are going to click their heels & snap their fingers and we'll be back to 2019 style work by September is wrong. There will be a large move back to the city obviously, but some people are staying put. I would expect the suburbs markets to cool dramatically and probably just trade sideways again.

In my friend/colleague network, across multiple funds/banks we're all being given similar guidance.
Return to work in the fall, and the way forward (not just an initial transition) is a hybrid model.
Depending on the firm, the guidance has been in-office 2-4 days per week.
Firms in the industry are reducing Manhattan office space, reconfiguring to hotel/hot desk model.
My firm has announced a few metro area satellite office openings & a 2nd HQ outside the NY metro area, and are soliciting for anyone that wishes to relocate. This is in lieu of building out any further Manhattan space.
If instead of having to be in Manhattan 5 days/week, you only have to make it to Stamford or Westchester 3 days/week, the commute options change a lot.

Recent developments in the city are not helping either.
The environment has changed in the city in the last year, with crime, policing and to some degree transit.

I try to be more a stats guy than an emotions guy, so I look at the data and say - OK, violent crime is up but its only back to 2011ish level, it was fine here in 2011, no big deal. On the other hand - holy crap, we lost 10 years of gains in 1 year? That's not a good velocity or direction!! And so far the trend has continued.
On the personal anecdata level I look at my Brooklyn hood which has had 2 shootings within a block of my apartment this year, during hours I would commute.. after 0 in the preceding 3+ years and... don't love it.

A non trivial number of my Asian American friends&family who have left are either terrified of returning or negotiating a permanent relocation. Conversations of "so when they make me go back should I get mace or a knife?" are happening, in all seriousness. Whatever comes of the mayoral primary over the summer and the perception of what that means for crime/enforcement is a factor as well.

Personally I'm much less worried about potentially in the future losing 20% on my non-city place (which is allegedly already up 10% in 6mo wtf) than I am about already having lost 10% on my 3x the price city condo (which was flat for a number of years before the recent low-volume fire sales). Don't forget round trip costs out here are lower too since you are less likely to trip the mortgage tax and the RE fee cartel isn't as strong as in Manhattan.

My feel from listings in buildings/areas I know for the ~$1.5M 2bed market is.. listings around 2015-2017 price points trying to catch a bid. So if they get offer above ask which bring them up to 2017-2018 pricing?

All I keep hearing from the bulls is "X over ask" and "Y offers", but let's put a year-price level on it. Are we back to January 2020 (or wherever the most recent peak was) levels? I don't think so, otherwise bulls would be touting the all time highs.

My coworker just bought a 3bed UES apartment in the 60s for less than my *unsuccessful* 2016 2bed UES 80s-90s budget which led me to move out to Brooklyn.

I mean if the market was up I'd be pretty pumped, maybe refi my condo or consider selling it & renting somewhere else. I'm more long the city than I am long the suburbs, given relative prices. It brings me no joy to see the city price levels not yet hitting my cost basis (never mind up enough to cover selling or even better round trip transaction costs).

Check out Urbandigs, they have a chart that will show exactly where we are in Manhattan. If it weren't so late I would dig it up and post it here...

Manhattan was certainly lagging Brooklyn, my guesstimation, by four or so months. The Manhattan Market is certainly improving but it's very building to building, neighborhood to neighborhood. We submitted a bid $25,000 over ask on a unit at 50 Lexington, newly listed and because of the interest seller is waiting until Wednesday before responding. However, I have clients that have been going back and forth on an apartment at 88 Greenwich that's been available for months.
Just look at the number of contracts being signed in Manhattan over the last 12 weeks along with some of the corresponding charts to take the temperature of the market. I try to bring my perspective of what we're experiencing as a brokerage, here. You can look at our transaction page on our website, for a small team we do a lot of deals, 40 to 50+ a year.

I don't consider myself a bull or a bear, I just go with the flow of what the market is doing. I am an optimist though.

@steve123 curious why you bought your home in New York City versus renting?

