Buyers your long, long, long wait is over..time to buy

'Time to buy' what? Real estate? You must be joking. This is only the beginning.

Malraux - agreed again.

Christ, we're practically becoming friends. Yuck.

Yuck nothing.

I've always thought your opinions were well articulated.

I didn't necessarily AGREE with your opinions, but that's another matter. There's a big difference between us and other idiots (who shall remain unnamed, please) on these many boards.

The only thing my neighbor is looking for at the moment is a job.

As for real estate, Georgetown should do well over the next few years.

Malraux, Stevejhx and others:I have been wanting to buy a place in Manhattan for less that 900k and more than 750. I waited and waited. It has been in the market for a few months. I have cash. It's long term. It is not prime Manhattan, but it is unusual and classy and hard to find. Maintence and taxes low. I am thinking of paying 20$ less than the asking price, no 1 cent more. Does this look like a very stupid thing to do?

i'm actually looking, but figure it probably makes sense to wait until december or jan at least.. this year's bonuses are looking to be worse than last, and there is no way i see real estate going -up- in that timeframe.. don't really lose much by waiting..

mimi:

Simply can't advise without far more information.

mimi: what is your rush? These things take time...the prices you want will begin once inventory hits 10,000 or so.

Since labor day, it seems inventory has gone up by 700+. I expect that to increase significantly.

Just be patient. Real ettate in manhattan is in for a very sharp slowdown

Ok, Harlem, south & central. I'll have a family member live there and pay rent (I'll live overseas though I'm american) and since I love this person I'll enjoy it when I go to NY -that is my real reason-to be able to have my own place in the city whenever I want. And also secure a future investment for my kids. I have income from other rentals overseas.

mimi..you've waited and waited well so have many other buyers.....up until today...if you don't buy it probability is now higher that somemone else will..good luck.

steveF, I imagine this is all a bit tongue-in-cheek. I would never advise to unequivocally buy or not buy, but unless you really need a home now and/or you get a very favorable deal, I really don't see how waiting this out a bit longer will hurt. At all.

How did I know it was steveF who started this thread.

mimi, I don't even understand what you wrote.

bjw...waiting further increases the probability that you will have to pay more as other buyers read the news and think hey maybe it's time to buy....

"There's a big difference between us and other idiots (who shall remain unnamed, please) on these many boards."

Why thank you. I have always agreed with how you approach buying investment real estate. Where I disagree (still) is on the price of owner-occupied real estate. I think with the failures of 3 investment banks and the impending merger of the 4th, that my opinions on the future of Manhattan real estate will be borne out.

Stevejhx, I'll try to clarify, I am american but not born and raised in the USA, so my english might not be pristine enough to be understood...my situation is that I live overseas, that I lived several years in NY and I love to come a couple of times a year and sometimes spend more than a month, that fortunately I have a family member that will live in the apt and pay rent and I can share with her when I go to the city, that I looked in Central-south harlem, a pre-war condo, that I am thinking of making a one time offer 20% below listing price. That ultimately I want this move to not only enjoy the place but to live my kids some concrete wealth. Does this add enough info?

steveF, I'll agree with that sentiment once we see prices fall dramatically. It hasn't happened yet. It might not happen to the degree some people think, but you need to have HUGE balls to buy something now if you don't need to. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of people do not have large scrota.

Mimi, I think you'll probably want to wait at least a few more weeks to see how things settle. Wait until the dust clears & then there will be more info on which to base a decision. It appears to me that the situation is just too fluid right now to make a judgement on how all of these recent developments will affect real estate, both long & short term. I guess by that I mean ....... how quickly will prices plunge?

steveF: you're funny. Thanks I needed the laugh in what has been a very trying week

I put an offer on another NJ beach house this week. Listed for $850K, and I offered $550K.

Basically they know that they can take my offer or possibly sit for 3 years.

To me it is a great deal as the property is next door to another property I own. If I own them both the 2 combined are worth more than the 2 individual because I can consolidate the offering and allow for much more future development.

Watch the sell-off before lunch. Smoke and mirrors. Crash in October.

kgg - i do agree with you. This is a band aid that just makes the situation even worse.

Its a band aid that will cause a greater crash, all financed by the US taxpayer.

