Weekly Roundup: Supply in U.S. and NYC dwindles, rates keep falling, Oprah takes bath, hell is hoarder at home, Shiller’s glass half empty

Obama slept here, and so can you for $2,400 a month

Median price of new condos up 15.4 percent from year ago, inventory down 19.1 percent

Q2 prices in Brooklyn, Queens edge up as inventory plunges

With prices falling in the Hamptons, sales pick up

Boards only set policies and six other surprises that rookie members may confront

New rental units in the city undergoing shrinkage

New handful of properties set to come on market at $90 million or more

Retired detective names safest, riskiest units in apartment building

Sales volume, property values remain well below peak levels, says NYU’s Furman Center

Number of residential building permits skyrockets, especially in Manhattan

Super rich Continue reading

Weekly Roundup: Rent control, record low, rates, renovations, rosier forecasts. . . much more!

Three-year extension of rent control becomes law

Area single-family homes experience 2.9 percent drop over 12 months

South Bronx burns no more

Trulia says it’s cheaper to rent than buy in Queens

Selling condos to moms and dads often comes down to child’s play

Harlem’s renaissance enjoys revival

Following reports of rent scams by Queens man, attorney general issues Craigslist alert

NYU’s Furman Center documents plunge in Continue reading

The Big Apple: Lawyers, leases, landlords, more

Do the West 70s really feel like Paris?

Mel Wymore, chairman of Community Board 7, which represents all the Upper West Side, tells the New York Times that, in addition to encompassing some of the costliest real estate in the city, the West 70s has gained buildings, among them condominium construction on Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

The growth has buttressed values, even in a down market, but Wymore says it also has brought challenges. Small businesses like dry cleaners and hardware stores have struggled amid chain stores and banks, he said, and schools are crowded.

Another local resident charmed by her surroundings added that on a recent visit to Paris, her mind had wandered home.

“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, this is tantamount to where I live,’ ” she said, incredibly.

State’s largest foreclosure law firm receives subpoenas related to allegedly shoddy practices

New York Atty. Gen. Eric T. Schneiderman has issued subpoenas Continue reading

The Big Apple: Sales, prices were up at one point

WITH FEW AFFORDABLE NEIGHBORHOODS, MANY ARTISTS ARE FLEEING NEW YORK CITY

Artists have long struggled in New York, moving into rough areas, gentrifying them and then getting forced out, Crain’s observes.

But as the city has gotten increasingly expensive, there are few such neighborhoods left to move to, forcing a growing number of artists to abandon the city.

Although there are no official numbers, a survey of 1,000 artists conducted in 2009 by the New York Foundation for the Arts found that more than 43 percent expected their annual income to drop by 26-50 percent over the next six months, and 11 percent believed they would have to leave New York within six months.

Even more troubling, cultural boosters say, is that for the first time, artists fresh out of art schools around the country are choosing to live in nascent artist communities in regional cities such as Detroit and Cleveland–which are dangling incentives to attract this group–and bypassing New York altogether.

PURCHASE MORTGAGES POSTED Continue reading