Items of Interest HE'S LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO CHEER ABOUT Kelsey Grammer's almost 8,000-square-foot house in Bridgehampton is back on the market - this time at a reduced price, says the Wall Street Journal. The TV star is now asking $13.9 million for the seven-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bath shingled custom-built house. The 1.7-plus-acre property features bluestone terracing, a heated gunite pool, a pool cottage and a Har-tru tennis court. The house includes a home theater. Grammer took the house off the market last year, when it was listed for $15.6 million. THE HOUSING MARKET COMES HOME TO ONE WHO COUNTS Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and his wife Carole have put their five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath Westchester County home on the market for $1.635 million, says the New York Post. In 2004, they paid $1.602 million. The stately Larchmont Tudor was built in 1931, and one unnamed local agent was quoted saying that comparable homes have sold for between $1.3 million to just under $1.6 million in the last few months. Added another: "This is a buyers' market. There are several homes available in that general price range." WAKE UP TO THIS ARTIST'S COMPOUND NOW FOR SALE Folk artist Thomas Langan is selling the Roslyn Harbor compound that he owns with his wife Penelope, says cityfile.com. The one-acre property on Glenwood Road, offered for $2.9 million, includes a three-bedroom waterfront home built in 1860, a post-and-beam barn that serves as Langan's studio and a boathouse leading to a 138-foot dock. Scenes from "Damages" were recently filmed on the property. Commercials for Progresso soup and Folger's Coffee also were filmed there, as was the 1999 movie "Double Platinum" with Diana Ross and Brandy. Langan's works are in the private collections of luminaries such as John Cleese, Penny Marshall and Caspar Weinberger. He also has a work in the permanent collection of the Museum of American Folk Art. THE "HERS" OF HIS AND HER HOMES CAN BE YOURS Hugh Hefner and his wife Kimberley Conrad Hefner, who have lived in adjacent mansions since their 1999 separation, are listing Ms. Hefner's Los Angeles home for $28 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. In Holmby Hills, her home is next door to the massive Tudor-style Playboy mansion. The 1989 Playmate of the Year, Ms. Hefner says she and her husband bought the house about 10 years ago so that she could raise their two sons there, who are now college-age. There's a door in the wall between the two properties for easier access back and forth. "You know his-and-hers towels? We have his-and-hers houses," says she. "I get along with my former girlfriends and wives, or try to," says Mr. Hefner, 82. Playboy Enterprises owns the Playboy Mansion, but Mr. Hefner owns the house across the street, which he calls the Playmate Mansion. YOU CAN SEE HOW THE OTHER TINY FRACTION LIVES In today's tough economic climate, Warren Buffett is setting a good example, contends Forbes. The world's second richest man lives in the same five-bedroom, gray stucco house he bought in 1958 for $31,500. Buffett, 78, still calls home his humble digs in Omaha's Happy Hollow suburb, despite a $37 billion fortune. Of course, few billionaires live as simply and frugally as Buffett, and you can get a look at their homes here. HE'S HOPING FOR A BIG WIN Golfer Jim Furyk is asking $7.5 million for his custom-built contemporary house in Maui, reports the Wall Street Journal. The 38-year-old 13-time winner on the PGA Tour is known for an unusual looping golf swing. The five-bedroom single-level house was completed in 2005 and measures 6,400 square feet. In gated Plantation Estates, which has 76 home sites, the house has views of the ocean, mountains and the championship Plantation golf course - where the annual Mercedes-Benz Championship, which Furyk won in 2001, is played. There's also an extensive outdoor living area. BUT WOULD NORMA APPROVE Sally Field has just listed her Malibu house for $6.95 million, says the Los Angeles Times. The ocean-view house belonging to the Academy Award winner has five bedrooms and six bathrooms in 5,964 square feet. The two-story ranch-style home sits on three secluded acres and has separate guest quarters. There is a pool, lighted tennis court, a three-stall horse paddock and direct access to riding trails on more than 2,000 acres of park land. The home, built in 1958, has an updated gourmet kitchen, a private master bedroom wing and a media room. BABY, THE MARKET SPOKE LOUDLY TO THIS MODEL A duplex penthouse at the Volney on East 74th Street went to contract last month, but only after its $22.5 million price tag was cut to $19,995,000 and then to $16.9 