Hi Keith

Unfortunately there's not a lot a non-broker can see with a free account on Urbandigs, I tried a few different paths through the site and it all ends up in pop up modals blocking the charts.

From the SE Condo Index it looks like Nov-Dec 2013 pricing in Manhattan and April 2015 in Brooklyn.
This "feels" about right from what I am seeing in the buildings I know. Of course this is reported closing which lag contracts (but they lagged in 2013-2015 too) so I'm sure we are up more by now.

I bought for the typical reasons - been here over a decade, realizing most of my friends 40+over who managed to stick it out owned their places, was a big multi year run-up in prices so it felt like my savings rate was barely keeping up with price increases so time to pull the trigger .. etc.

I'll see if I can find the chart, they actually reference it in one of their Friday vlogs.

Perhaps Noah will chime in here to assist, however on the urbandigs dashboard, he just clicked the little chart icon and you can create various charting scenarios.

Let's see if you can open this up, this is all Manhattan, that includes everything;

https://www.urbandigs.com/dashboard/

Well that didn't work. But you can click on the icon just to the right of quick options to create the chart.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfgl5iimfy6s1av/quick-charts-report.pdf?dl=0

Thanks Keith!

The chart is interesting and shows a lot of seasonality + sideways movement from ~fall 2015-2020!
Will be fascinating to see a few more monthly prints into the usual 2021 busy season.

A few weird things in the chart/data-
* The general upward trend from 2011ish ended mid 2017 (SALT cap related?)
* Except.. that 2019 ~1.45M spike - were there some big transactions / big new development closings or some other activity?
* Q2 2020 spike - generally 2020 doesn't look to have dropped off a cliff to the degree individual listings / closings / anecdotes would imply.

Would be interesting to see a 2 Y axis overlay of median price & number of transactions.
Maybe even a chart of total dollars changing hands - closings x closing price.

I cast a wide net with this chart, there are lots of options. Feel free to pick me as an agent to work with if this gives you access to more of the site. I don't communicate with those that do, unless they request such from me.

2019 spike = mansion tax

This is basically been my whole week;

"We did receive it. We received over 17 offers. We will be reopening in the morning. It’s been a hectic afternoon."

Here's a snapshot of the overall open house activity from Fritz. The numbers here are much less impressive than the data coming in on contracts.

Actually working in the field, it's been pretty wild. Brooklyn is just ridiculous, love to hear from anybody actively looking.

Here is the dataset. Let’s see what happened in each of the boroughs, I did edit this down from the original email:

'Manhattan – the average attendance climbed to 1.88 per open house, from 1.59 reported the weekend prior. UWS was strong(ish) with 2.80, UES also with 2.52. Harlem was weak with 1.10, even weaker was Midtown East (0.81) and Midtown West just terrible (0.67). See the rest below.

Brooklyn – the average jumped to 3.48, from 2.47 reported the weekend earlier. We received 25 replies from Brooklyn. How do we get more? Park Slope was above the average with 5.7.'

Thanks Keith. very informative. and btw if the subject of the post was 'Let's talk about the crash' you'd have a few hundred comments here.

Indeed. For last 9 months, Keith and I were the only NYC real estate bulls here. I do have to mention Ali as she had a positive outlook at well.

Well I'm happy that sellers are doing well right now and the City is improving. However, quite frankly we're really struggling. I prefer, perhaps selfishly, a mild bear market as someone who represents 80% buyers. We did very well throughout the pandemic, our clients came out of the woodwork as real estate in New York City was expected to get crushed, our clients saw opportunity. Now these are people who simply want to own the homes they live in, they weren't thinking they were buying Google at $90.

For the most part I'm just telling people here what we're actually experiencing day to day. And sometimes the overall market is in agreement over a period of time, such as my early call on Brooklyn improving. That upset some. I'm just not emotional about it, and don't take any of it personally. Because I know in reality nobody actually knows what's going to happen, they just think they do. Sometimes they're right, other times, not.