Republican mantra - "privatize the profits, socialize the losses"

steveF - doesn't surprise me that there are guys out there as bullish as you. after all, thousands of apartments are selling every quarter in nyc as we speak. just like there were millions who bought tech stocks in jan/feb of 2000. my question is, how many properties do you currently own that makes you so bullish? for full disclosure, i rent and have no debt.

I'm with the Steve / MAlraux.

RE markets don't bounce like stock markets (which don't even bounce that much anyway). RE is a MUCH less liquid market.

The same intertia which kept things growing and steady for so long now flips around. These things take YEARS to clear out... see what happened in '87.

kgg:

"...Watch the sell-off before lunch. Smoke and mirrors..."

So I'm sitting here now, munching my lunch (spinach salad with walnuts, hot peppers, raw mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, beets, peas, chikcpeas, and mandarin oranges + an iced green tea), and I'm not seeing that sell-off you told us all about.

Nope.

No sell off.

Another 'prediction,' please?

Special_K...call me a little paranoid but I try to give out as little personal info as possible. I don't know who you are and what your agenda is. Let's say i own several rented condo studios. Look if your happy renting go ahead i just don't think that is the best way to become wealthy unless...if you are as good as Buffet in picking great companies at fairly valued stock prices than that trumps the real estate moneymaker. it's sotempting to try and buy those companies like USB and live off the div and appreciation but it's so difficult and nervewracking.

That's a nice sounding salad.

steveF you are a clown

thrinald: Be nice. Condo speculators are people too.

At minimum, you have to wait for bonuses to hit. I think once folks see the real numbers, its going to be pretty clear what happened in this town...

There is still plenty of money to go around and regardless of market conditions there are alwyas buyers wiling to spend money.

As far as bonuses go, people made ALOT of money in the previous years so hopefully they did not spend every penny and buying will still commence if there bonuses are 300K instead of 800K.

Just another supporter of the buy now bandwagon!

> As far as bonuses go, people made ALOT of money in the previous years

And a good half or so of that is now gone... they were paid in stock they couldn't sell before it went worthless....

> buying will still commence if there bonuses are 300K instead of 800K.

At half the price...

But what do those with no bonuses (or jobs) do?

> Just another supporter of the buy now bandwagon!

I guess the broker crisis conference let out early.

But what do those with no bonuses (or jobs) do

--Move to Ohio.

Not to mention many people in finance were leveraged to the max

None of the news that came out this week supports the argument that one needs to buy now.

The original RTC was formed in 1989 and housing did not bottom until three years after that. So the idea that a new "RTC" will somehow magically drive up real estate values again anytime soon is a farce. Valuations were driven up by easy credit, which is now gone, and a bubble mentality that one had to buy now or be priced out forever. With people losing their jobs, and the consumer struggling to repair their personal balance sheet, there is only one direction that prices are going to go (down).

The bulls on this board seem to (mistakenly) think that as long as some people are buying--as long as some transactions are happening--then everything is fine. But, even in a down housing market there will always be buyers and sellers, since there is always a sub-set of individuals who need to buy or sell at any given time. For example, they move to change jobs, have a child, divorce, etc. The point is that the lack of easy credit and negative wealth affect that individuals have experienced this year (how are your stock investments doing? what about your job? still employed?) will drive down the number of available buyers. Add in the fact that it is now cheaper to rent than buy--remember when the words "cheaper than rent" appeared in real estate ads?--and you will find precious few buyers. The lack of buyers will lead to a build up in inventory and prices will come down.

Finally, the idea that having your bonus cut from 800K to 300K will make you agnostic to a spending decision of this magnitude is laughable. Try taking a 500K paycut and get back to me on whether you plan to go ahead with that $3.0 million condo purchase.

Malraux, was that you sitting next to me at S'Nice today? I had the quinoa salad and roasted broccoli.

Excellent analysis, drg. Depressing and sobering as hell, but well written , cogent, and persuasive.

I think a lot of people missed Mimi saying she wanted to offer 20% off the listing price. If you love the apartment, think the value is right, and have a long-term time horizon, I don't think that's a bad idea at all.

Whether the seller will be interested at 20% off is another matter, of course.

Yo Yorick - what's/where's S'Nice?

It's on 8th Ave, where Jane, 8th, and W. 4th all intersect.