million, according to the Observer. Two sources said the sales price was millions below even that most recent tag, though the listing brokers did not return emails. The 12-room sprawl belongs to Jane Holzer, the ex-model known as Baby Jane when she was a mid-'60s Warhol star. THAT PONZI SCHEMER'S WIFE PICKS PALM BEACH AS HER HOME Bernard Madoff's wife Ruth has declared her Palm Beach estate as her primary residence, a move that may shield the $9.4 million home from creditors, says Bloomberg News. She applied for and received a homestead exemption for property taxes, said Dorothy Jacks, assistant property appraiser for Palm Beach County. The Florida constitution protects homeowners who have obtained the exemption and seizing the property may be difficult, allowed Danaya Wright, a law professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The U.S. government plans to seize assets including the Madoffs' $7 million Manhattan apartment and the Palm Beach home. The exemption Ruth Madoff received may be an effort to protect the property from creditors, according to Jack McCabe of McCabe Research & Consulting in Deerfield Beach, Fla. She applied for the tax exemption Sept. 18 and received it Jan. 12. AND HER BETTER (?) HALF LIVES NOT SO WELL Bernie Madoff is being held in a super-max wing of the Manhattan federal lockup - a unit so tough it drives hardened criminals mad, the Daily News reports. It's known as 10 South. On the 10th floor of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the high-security wing has housed the city's toughest mobsters and most bloodthirsty terrorists. The lights burn 24 hours a day, and an inmate's every move is caught on video. Madoff gets just 60 minutes a day outside his 8-by-8-foot cell - in wrist shackles. Windows are blacked out, and what passes for food is slipped through a narrow slit in a stainless steel door that fronts a Spartan cell - cold in winter, scorching hot in summer. No interaction is permitted between inmates or guards. Only a ranking officer is allowed to remove a prisoner from his tiny cell. John A. "Junior" Gotti said his hard time in the MCC's most infamous section was brutal. "I was in 10 South, and it almost broke me," Gotti famously roared. GREENWICH VILLAGE SUITS THIS FASHION DESIGNER Marc Jacobs and boyfriend Lorenzo Martone have found a love nest, as the New York Post puts it. An insider told Page Six that Jacobs signed a contract this week for a $13 million West Village townhouse on Bethune Street. "Marc and Lorenzo have been looking at downtown properties for a while" and finally settled on the 4,500-square-foot townhouse designed by Robert A.M. Stern that includes a private garden and roof terrace. OBAMA MENTIONED MATTRESSES, BUT SOME HAVE OTHER IDEAS Folks who sell of safes told the New York Times that business is up as customers confront new fears. "We've had customers come in who are putting half a million to a million dollars in cash in a safe in their home," said Richard Krasilovsky, 58, of Empire Safe in Midtown. He said business was up 20-40 percent in recent months. "People do not want their lifestyles to be affected," he said. Kenneth Adler, a salesman at Liberty Safes of New York in Wyandanch recalled a customer recently telling him, "I'm going to need a bigger mattress." He said he had sold more safes in the last four months than the previous guy did in eight. The quality of safes varies widely, experts said, and they consider most of those that sell for less than $2,000 to be on the low end in terms of protection from professional burglars. "The worst thing a person can do is take all their valuables and put them in a lousy box," said Amos Tayar of Megasafe in Little Ferry, N.J., where he said sales of home safes this year were 20 percent above normal. DON'T BUY NEW KITCHEN CABINETS JUST TO IMPRESS That approach, says the Washington Post, is what keeps designers in business. A strategically placed wall cabinet with glass doors can really add sizzle to your design. Be sure to consider "conservancy glass," a special glass used by picture-framing businesses with a non-glare coating that makes the glass appear invisible. Also, consider indirect lighting behind the glass doors. And don't underestimate the door hardware's power to enhance your new cabinets. The size, color and finish of the knobs, drawer pulls and any exposed hinges can change the look of the cabinet doors. If you like solid wood, know that some doors in reality are composite doors covered with a paper-thin veneer made from solid wood. IT SOON WILL BE BARBECUE TIME AGAIN, EVEN IN MANHATTAN NEW LEGISLATION REWARDS ENERGY SAVING Potentially lucrative new and expanded tax incentives for energy-efficient and renewable-energy home improvements may offer some