I would never call myself an expert on markets, I wish I knew with any degree of certainty which way things were going over short periods of time in both real estate or stocks. I don't. However I do recall making a comment when we were all trying to figure out where things were going 8 or 9 months ago, and although I took some crap for it. I made the observation, sometimes markets have other plans relative to what even the smartest people think should happen.

Yes Jbutton, many people like a good car wreck! I get a lot of very nice emails even phone calls from people to call themselves 'lurkers' here on streeteasy.

Takes a licking and keeps on ticking! A lot of interesting data points in here regarding supply as well as supply trends. Signed contract activity for Manhattan is in "ludicrous mode".

Would love to hear from the bears, or at least the people who were negative 9 or 10 months ago. Has this market surprised you? Is this a fake out to the upside with more pain to come? What are your thoughts?

I certainly remained positive that the market would rebound along with New York. Of course we know Brooklyn has done fairly well throughout the pandemic and is just off the charts right now. But the degree and pace of the recovery so far has definitely exceeded my expectations.

We're definitely ramping up our listing services, buy side is brutal.

www.urbandigs.com/dashboard

https://youtu.be/wkYpIYAKonw

I wonder if this surge in buying everywhere has some underlying psychological roots, a tangible purchase that has the ultimate use, a place to call home, that feels solid? I'm sure many would suggest a home is a home, whether you rent or buy it, I'm just trying to noodle on what's actually driving this sales market.

I think 10 months ago you could have easily made the argument that people would just hunker down for the foreseeable future, in no rush to make one of the biggest purchases of their life during such global uncertainty?

Why not leave the cities and just go rent for a little while in the suburbs, why this rush to own the home you live in? So many suburbs that had mediocre real estate activity are now hot spots. Miami with its glut of shiny new towers has certainly been a beneficiary of all this and really turned the market around. Would have been very easy to just rent one of these unsold condos down there.

This article also talks about the other beneficiaries of this hot real estate market. How long will it last?

Mansion Global: April Highlighted the Stunning Rebound in Manhattan Luxury Housing.
https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/april-highlighted-the-stunning-rebound-in-manhattan-luxury-housing-227203

I have been heavy (for me; I run a boutique brokerage and I don't do that many things at once) on the Manhattan sell-side and every month the market is coming to me, like a rising tide.

The interest rises and the offers get better and better. (Which is happening, as Keith notes in Brooklyn too, in a 10x way.)

That said, SO many people aren't back in the office yet. We have had school, blessed school, for less than a month, but the day still ends before two. And there are entire industries that are not up and running; I would like to see Broadway open again.

Add in that there is so much uncertainty about reopening -- I see banks and law firms calling their people in for July and even June but yet the workers still don't have details about that. So I think the market will continue to heat up, but I don't expect more clarity about the trend until the end of the summer.

ali r.

I think overall home buying demand outside of big cities was driven by a few factors

1. Need for bigger space as people spent more time at home including working/schooling from home
2. Less spending on going out and entertainment which increased the housing $ available
3. Low rates / high stock market
4. Demand for second homes from the well-heeled
5. Some movement out of cities a big percentage of which could have been just acceleration of what may have happened in the next few years anyway. Some movement is real due to WFH.
6. And not enough inventory to cope with this increases demand
7. Law and order issues in many big cities - any one wants to move to Portland?

#1 probably is biggest reason for Brooklyn boom as your $ goes much further than Manhattan including taxes.

On Manhattan real estate, prices difference vs suburbs has reduced and most people are finally realizing that they will be in-person a big percentage of time. In addition, there are empty nesters who couldn't sell their homes in burbs before. Now they can and move to the city. Manhattan will continue to improve as more offices open up and dining and entertainment options increase. People are also hoping that new mayor will be better than De Blasio in terms of public safety and schools.

Simply QE effect deja vu. It does feel like a cigarette buring in your hand but you find no place to dump it

> I'm just trying to noodle on what's actually driving this sales market

I think there are definitely some psychological factors in play (people "pausing" and realizing that they really love where they are, or where they were, or where they aren't, and this pause giving them clarity about what makes them happy, so wanting to invest in something stable that supports that). But I think also there's a simpler macroeconomic explanation.

