Draft tax abatement bill reduces past decreases

Although legislation has been drafted to extended tax abatements for apartment owners, there are changes that residents may not have been expecting.

It has been widely reported that the legislature is expected to go into special session later this year to vote on the co-op/condo abatement, the J-51 program and a technical amendment for 421a tax benefits, which are aimed at encouraging new residential development in high-density districts in Midtown as well as in downtown Manhattan.

But only when I received an e-mail from the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) did I notice details that affect many residents of the Big Apple. 

The High Road: The broker/board member

(Flickr photo by amrita b)

Many real estate brokers also become members of the boards of buildings in which they live.

One lofty reason is their commitment to making a contribution to their community.  Another is to protect their investment.

A baser desire is to raise their profile and, in so doing, snare business in the building.

But is it permissible for a building’s board member to represent a unit’s seller or buyer as agent?  Many brokers will tell you that the question is a thorny one.

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Despite upward trend citywide, REBNY says Q1 median prices fall behind one year earlier

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Residential rental buildings enjoy 34 percent increase in sales volume over a year ago

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The High Road: No way around silent brokers

(flickr photo by E>mar)

When listing brokers won’t return telephone calls or e-mails to schedule an appointment, the buyers and their representatives understandably become frustrated.

I, for one, entertain fantasies of turning those brokers into the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) for violation of the Code of Ethics, contacting their managers or firing off nasty e-mails.  I also imagine ways to let the listing broker’s seller know.

Of course, doing so would be counter-productive, wouldn’t it?

Instead,

The High Road: Brokers must not hide their ownership of properties they list and show

(Mark: Flickr photo by by Ben Fredericson)

Visiting the open house of an Upper West Side apartment listed at well over $1 million, I overheard a buyer asking whether the broker also was the owner.

After he responded in the affirmative, I looked closely at his marketing materials.  To my surprise, there was no mention of his ownership.

When I got to my computer, I look at the listing in the Online Real Estate (OLR) database, and the information wasn’t there either.

That was not only surprising, but it was a clear

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Prices up, sales volume almost flat measured against 2002

Condo prices edge up during last year as sales and inventory slip

And sales and supply

Pimps are not the only procurers in town

(Flickr photo by RedMorris)

There’s a phrase in the real estate industry that you hear in most housing markets outside of New York City.  It is “procuring cause,” and so arrested is my development that the words make me want to giggle.

But procuring cause is no laughing matter.

Nor is it as arcane as you might imagine.  Yet the only reference I could find in my 390-page text on New York real estate was its definition in the glossary:

The basis for a direct action that results in successfully completing an objective.

In common parlance relating to real estate, the phrase implies

The Big Apple: Citywide stats improve. . . a bit

VOWs prove useful to buyers searching for new homes

Brokerage firms are getting into the digital game themselves, creating a “virtual office Web site” or VOW.

These are sites operated by brokers that enable clients to search for most of the available properties in a particular market, not just the firm’s exclusive listings, according to the New York Times.

While brokers have mixed feelings about whether these sites are worth the investment, the emergence of the VOW is yet another sign that once tightly guarded listing information has finally been set free in New York.

Dollar value of citywide sales climbs from Q1 to Q2 as seasons change, but sales activity slips 4 percent below one year earlier

The total dollar value of New York City’s residential sales transactions jumped 13 percent in the second quarter of 2011 to

New property-search site falls short of complete

Source: NY1Residential.com

With little fanfare, a kinda new site for searching New York city properties for sale went live last week.  On its home page, the announcement was brief:

New Yorkers who are looking for a new home now have a new way to buy, rent or sell real estate, with the launch . . . of NY1Residential.com, a comprehensive real estate listings website from NY1 News and the Real Estate Board of New York.

The problem I have is that “comprehensive” overstates the usefulness of the site, which

The Big Apple: Condo prices, rents rise and more!

Condo prices rise 12 percent over May 2009, but pace seems to flag

The Radar Logic data firm reports that Manhattan condo prices went up 4.7 in January over a year earlier but that the rate of growth seems to be slowing.

Although prices have climbed 12 percent above the post-bust low in May 2009, the price recovery is “losing steam” or may simply reflect seasonal weakness in demand, according to the firm’s RPX Monthly report on Manhattan neighborhoods. The report said it was too early to know with any certainty what contributed to the increase.

Uptown neighborhoods fared better than downtown neighborhoods, with year-over-year increases caused by higher prices per unit as a result of a shortage in supply.

Apartments with a washer/dryer clean up when sold

One new value-enhancing amenity that’s catching on is allowing shareholders and unit-owners to install clothes washers and dryers in their apartments. Plumbing issues have been the usual reason for forbidding washing machines.

But one veteran real estate appraiser has estimated that a washer and dryer add approximately 5 percent to the value of any apartment, leading to the increasingly permissive attitude these days.

The rich are