consolation to homeowners who feel they are falling between the cracks with the government's various economic stimulus efforts, says the Wall Street Journal. They include up to $1,500 in tax credits for adding qualifying windows, doors, insulation, roofs, heating and cooling equipment, water heaters and even wood and pellet stoves to your house in 2009 and 2010. Perks for installing pricier solar technology, small wind-energy systems or a geothermal-well system include a tax credit of 30 percent of qualifying expenditures with no upper limit through 2016. Appliances such as refrigerators, dishwashers and clothes washers aren't eligible. For new construction, consumers won't qualify for the $1,500 efficiency credit but are eligible to receive the renewable-energy credit and a separate energy-savings incentive. With the 30 percent renewable-energy credit, the richest change is that for systems placed into service after 2008. CAN THEY HEAR YOU NOW You can buy the sounds of silence cheapest and easiest during construction, notes an expert in the New York Times. To learn more about soundproofing, heating water, being your own general contractor, moving walls and dealing with light bulbs that burn out too fast, click here. The Soothsayers (Big Apple Edition) NO ONE REALLY KNOWS WHERE THE NYC MARKET IS GOING Pinpointing the bottom has become a top priority for anyone eager to buy, sell or broker a deal on a home in New York, notes the New York Times. Some industry observers foresee market drops of 40 percent, while others think that is too extreme and suggest that price reductions of 25 percent will more be likely the new norm. According to appraisal executive Jonathan Miller, "You're approaching bottom when you start to see sales activity stop declining and level off. Pricing begins to push up when you have an extended period, like a year, when sales activity doesn't decline anymore." Many expect that the million-dollar segment will stabilize first because it is powered by first-timers who are drawn by falling prices and don't have to sell before they buy. The process is being helped along by federal efforts to increase mortgage lending. For more from several prognosticators of the market, click here. WALL STREET BONUS BUSINESS COULD HURT NYC HOUSING PRICES So say economists interviewed by Bloomberg News. A 50 percent reduction in bonuses would push down prices by about 24 percent from their peak through mid-2010, said Sam Chandan, chief economist at property research firm Real Estate Economics. That would mark the biggest slide since 1980, when appraiser Miller Samuel (above item) started tracking Manhattan prices. "This will probably be the worst price correction the city has seen," agreed Marisa Di Natale, senior economist at Moody's Economy.com. When bonuses climbed 114 percent between 1998 and 2000, Manhattan co-op and condo prices followed, rising 51 percent during those years, data compiled by Miller Samuel show. "If bonuses next year are expected at or below the current level, then prices will slide," Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller said. New York City budget officials estimate bonuses will fall 50 percent in the fiscal year ending in June from a year earlier, and will decline further in fiscal 2010. Paul Purcell of Charles Rutenberg Realty said clients who approach him for advice are looking for even bigger price reductions. No one has yet weighed in on the likely big effects of legislative proposals to tax heavily the bonuses of high-income employees of AIG and other companies that receive TARP money. THE ATLANTIC SEES A SILVER LINING FOR THE BIG APPLE NYU DESPAIRS OF FINDING PRECEDENT IN THE PAST Past performance during a downturn won't tell you how far a neighborhood's housing prices will fall during the current downturn, suggests a study by New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, according to Crain's New York. "We didn't find the answer to the $100,000 question that everyone wants to know - what's going to happen in my neighborhood?" said Ingrid Gould Ellen, co-director of the Furman Center. "If a neighborhood fared poorly in the 1970s, it didn't mean it fared poorly in the bust of the early 1990s." Examining more than 30 years of sale-price data, the authors found that real estate prices declined 12.4 percent between 1974 and 1980 citywide, then jumped 152 percent between 1980 and 1989. They fell 29.3 percent from 1989 to 1996 and increased 124.2 percent from 1996 to 2006. Overall, prices skyrocketed 250 percent from 1974 to 2006, when they began to level off. A neighborhood's performance during the 1974-1980 housing bust had little relationship to how that neighborhood fared in the next downturn. And high-income neighborhoods were not insulated from busts and did not always perform best in upswings. To get into the weeds, click here. CITY HALL WANTS TO ENCOURAGE MORE SUPERMARKETS The Bloomberg administration intends to loosen zoning rules and offer tax incentives to boost the development of new supermarkets, reports the Observer. A draft of policies - which the Planning spokeswoman stressed were not yet complete and are subject to change - proposes both land use incentives and tax incentives for supermarkets in certain neighborhoods. Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers said the draft policies were a "good step," adding that "the more compelling policy issue is the disappearance of existing stores." GOING IT ALONE, A SELLER FINDS FACEBOOK DOESN'T HELP Timothy Bascom, who listed his Bank Street loft overlooking the Hudson River in February just a month ago for $3.15 million, was concerned that his broker advised a price reduction too soon, according to the New York Daily News. After agreeing to a new $2.95 million price, however, the owner took it upon himself to start his own publicity campaign with a Facebook advertising blitz targeting New York City residents and driving people to an eBay listing that he created to sell the loft. In the first seven days, the eBay listing received more than 2,700 hits, 300 of which came from the Facebook. So far, however, only one dubious offer has come in, from an investment fund wanting to purchase his apartment with owner financing while he provides the fund with a standby letter of credit for its trading operations. He declined that offer, hoping that the marketing efforts combined with the lower price will eventually result in a traditional sale. While it needs a little work, the loft is in a celebrity building. Heidi Klum just moved out and Grace Jones lives on the same floor. MANHATTAN VACANCY RATE REGISTERS BIG INCREASE In August, the rate was 1.39 percent in Manhattan, reports the Observer. In February, it was a 2.46 percent vacancy rate in comparison with January's 2.24 percent and 1.31 percent a year earlier. Since August, the average Manhattan-wide rents have fallen for studios (by $155), one-bedroom ($263), two-bedroom ($238) and three-bedroom ($467) apartments. FORECLOSURE ACTIVITY IN MANHATTAN SHOOTS UP Activity in the borough shot up 549 percent between January and February. The Real Deal trade publication reports that 331 residential properties received some type of foreclosure filing last month, according to a nationwide report released by RealtyTrac.com, an online resource for foreclosure data. RealtyTrac.com has been criticized for over-inflating numbers - for example, in Manhattan, by applying a single lis pendens (pending lawsuit) filed against a developer to multiple units. (One building last month was counted 232 times as one filing for each unit.) A spokesman said that, although the actual number of filings last month, 331, is relatively small, the amount would be significant if the rate continues at a sustained pace. According to his firm's data, activity ranged between 56 and 87 filings per month over the past year. Overall, there were 1,248 residential properties in Manhattan in the foreclosure process, most of which were in lis pendens, the first step in the foreclosure process. PRELIMINARY FIGURES CONFIRM PRICE AND SALE DECLINES Co-op sales have dried up, according to the New York Times, adding that preliminary figures show a decline in average co-op prices of 28 percent so far this year from the record prices in the first quarter of 2008. Yet last month, despite the faltering economy and a difficult mortgage market, lawyers for 328 buyers of new and existing condos filed deeds with the Department of Finance, the final step in property purchases. And average condo prices are up sharply from those of last summer and fall. The number of deed filings is off 20 percent from the number of filings in January, off 40 percent from December and 60 percent from February 2008. The prices on the new apartments that have actually closed so far in 2009 were so high that they drove both the average and median condominium prices to near-record levels, far above the prices in the last half of 2008. A review of preliminary figures for the first quarter through mid-March put the average condo closing price at $1.82 million, with a median price of $1.195 million. The average price was about 14 percent above that of the second half of 2008, and only 4 percent below the peak average price in the first quarter of 2008, when many apartments were closing at very expensive new developments such as 15 Central Park West. OPEN HOUSE TRAFFIC MAY SUGGEST COMING SALES UPTICK Foot traffic at open houses around the city has picked up surprisingly in recent weeks in a development that brokers