Weekly Roundup: Early spring, Borgnine mansion, slumping inventory, Case-Shiller attack, DIY tips, increasingly confident Americans, builders’ mood

Governor signs renewal of tax abatement into law

Construction permits take off from 2007 level

Market reveals early spring as pace of pending sales below $5 million is fastest in 12 years

And jump recorded in development activity of multi-family buildings in Brooklyn

Although nothing new, garbage disposals prove to be worthy of boasts

Cuomo seeking to buy out homeowners to remake coastline

Concessions dwindling for buyers of new condos

Will rents take off again?  Maybe: Low inventory continue to push up rents of studios, 2BR apartments last month

Region’s housing prices up 8.5 percent from prior December

Big uptick in supply seems unlikely

Her Greenwich Village duplex is coming around again

Late-night newswoman decamps to $5 million

Co-ops in Manhattan auction draw limp bidding

The impossibly ornate Surrogate's Courthouse, where the auction was held.

Public Administrator Ethel J. Griffin’s poorly attended estate auction of nine apartments Tuesday produced sales totaling only $2.374 million.

Five of the properties ranging in location from Chinatown to Washington Heights failed to attract even one bidder.  A co-op on West End Avenue in Lincoln Towers sold to a sole bidder for its minimum of $300,000.

There were just two bidders for

10 Manhattan co-ops to be auctioned Sept. 27

45 Sutton Place South

Update: The Eldridge Street property has been withdrawn from the auction.

In its first estate auction of Manhattan properties since March, the city is putting on the block 10 co-operative apartments to be sold Sept. 27.

New York Public Administrator Ethel J. Griffin is offering units ranging from Chinatown to Washington Heights.  Among them are apartments on Sutton Place South, in the Lincoln Towers complex and on Carnegie Hill.

Minimum bids range from $45,000 for one of three limited-income co-ops to $950,000 for the ones on Sutton Place South and Carnegie Hill.

The Big Apple: Condo prices show resilience

Manhattan isn’t the only borough with prestige buildings

Every borough has its buildings that tower, literally or figuratively, over the rest of the housing stock, notes the New York Times. (Well, almost every borough: Staten Island’s upper crust tends to live in single-family houses.)

The residents of these august structures say their homes in Queens, Brooklyn and the are every bit as