I'm reminded of this clip from the Ric Burns New York documentary* about the end of the 1920s, specifically this quote:

"You had a cyclical phenomena of the business cycle, which is at the beginning of a boom, capital goes into the production of commodities, the commodities are sold, you reap your profits, and you pile them back into production. By the end of the 20s you were running into trouble... Increasingly it made less sense to pour money into the production of commodities, and when that happens usually capital goes in two directions. One: paper speculation... And [two:] real estate."

https://youtu.be/oIIzUyJGOOs?t=3696

And I think that's roughly what's happening today. One the one side you have the Fed printing money and injecting huge amounts of cash into the economy, and on the other hand you have a pandemic that removed many of the reasons to spend money (vacations, trips, going out, commuting). So people are sitting at home with paychecks piling up, what are you going to spend that money on? Thus speculative assets (stock markets, crypto, GME) and real estate are surging.

Now of course this is not the same as [ insert previous economic crisis of your choosing] so no one can predict how it will end, but everyone knows that some day it will, and then some day later, it will come back again. So ride the highs and survive the lows.

* As an aside, this was a fantastic series to watch right before COVID. Helped me contextualize a lot of what the city was going through within its long and storied history.

Especially seeing how the country rebounded after the Spanish flu, and how that ran into excess.

Sounds like an interesting series, I really liked the Ken Burns stuff early on, somehow got burned out on it, but it's been a while, so I'll give this a look.

I've got workers that just showed up today to begin a fairly large renovation/addition to our house. So I guess I personally fit your profile of what people are doing. And not only have paychecks been piling up, it's been a pretty impressive run of equities.

In the last 2 weeks we've had two appraisals come in below contract price. The last time I missed an appraisal was for an odd apartment on Main Street in dumbo. This time there also seem to be some flaws with the appraisals, one in Brooklyn not only did he use only early pandemic trades, he used the wrong square footage of the home, which is a condo. On the other one in Lincoln Square he just seemed to be too aggressive with the adjustments to the comps he pulled.

We'll see what happens with the first one, Bank should be able to order a new appraisal since there was a glaring error in the square footage. Our client in Lincoln Square was actually happy, as we were able to renegotiate the contract price. Hoping this is just a coincidence of a few less than fully informed appraisals, and not a trend in this frothy market.

Just re-read my comment on 'workers beginning' to work on our house, that was 4 months ago! If this were a baseball game, we are rounding third base..

How is everyone feeling about life in NYC these days? Anyone that moved to the burbs missing the big Apple? Anyone feeling like the missed an opportunity to buy when the sh$$ was hitting the fan?

Keith
TBG

I'm curious to hear what Biden has to say today.

I spoke with a friend last night that was asking for advice on moving out of the city. He's a no vaccine type, and feels New York will be unlivable for him/them with the new mandate.

We've been friends since we were teenagers. He's sort of an extreme fitness person, when not touring with his band or writing books... He's managed to run 12 triathlons, including Kona a few years ago. He's 59.

Guessing he's in the minority in New York City.

But where will he go?

Fort Lauderdale.

Fort Lauderdale is great. This will be my first and last summer in South Florida. There are many positive things to say about South Florida but the summer is not one of them (at least for me). Winter is AWESOME in South Florida but it’s a short season. Both car and home insurance costs are ridiculous. Drivers here are the worst I have ever seen. Looking forward to moving back to NYC. It’s a lot more expensive than Miami but for me it’s worth it. There is no substitute.

Here's some great data and a great discussion to kick off the post Labor Day season;

https://youtu.be/pPyVAV78PB0

I thought about retiring there but the idea of driving everywhere plus the lack of good medical care made me decide to stay here.

If you are moving anywhere just because you can, and want to try something different, rent a place there for 6 months. Reading about Florida or spending a few weeks on vacation there or anywhere else will not prepare you for the day to day of actually living there.

