By Alexandra Alexa, Fri, April 12, 2019 Image via Flickr cc
Renting remains an increasingly popular choice in cities throughout the country, where on-the-go millennials with mobile jobs and lifestyles prefer to remain untethered to a specific location. But often, making rent doesn’t equate with staying on budget or having the amount of space you really need. A new study by RENTCafe looks into the issue of rent burden, asking how much space a typical income would get you if you limited your rent to no more than 30% of your income. Their findings show that in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Boston spending 30% of your income on rent means you’d have to live in less than 300 square feet of space.
More info
By Michelle Cohen, Mon, March 25, 2019 220 Central Park South. Image via Vornado Realty Trust and Robert A.M. Stern Architects.
Calls for a so-called pied-à-terre tax have increased since hedge fund manager Ken Griffin closed on a penthouse at 220 Central Park South for over $239 million in January, for a residence that the billionaire will be using as “a place to stay when he’s in town.” And State Budget Director Robert Mujica stated recently that a pied-à-terre tax could be combined with other revenue solutions to help fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $40 billion in capital needs. Owners of some of the city’s highest-priced real estate, however, could face a dramatic dip in their property values if the tax plan is enacted, the Wall Street Journal reports, after an analysis that showed how the heftiest tax would be levied on a small number of houses, co-ops, and condos with market values of $25 million or more. The new tax could potentially slash the value of this handful of pricy properties by almost half.
How much is half of too much?
By Devin Gannon, Mon, March 25, 2019 Photo by Zachary Tyler Newton
Governors Island is gettings its first permanent home for artists this year as the effort to turn the 172-acre former military base into a year-round cultural hub continues. The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) announced on Monday plans to transform a 1870s warehouse into a 40,000-square-foot center for arts and educational programming. In 2009, LMCC became one of the first tenants on Governors Island, which opened to the public in 2005 after serving as a base for the Army and then the Coast Guard for more than two centuries.
More here
By Michelle Cohen, Thu, March 21, 2019 Image: Flickr cc
Developer Related Companies’ high-profile condominium at 520 West 28th Street, designed by the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid, launched sales in 2015 to a flurry of hype and hubris. The highly-anticipated West Side residence was Hadid’s first ground-up structure in New York City, offering homes that ranged from $4,950,000 to a $50 million penthouse. Crains reports that since that glittering launch, though, only 16 of the building’s 39 units have sold, calling the offering “a rare bust.” The sales figures reflect about a 40 percent sell-through that looks even lower when square footage is considered: The building’s biggest units remain unclaimed, including its three penthouses. Of the 16 apartments that have sold, 14 were bought in 2017. Only two units sold in 2018, and none so far this year.
Will Hudson Yards bring more buyers?
By Devin Gannon, Wed, March 20, 2019 Via The Collective
London-based communal living company The Collective has purchased a hotel in Long Island City with plans to convert the building into a space for co-living. The Paper Factory Hotel, located at 37-06 36th Street near the Astoria border, will be transformed into a space for “short-stay” co-living, which the company says will give members more flexibility in the length of their stay. The first phase of the conversion adds cultural and educational space to the building’s ground floor; the second phase adds 100 more bedrooms to the hotel’s existing 125 rooms. More this way
By Devin Gannon, Thu, March 14, 2019 Via Creative Commons
Update 3/14/19: A few days after Aby Rosen bought the Chrysler Building for the bargain price of $150 million, the real estate mogul told Bloomberg this week that he would consider converting the tower into a hotel.
Real estate mogul Aby Rosen has picked up another New York City landmark. Rosen’s RFR Holding LLC, which controls the Seagram Building and Lever House, bought the Chrysler Building for $151 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The sale represents a major loss for majority owner Abu Dhabi Investment Council, who paid $800 million in 2008 for a 90 percent stake in the 77-story Art Deco tower.
Details here
By Devin Gannon, Tue, March 12, 2019 Asbury Park, NJ; via Wikimedia
A surcharge on short-term rentals took effect last October in New Jersey, making it one of the first big states to implement such a tax. An 11.6 percent tax, dubbed the “Airbnb tax,” applies to properties rented for fewer than 90 days made on home-sharing sites or directly between a renter and homeowner, excluding deals arranged through a broker. But as homeowners gear up for the summer season in the coming months, owners of Jersey Shore rental homes say the tax has made it harder to fully book their properties ahead of beach season, the New York Times reported.
More here
By Alexandra Alexa, Thu, March 7, 2019 Via Flickr
Calls for a pied-à-terre tax have increased since billionaire Ken Griffin closed on a penthouse at 220 Central Park South for over $239 million. The sale shattered the existing record of the most expensive home sold in the US by $100 million but Griffin will only be using the residence as “a place to stay when he’s in town.” City Council Members Mark Levine and Margaret Chin recently announced support for a bill that was first drafted by Sen. Brad Hoylman five years ago, which would place a yearly surcharge of 0.5% to 4% on secondary residences worth more than $5 million. In a statement released on Wednesday, State Budget Director Robert Mujica added his support, stating that a pied-à-terre tax could be combined with other revenue solutions to help fund the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $40 billion in capital needs.
More info
By Cait Etherington, Wed, March 6, 2019 Photo via Flickr cc
No one ever said that the New York City real estate market was easy to understand or even entirely logical. Still, you might not expect numerology to be among the knowledge sets required to fully navigate the market. But from good luck and bad luck floors to lucky number combinations, numerology plays a surprisingly significant role in how some units are priced, how quickly they sell, and most importantly, to which buyers.
It’s a numbers game
By Michelle Cohen, Fri, March 1, 2019 View from the Grand Concourse; photo courtesy of Dan DeLuca via Flickr.
According to an analysis by Property Shark, the area surrounding the thoroughfare once known as the “Park Avenue of the Middle Class” has seen an elevated housing demand that has brought median home sales prices along with it, showing an increase in just 5 years that ranges from 56.2 percent in Bedford Park to a whopping 124.5 percent in Mott Haven.
Bronx rising, this way