are hailing as a glimmer of hope for New York's residential real estate market, observes Crain's. Many brokers and developers at new developments across the city report that the number of visitors at weekend open houses has nearly doubled in recent weeks and that many of them appear to be serious buyers swept back into the market by the scent of bargains. For the past two weekends, for example, roughly 22 people have stopped by a 21-unit new condominium in TriBeCa. Since opening its sales office in December, the development typically attracted a dozen visitors each week. Some attribute the spike to the imminent arrival of spring, while others note that talk of prices declining by 20 percent and more is finally piquing potential buyers' interest. Others attribute the sudden spike to increased consumer confidence in President Barack Obama's stimulus programs and the overall stock market. DROP IN EMIGRATION COULD BRING POPULATION TO 8.4 MILLION New York City lost less population to other states in the 12 months ending last July 1 than during any year in decades, according to new census figures, says the New York Times. If that trend Buyers' Remorse (New York Edition) LAWYERS ARE BUSY TRYING TO RETRIEVE DEPOSITS Buyers are demanding concessions from developers on apartments that they say have lost up to 30 percent in value, while others are hoping to back out of their contracts without losing down payments, says the New York Times. The sudden demand has sent lawyers scurrying to uncover avant-garde legal tactics for ducking out of a deal. Downtown conversions such as 75 Wall Street and new developments such as One Hunters Point in Long Island City are facing suits from buyers seeking to break contracts on the basis of a once-obscure consumer protection law. MORE CONDO BUYERS ASK STATE TO BEAR DOWN ON DEVELOPERS Emily Brown, a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office, tells Real Estate Weekly that there has been a rise in the number of requests from condo buyers and those in contract to buy asking the Attorney General to intercede on their behalf in order to compel building sponsors to refund deposits or fix problems. The number of New Yorkers filing claims with the attorney general's office to claw back their down payments has more than tripled in the last two years, although most disputes don't reach this step. In 2007, 57 claims were filed; in 2008, 168. By Feb. 20 of this year, the office had already recorded 74 claims. The sharp uptick raises questions whether there has been an increase in the incidence of sloppy construction during the building boom before the current economic problems and to what degree buyers who are in contract are trying to leverage quality issues in order to extract a discount at a time when the residential market has been steadily sinking. "When the market is rising, there is the sense that people feel lucky just to be able to buy something and beat out all the other bidders and they're willing to put up with an apartment where you can hear the neighbors because the walls are too thin or the finishes aren't perfect," said architecture executive Howard Zimmerman. "But when the market is going down like it is now, suddenly buyers and owners notice everything." FEDERAL LAW CREATES TINY LOOPHOLE FOR CONDO BUYERS Developers of condo projects with more than 99 units are required to file a project report with HUD, present a copy of the document to each apartment buyer prior to his or her signing of a purchase agreement and promise to deliver the unit within two years. If the developer fails to fulfill his obligations, the buyer has two years to back out of the contract and potentially walk away from the deal with her entire down payment. Attorney Robert Chasnow of Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C. said there are some 20 exceptions to the rule, which allow developers who failed to present HUD-approved property reports to maintain a contract. The most prominent loophole is that if the developer promised to deliver the property within two years of signing - and fulfills the promise - the buyer cannot revoke his or her purchase agreement. HOME CONSTRUCTION REBOUNDS UNEXPECTEDLY HIGH IN FEBRUARY Housing starts turned upward for the first time in eight months, posting a 22.2 percent gain largely because a big bump on the often-volatile multifamily side, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Building permits, which can be an indicator of future building activity, also rose, by 3 percent. The gain in permits reflected 11 percent growth in single-family permits and a 10.8 percent decline in multifamily permits to 174,000 units. The increase in housing starts is attributable to an 82.3 percent surge on the multifamily side and an 1.1 percent