The Big Apple: Nascent signs of recovery emerge

MANHATTAN BUCKS WORSENING STATEWIDE TREND OF RISING MORTGAGE DELINQUENCIES

The mortgage loan delinquency rate in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens in the final quarter of 2010 was up from year-earlier levels, according to a recent quarterly analysis. The uptick could well lead to a rise in foreclosure activity in coming months.

Manhattan was the only borough to see a decline in delinquencies, with a slight drop of 0.04 percentage points in the period.

APARTMENT MARKET SHOWS POSSIBLE SIGNS OF STRENGTH

Sales in the Manhattan co-op and condo market show signs of bouncing back after dropping sharply last month, reports the Wall Street Journal.

January sales were hurt because

I may have vowed that I would never, ever tweet

Don’t get me wrong: I still hate the idea.  But. . .

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that many of us local real estate bloggers read each other’s posts all the time and link to each other regularly even though many of us have never met or even spoken to each other.

So, I asked several bloggers who mostly concentrate on Manhattan and a couple of writers from the traditional news media whether they’d like to get together at long last.  Sure enough, they would.

A lunch dish from Kouzan on the Upper West Side.

The other night almost nine of us met for drinks (and, it turned out, dinner) at the commendable Kouzan restaurant near my apartment on the Upper West Side.  (Hey, I got to choose.)

Attending were folks from Curbed, Urban Diggs, Westside Independent, New York magazine, Habitat, the Wall Street Journal and Brick Underground.  Three others – the Real Deal TrueGotham and Matrix – couldn’t make it.