I think 6 months gives you a reasonable timeframe to experience the pros and cons and get a genuine sense of what life will be like. As 911turbo points out the weather isn't for everyone, so you definitely want to maybe start in August, that will give you 3 months of max heat, summer rains and then winter. Hurricanes are an entirely different subject...

There is no replacement for NYC anywhere in the world. Forget the articles saying that West Palm Beach is the new NYC of Florida, not even close. If you are not ready to leave NYC you will be running home as fast as you can after a few months anywhere in soflo.

Great prices to be had and definitely a time to buy, but our co-op is seeing a lot of very weak application/packages . . . . . that's life in NYC

Why do you think they are weak? What are the criteria and where do buyers come up short?

Post-close liquidity and debt to income.

OMG the last two packages I did were 400+ pages and 220 pages; both applicants were ready to kill me by the time submission was done (though they each forgave me somewhat once they got board approval).

Let me echo Krolik's question -- Admin2009, where are you seeing weaknesses?

ali r.
{upstairs realty}

How many people here are thinking applications to purchase shares in a co-op should be 400 plus pages!?

Somebody please reform this archaic admissions process. Even the digital platforms are like 2005 technology...

So over the last couple of days I've spoken with two people whom have regretted leaving the city and are moving back. One is at a law practice the other at a large Bank.

Both said their employees, the bank and the law firm backtracked quite a bit on the work from home model. It basically went from no problem at all working at home two or three days a week, to we're going to want you back in the office. They also both mentioned the commute from Westchester was a lot longer than anticipated, one of them coming from what I would call Northern Westchester.

Both started the conversation off by saying this was a 'covid decision' and one they grew to regret.

Anyone else with stories to share?

Keith
TBG

Employers..

The Hudson line just went out completely for a few days due to Ida, so I can imagine it's not the best time to commute from Westchester.

But mostly, I'm curious how old / what level the attorney is. This year has been all BigLaw all the time, for me, and I'm struck by the stratification of who wants to RTO and who doesn't.

Ida really messed a lot of people up in Westchester. I have a friend who just bought a house in Rye, watch where you're buying up there. Very high water table, his pumps failed and he wound up with 5 ft of water in his new house.

Late 30s for the lawyer.

flood insurance covers pretty well right?

If you have it. If you Google this area you will see it's been prone to floods. However in this case the bank did not require it, assuming it doesn't come up on the floodplain map?

This is how a lot of people got seriously screwed by Sandy. Although flood insurance is relatively inexpensive and can be bought for about $500 a year from the federal government. Most people don't carry it as they think they're home insurance will cover water damage from a potential flood.

One of my surfing buddies owns a place in Long Beach, never imagined that his house could fill up with 6 ft of water. It did and his homeowners insurance would not cover any of the damage. We wound up having to do a GoFundMe to bail him and his wife and young children out and help rebuild.

Their

Article:
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-09-15/new-york-city-has-once-again-defied-the-doomsayers-here-s-why?

"the only real city in the US"

Chicago would like to have a word -

That Bloomberg piece: "rich and poor all ride the train together" ... whut?

I'm not hearing anyone that I know express regrets (yet) about their COVID decisions. Delta is showing that the whole return-to-work thing got ahead of itself, so it may be another tough winter for rentals. But ... school being in person is a big deal, long may it last, that will support prices. Low interest rates and high inflation will be doubly supportive of prices of real assets everywhere. Adams is saying all the right things about reversing the decline of the Blas years.

Out in Nowhere, the market has definitely flattened after a ~75% rise in prices since pre-covid, with rising inventory and buyers being quite discriminating. Good properties still sell immediately, but merely OK properties are sitting. Some moron listed his house for 3x what he paid in 2019 with no renos, and the poor realtor had open houses twice a week. They finally threw in the towel and took it off the market.

George, If anyone bought more than a year back in suburbs/nowhere, there are up significantly in their purchase going by National Housing Price increase of 20%+. So I am guessing they can easily sell and buy in NYC, if they so choose, without regrets.

On recovery, I was looking for high quality prime grade oak floors (plenty available in "character" grade), they are just scarce and at least $3 per sq ft more than they used to be pre-covid.