gain on the single-family side. "While welcome news, this gain only reflects a modest rebound from January, which was the worst month in history for new-home production," said Chief Economist David Crowe of the National Association of Home Builders. VIRTUALLY ALL METRO AREAS HAVE DECEMBER PRICE DROPS The price per square foot of homes fell an average of 22 percent in all of the 25 U.S. metro areas tracked in December compared with the same month of 2007, according to real estate data and analytics company Radar Logic, says Inman News. Phoenix had the highest year-over-year price decline in December (-35.9 percent), following by San Francisco (-35.1 percent), Las Vegas (-31.9 percent), San Jose (-30.2 percent) and Sacramento (-27.4 percent). Philadelphia recorded the slightest year-over-year slide (-2.2 percent) among the metro areas listed, followed by Columbus, Ohio (-3.8 percent), St. Louis (-5.8 percent), Milwaukee (-5.9 percent) and Cleveland (-8.1 percent). Milwaukee saw the greatest decrease between last November and December 2008 (-7.8 percent), followed by Chicago (-5.4 percent), Minneapolis and San Francisco (-4.7 percent), and Seattle (-4.5 percent). The only cities with a month-to-month increase were St Louis (2.1 percent) and Denver (1.2 percent). Columbus broke even, while San Diego (-0.4 percent) and Tampa (-0.7 percent) had the slightest drops. In New York, the one-year decline was 12.3 percent. IS BLUE THE NEW RED Based on insurance reporting on 50 metropolitan areas, Business Week scored levels of depression and decided that Portland, Ore. was the city with the worst mood in the country, according to Realtor magazine. Also included in the scoring was information from the National Assembly of County & City Health Officials, FBI crime reports, the U.S. Weather Bureau and the U.S. Census. If you believe this sort of thing, the others in the top 10 were, in order: St. Louis, New Orleans, Detroit, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Las Vegas, Nashville, Cincinnati and Atlanta. MANHATTAN LEVEL OF SUPPLY THIS YEAR SURPRISES APPRAISER Since 2001, inventory has risen nearly every year after New Year's in anticipation of the spring market, notes appraisal executive Jonathan Miller in his provocative blog, "Matrix." The average monthly level of inventory since 2001 is 6,936 units he says, adding that 2006 was the previous high-water mark, but for very different reasons. "Back then, mortgage rates were thought to spike the next year to 7-8 percent and sellers were placing their properties on the market to 'cash-out,'" Miller writes. "Many were wildly overpriced and really weren't 'in' the market. This greatly frustrated buyers, who thought they had more negotiating strength given the high level of inventory." There was a "glaring exception" to a first-quarter rise in 2007, given the record level of sales activity that eroded inventory levels while the rest of the country saw a rapid increase. A year-long slowdown in the number of sales began in the first quarter of 2008. The lower level of sales (down 23 percent in 2008) forced inventory to trend higher over the year, according to the appraiser, who finds "the same general uptick, but at a much higher level." Miller attributes a sharp drop in sales activity after September mainly to the higher level of inventory. "However I am surprised inventory levels aren't even higher given the more than 50 percent decline in the number of sales," he says. BUILDERS ARE STILL LACKING CONFIDENCE Builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes remained unchanged in March, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), released today. The HMI held steady at 9 in March, marking a fifth consecutive month of single-digit readings. "The economy continues to be the main drag on home sales activity right now, in terms of consumer confidence across most of the country," commented Chief Economist David Crowe of the National Association of Home Builders. "What's more, home builders report that tight credit conditions are posing a further hurdle, especially for potential first-time buyers, while potential trade-up buyers are finding it very tough to sell their existing homes so they can make a move." FORECLOSURES ARE SQUEEZING SALES PRICES OF NEW HOMES Home builders are confronting the competition from foreclosures at a difficult time in their history, says the Wall Street Journal. Small builders are dying by the dozens, while some large companies are staying afloat by cutting expenses and scrambling to restructure debt. "I don't know how the builders are going to compete," said Credit Suisse analyst Daniel Oppenheim, who downgraded his ratings for Centex and D.R. Horton stock last week, partly out of concern about foreclosure