Realty Digest

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‘Realty Digest,’ my newsletter, is moving to this blog

Below, you’ll find three posts that normally would make up Realty Digest, the e-newsletter that I have been writing for seven and a half years.

Realty Digest has been a labor of love, but I came to recognize that it also was a challenge for readers to confront every two weeks.  Also, I have begun to see the newsletter as insufficiently timely.

Starting today and most Fridays from now on, you will be able to view its contents in altered format–a post with summaries of information intended primarily for New Yorkers (“The Big Apple,” below) plus, for everyone, a second post (“Weekly Roundup”) with linked headlines of general interest from a host of sources.  And in “Out and About,” you’ll find my frequently caustic, occasionally witty and always truthful reviews of the properties I visit during the week.

You can be sure to keep up with with virtually everything that is important to folks captivated by real estate if you bookmark or if you subscribe to this blog by e-mail or RSS. For even more up-to-date news, much of which won’t merit fuller treatment here, you may want to follow me on Twitter.

To the hundreds of faithful readers of Realty Digest, a hearty welcome to the blog!  And to everyone else, I hope you like the new posts.

Nothing else has changed: I’ll continue to blog my observations and opinions daily on subjects as varied as broker ethics, auction results and market trends.

Subscribe by Email

Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
Web site

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Trudging behind the news? You don’t have to.

Service You Can Trust newsletter, Realty Digest

My newsletter is crammed with information.

If keeping up with all the news relating to real estate is important to you, consider subscribing free to the e-newsletter that I write every two weeks.  You can have it emailed to you by visiting my Web site.

Subscribe by Email

Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
Web site

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Pending rules aim to hold lenders to their word

A form that everyone in the real estate world knows as a HUD-1 details every cost to the seller and buyer at settlement.

The law requires that the lender furnish the form at least a day prior to closing, but there is no penalty for their failure to comply.

In most jurisdictions, lenders struggle to provide the form in time and almost invariably do so.  In Manhattan, however, the law is overwhelmingly more honored in the breach than in the observance of its requirements.

Around a closing table last week, Continue reading →

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Your bonus question: Will next year be better?

Before the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sept.15, 2008 and the thousands of layoffs that had blood running in the Street, Wall Street money evidently fueled the New York housing market, especially luxury properties.

At the time, it was said that 7 percent of the city’s payrolls were linked to financial services and produced 23 percent of the employment income.

The conventional wisdom has been that the tribulations of the stock market would profoundly affect not only home prices in Manhattan but also stifle their recovery.

True, in the fourth quarter of 2008 and into the first quarter of this year, the Big Apple’s housing market was moribund and Wall Street’s woes indubitably were a root cause.

Now, however, the market is showing signs of life.  Continue reading →

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Back to the grindstone after an August hiatus

In the event you’ve missed my free bi-weekly e-newsletter, it’s back today and chock full of information that hasn’t appeared here.

Don’t miss my acerbic comments about the properties that I visit several times a week, the properties that celebrities are buying and selling, real estate news about the U.S. and the Big Apple, market forecasts and mortgage data.

You may want to check it out.

You can subscribe to it, as well as this blog, which differs considerably from my newsletter, Realty Digest. Incredibly, I have been writing the thing since March of 2003.  I guess you can’t take the journalist out of me, and I hope you think that’s a good thing.

Subscribe by Email

Malcolm Carter
Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker
Senior Vice President
Charles Rutenberg Realty
127 E. 56th Street
New York, NY 10022

M: 347-886-0248
F: 347-438-3201

Malcolm@ServiceYouCanTrust.com
http://www.ServiceYouCanTrust.com