Vegetarian cafe with a healthy mix of vegan dishes, nearly all of them flawless. Their roasted broccoli might be the best side dish in all of NYC. I suspect they lace it with crack, since I can't seem to go more than a day without it (nor can I duplicate it in my own kitchen, despite many many attempts).

If you feel like trying it sometime, let me know and I'll buy the first round.

Oh, glad to see my post inspired some real estate-based possible dating! How romantic! There's more to this world than obsessive-compulsive investing...

Sorry to burst your bubble; at least one of us has mentioned a current spouse and kids.

And though few relationships might start out as real estate-based, I know of many -- too many -- that outlast their natural lives based on it, particularly here in NYC.

(Mine is not one of them. I would sooner live in a cardboard box on a subway grate with my husband than in a CPW Penthouse without him.)

Yorick...show your husband that post...flowers for a week!!!

Alas, Yorick.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Gosh, West81st, you get the methinks in the right place, but omit the 'poor'?

I should really change my nick. I chose it because I live on Horatio St, but that will no longer be the case very, very shortly. (And it is only because I'm moving that I am willing to praise S'Nice to such a public audience. It's already too crowded, but it will be less crowded by one very soon.)

And Yorick being a man of 'infinite jest'... well, DFW hasn't been dead very long. (But that was one hell of an obit in NYT yesterday. Wow.)

Hey Yorick:

On the contrary, I think I can safely say that MY wife would rather live in a CPW penthouse without me than in a cardboard box on a subway grate with me! ;-)

S'Nice sounds really good. Lunch any day next week is fine, but we'd better go dutch, lest both our spouses become jealous! And maybe I'll bring my mint condition, hardcover, first edition, first printing, autographed copy of DFW's very rare (only 1,300 copies printed) first book "The Broom of the System" for your perusal!

You'd bring a $1500 book to a place that serves food? Better you should leave it home.

Go dutch? You're willing to sell me your Manhattan holdings for $24? Or are you talking about Fannie Mae's auction on Wednesday?

Thursday, October 2 works for me. Name the time.

Sorry - as a true bibliophile, I've shared books I love in stranger places than restaurants before!

Thursday's good - I'm pretty open, time-wise, on that day. 1:00 or 1:30-ish? That broccoli thingie better be good!

Yeah, but inside a dog, it's too dark to read.

And I'm all about content; I don't fetishize books. (I just bought all 12 volumes of Calvin & Hobbes in paperback because the 3 volume hardback set seems too precious to let my 9-year-old read to tatters. Books as collectibles are unreadable, which seems a bit self-defeating to me.)

Bibliophile meets Bookworm for Broccoli. Thursday, Oct. 2, 1:00 at S'Nice. See you there.

kgg:

"...Watch the sell-off before lunch. Smoke and mirrors..."

So I'm sitting here now, munching my lunch (spinach salad with walnuts, hot peppers, raw mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, beets, peas, chikcpeas, and mandarin oranges + an iced green tea), and I'm not seeing that sell-off you told us all about.

Nope. No sell off. Another 'prediction,' please?

My bad Malraux. Didn't want to interrupt such a tasty meal. I meant after lunch.

Yorick:

Hey, I like content, too. Especially when wrapped in a collectible veneer! And, I might add, I actually read and enjoy my first editions.

Admiring something for its rarity and outward aesthetic qualities, and purely enjoying the same thing for its intellectual content alone are certainly not mutually exclusive, in my opinion (I could say the same about my wife!).

Lunch, 1:00 - done deal.

Yorick, where to?

Nothing I read remains in mint condition for very long, which is how you described your DFW. The only first edition book I own is truly a first edition -- literally the first one off the printing press, inscribed to me by my editor, agent, and a handful of others.

Inquirer, I'm moving to Noho. I've been in the same apartment on Horatio St, on and off, for more than twenty years. And I know how boring the "what happened to my neighborhood" argument is, but few neighborhoods in NYC have changed as dramatically in such a brief period of time.

Aside to mh23, I find it laughable that you considered Horatio St. "questionably safe" when you were considering moving here with your girlfriend in '93. Questionably safe? Seriously? You and I could not be farther apart in our feelings regarding the changes that have taken place in NYC in the last fifteen years.

Aren't Yorick and Malraux out of a Woody Allen movie?

Malraux is a French author...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Malraux

or were you being facetious?