I'd still love to know where prices went up 75%. Not here in Palm Beach County, they are up significantly, but nowhere near 75%.

Not sure what market is +75% but I know near me is about +30%.

Agreed on RTO having got ahead of itself, the few firms that have done it have watered it down.. the rest have largely delayed. It's very industry/role specific, but in Wall St x Tech I just see no clear RTO wave happening in 2021 still. I have been casually interviewing and pretty much everyone is in the same boat.

It remains to be seen how long NYC will manage to keep schools open. Cases remain very high and growing. We still seem to be haggling with teachers on vaccine mandates. Happy to see Adams will be in the drivers seat soon. I do not think he will have abided the level of BS from city employees that BdB has.

I was taken aback the last time I was in the city during delta wave and it's like everyones just given up on precautions. 80% of my building was walking through common areas & elevator maskless. Nearby restaurants I could see kitchen, waitstaff and hostess all maskless indoors.

My wife unfortunately has to go in once a month which I'm doubly unhappy about because her (big brand bank) firm has taken a laissez faire approach to contract tracing. While my firm is doing floor wide notices, hers is now only notifying you if you were isolated in a conference room in close proximity with a positive case. If you sit 10 feet away from the positive case maskless all day for the week in the open floor plan, you won't even get an email. Meanwhile she also has unvaccinated in her seating area. For lack of space her firm is also moving toward hot desks, which should really help with germ transmission as you get to share keyboard/mouse/phone/headset with strangers day to day. It really pisses me off because the execs making these decisions get driven to work, take their private elevator up to the C-suite and enter into their glassed off office suite.

Most of our immunity is wearing off and the FDA seems to be wavering on wide spread booster approval for partially political reasons of not wanting to step on the vaccine mandate messaging (we can't do a one time mandate if we have to force shots again in 6 months).

Data on the situation seems pretty clear, boosters are needed and it's just a question of whether its 5mo, 6mo or 8mo. For those on the cautious side it seems to be pretty trivial to go get yourself another shot since theres no central tracking of who has already gotten two doses..

There has been positive noise about 5-11 being approved between Halloween & Thanksgiving, with 6mo-5yrs data to be submitted after.

I'm hoping newfound FDA stupidity is not indicative of the timeline on the 5-11 year old and then 6mo-5 year old vaccine approvals.

@stache

My opinion: Chicago is much behind NYC as a walkable city. It feels like a city where you must have a car and occasionally need to drive, but I guess could survive without a car if you choose to live in the Loop or another similar central neighborhood. RE prices and rents though are pleasantly low compared to NYC, and I heard that is due to the city's generous building policy.

Going back over 45 years now but when I lived there I had occasional access to a car and yes it helps but is not absolutely necessary. Parking can be a problem but not as bad as here. Back then crime was the big problem walking point A to B, especially at night. Depended on the area of course.

Let me add Chicago in many ways is a transitional city. Some spend their lives there but many move on to greener pastures. I think that also helps with housing prices.

Which are did you live in?

*area

My wife is from Chicago, it's a nice place, I like the pizza.... once a year. The weather sucks, no nice way to put it. And as a city, it doesn't hold a candle to NYC, like most of the large cities in the United States.

You can compare New York City to Berlin, Paris etc, Chicago not so much. This isn't so much to put Chicago down, but just to say that New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world. A place countless people dream to live in or visit.

Google bought an office building for $2.1B
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/nyregion/google-buys-building-hudson-square.html?

@Krolik, it is not a free article, what does it say?

Google purchased office building in Manhattan in/near Battery Park City for $2.1bn. Looks like they were previously renting the space. Company plans to add 2,000 employees to existing 12,000 in NYC.

Hopefully this one is free:
https://gothamist.com/news/google-plans-21-billion-purchase-st-johns-terminal-manhattans-west-side

or straight from Google CFO Ruth Porat:
https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/increasing-googles-investment-in-new-york/

I guess multi-billion dollar tax breaks aren't necessary to attract Big Tech to NYC after all.