competition. The problem is particularly vexing because many buyers are bypassing new houses for foreclosed ones that are virtually new and are often situated in the companies' own developments. "Buyers think they are going to get the best bargain with a foreclosed house, and they aren't even looking at new homes," said Graham Holmes, owner of Reviron Realty, which sells bank-owned properties in the Inland Empire region of Southern California. TERMINALLY ILL CONTRACTORS, TAKE NOTE A Brooklyn funeral director is looking for a reliable contractor to put an addition on his apartment - in exchange for a free funeral package, says the Daily News. Peter Dohanich, 51, concedes some might view his ad on Craigslist as "bizarre," but he thinks it's savvy, not spooky. "These are tough times, and people don't have the money," Dohanich said. "I'm sure that there are contractors with elderly or terminally ill parents and are worried about how to cover the costly expenses of a funeral." Dohanich is seeking a contractor to build a 300-sf sitting room off the living room of his ground-floor apartment in midtown. In return, Dohanich would provide a full funeral - cremation or burial, embalming, a coffin, viewing, religious service, even a hearse and a limo for loved ones. "It may sound like a laughable barter transaction, but consider the average cost of paying for a funeral," he wrote in the ad. "Ask someone that recently had a funeral what they paid!" Dohanich apparently is not in the running to be head of the National Funeral Directors Association. URBAN CONSTRUCTION SURPASSES SUBURBS Redevelopment of the urban core of more than half of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the U.S. is a "striking trend," says John Thomas, an EPA policy analyst and author of a report on housing trends, according to USA Today in Realtor magazine. Cities seeing the most urban growth include New York, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Denver, Sacramento, Milwaukee and Atlanta. CORRUPTION PAYS OFF The war-torn Republic of Chad, which has, among myriad problems, the misfortune of sharing a border with Sudan, has purchased a $7.3 million townhouse on East 36th Street, according to city records, reports the Observer. A woman who answered the phone at the Republic's Mission to the United Nations said Chad would relocate its consulate from 43rd Street to 129 East 36th St., an attractive four-story townhouse with white facade and red trim. The New York Times has described the country as "is a landlocked country in one of Africa's most unstable regions, its history a litany of military coups, foreign incursions and brutal dictatorship." It goes on to say that Gold, uranium, and more recently, oil, are sources of wealth for the government, which is ranked as one of the world's "most corrupt." Among the population, the Times says, "poverty is severe." Among Chad's ministries, apparently it is not. NOT ONLY THE OCEAN IS BLUE IN THE HAMPTONS Average sale prices have declined by about 10 percent, but that only hints at the seriousness of the trouble, because hardly anything is moving," the New York Times says. According to data collected by the Suffolk Research Service, a local real estate data company, the number of sales in 2008 fell by 25 percent in East Hampton, 39 percent in Bridgehampton, 45 percent in Southampton and 47 percent in Montauk. Things really collapsed during the fall. "Until the market improves or their mental state improves, they're not buying anything," says Herb Phillips, a veteran real estate agent who also is chairman of the Southampton town zoning board. "It's dead." To read the whole sad long story, go here. INCREASE FOUND IN RENTALS OF SECOND HOMES Although there are few statistics on the national vacation-home rental market, property managers and online listings companies say that more second-home owners are trying to rent out their properties at least part-time, according to the New York Times. HomeAway.com says its total inventory is up 25 percent from a year ago, and the fee to list a rental has risen too, to $329 a year. Mike Butler, HomeAway's chief commercial officer, said last December was the company's strongest month ever in terms of new listings, with the number of properties listed up 92 percent in the fourth quarter in Los Angeles compared with the previous year and up 55 percent in Miami. HomeAway is also seeing more listings in densely urban cities: an increase of 114 percent last year for New York City, 64 percent for Chicago and 97 percent for Seattle. In addition, travel research firm PhoCusWright recently estimated that there were at least 1.2 million vacation homes available for rent in the United States. "The fly markets like Colorado and Utah are doing poorly, whereas