Here's a double, Ocean to lake trail for those familiar with PB

Palm Beach Post: Palm Beach house sells for double what it fetched last year — and may be a tear-down.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/business/real-estate/2021/09/22/palm-beach-house-sold-2020-5-million-sells-twice-that-price/5812150001/

Krolik I started out in Newtown Clark & Diversey then moved to Ranch Triangle Armitage & Seminary where I had a view of Cabrini Green out of my kitchen window.

Here's the third couple sending me an email like this over the last month;

"Hi Keith,

I hope you're well! We sold our apartment about 6 months ago, moved to Connecticut, decided it's not for us, and now we want to buy a co-op in Bay Ridge. We would love to sign with you as our buyer's broker. Let us know if you're still doing this remotely.

Thanks!"

Another note I feel like Bay Ridge is starting to attract the attention of clients that were focused in Brownstone Brooklyn previously. We have a contract signed on a house there that's last ask was 3.7.

This particular client felt a bit constrained in the typical Brownstone set up in Brooklyn. Wanted a large traditional house, and preferred Bay Ridge to PLG and Ditmas Park. Obviously not ready for a move to The burbs.

Keith
TBG

just like Mr. Seinfeld?

Ditmas Park has some beautiful houses, and probably easier commute than Bay Ridge if someone has to get into Manhattan

Probably more likely to already have a swimming pool/have the capacity to add a pool in Bay Ridge vs. Ditmas Park, though I would add that the words "Bay Ridge Express Bus" are, in practice, often an oxymoron.

ali r.

The good old N train.. probably a solid 35 to 40 minutes. It's a nice big house for work from home.

Keith, when the trains run, they're great. But the joke that "N" stands for "Never" and "R" stands for "Rarely" was written for a reason.

Signed, someone who took an extra 15 minutes to get home from Brooklyn today because they made my train run local.

Bay Ridge to anywhere is a schlep.

N train was good 30 years ago

Shout out for the 'RR'.

Always going to be a little bit of a trade-off no matter where you live. Just have to find a place that works best for most of what's important to you.

@Anton: As a reasonably frequent rider of the N and R 30+ years ago, I have to disagree. I heard the 'Never' and 'Rarely' joke back then. And experienced it.

I take N train a couple of times a week during the week and it seems pretty good. Believe frequency is every 10-12 minutes or so weekdays but weekend experience may be worse.

Hearing those words 'skipping all local stops' can be music to your ears, if you're getting off at the right station ; )

N train often stops near the end to wait for driver shifting

'Never' and 'Rarely' train lines ! ! LOL

I had to read this number twice, 60 contract signed above $4 million dollars last week. That's pretty impressive!

"Sixty contracts were signed last week at $4 million and above, 14 more than the previous week—and the largest total of the year! Wait, there’s more: Last week’s volume surpassed half a billion dollars, a new high for the year! Condos outsold co-ops, 39 to 16, with 5 townhouses in the mix.

Stat Geek Alert I: For the 4th time this year, 50 or more contracts were signed. The volume of $553,869,000 was the luxury market’s strongest performance since the week of December 16-22, 2013, when $576,185,000 was inked on 72 deals.

Stat Geek Alert II: In the last 6 weeks, the luxury market has shifted into high gear with 290 contracts signed, totaling $2,512,539,479. For the record, 119 of the 290 deals were inked by developers.

Stat Geek Alert III: The 16 co-ops that were sold last week represents the highest total since the middle of March 2017, when 14 co-ops went to contract. What’s more, the total of 16 co-ops is the most this report has recorded since 2010, when we started breaking down contracts between co-ops, condos, and townhouses."

http://olshan.com/marketreport.php

Keith Burkhardt
TBG

And happy to report we contributed two sales to that list; 360 Central Park West and 180 East 88th Street.

The market doesn't seem hyper, however, definitely consistent, with strong demand for the right properties. And a continued increase in our client base, especially above the $2 million price point.

Keith Burkhardt
TBG

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/empty-spaces-and-hybrid-places