in other markets such as Vermont we're seeing demand up 15-20 percent," said the firm's Douglas Quinby. The report found that the average price of a vacation rental was about $215 a night - about double the average price for a hotel room. MORTGAGE RATES REACH NEAR RECORD LOWS The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.98 percent for the week ending March 19, down from last week's 5.03 percent and last year's 5.87 percent. It has not been lower since the week ending Jan. 15, when it hit a record 4.96 percent in Freddie Mac's weekly survey. The 15-year dropped from 4.64 percent the previous week to 4.61 percent. A year ago at this time, it averaged 5.27 percent and has not been lower since the week ending June 13, 2003, when it was 4.60 percent. Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 4.98 percent this week compared with 4.99 percent a week earlier and 5.56 percent a year earlier. One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs were 4.91 percent, up from last week's 4.80 percent but off from 5.15 percent in 2008. "Long-term mortgages followed bond yields lower for the second week as reports of slower industrial production suggested that business spending might ease this year," said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist. "Following the March 18 Federal Reserve monetary policy statement, which announced further spending initiatives on financial assets, long-term bond yields plummeted. Yields on 10-year Treasury bonds fell by about a half percentage point after the announcement, marking the largest one-day decline since October 20, 1987." DISAPPOINTMENT MAY FACE THOSE EXPECTING EVEN LOWER RATES Although rates are way down, further big declines will be hard to achieve, partly because the mortgage-lending market has grown less competitive in the past year as hundreds of small banks and independent mortgage lenders have collapsed, reports the Wall Street Journal. The big banks that dominate the market are eager to boost their profits margins, not give deeper bargains to consumers. Rates for borrowers with the strongest credit are likely to be in a range of roughly 4.5 percent to 4.75 percent for the rest of this year, says Mahesh Swaminathan, a mortgage strategist at Credit Suisse in New York. Others say that is too optimistic. Assuming no big change in government policy, Walter Schmidt, an analyst at FTN Financial Capital Markets, sees a range of 4.75 percent to 5.5 percent for most of this year. Until recently, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages hadn't been below 5 percent since the 1950s. FREDDIE MAC BORROWERS CAN'T SHOP FOR BEST REFI RATE A new mortgage-refinancing program offered by Freddie as part of the Obama administration's foreclosure-prevention plan doesn't allow borrowers to shop around for the lowest fees, notes the Wall Street Journal. Brad German, a spokesman for the government-backed provider of funding for mortgages, said any borrower with a Freddie-backed loan who wants to refinance under the program needs to do so through the company that services his current loan. Loan servicers, typically owned by lenders, collect monthly payments. But Fannie Mae, said borrowers with Fannie-backed loans will be able to seek refinancings under the program from more than 30,000 lenders nationwide. While Fannie is letting borrowers shop around, those deemed a higher risk are hit with fees that can total 3 percent or more of the loan balance. Freddie's maximum fee on these refinancings is 0.25 percent. 26% RISE IN FRAUD INCIDENTS SETS A RECORD Reported incidents of mortgage fraud in the U.S. are at an all-time high and increased by 26 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to a new report released today by the Mortgage Asset Research Institute (MARI). Its report to the Mortgage Banker's Association (MBA) examines the current state of residential mortgage fraud and misrepresentation in the U.S. based on data submitted by MARI subscribers. Rhode Island ranked first for mortgage fraud, followed respectively by Florida, Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Michigan, California, Missouri and Colorado. Said MARI's Denise James: "Not only are we seeing traditional fraud trends, such as application fraud, but we are also seeing new types of emerging fraud occur," said James. The top fraud incident type in 2008 - representing 61 percent of all reported frauds - was application fraud. Second were frauds related to tax returns and financial statements, jumping 60 percent from 17 percent of reported frauds in 2007, to 28 percent in 2008. WEB SITES OFFER A SURFEIT OF INFO ABOUT FEDERAL HELP At financialstability.gov, you'll find links to the lowdown on homeowner, small business and capital improvement assistance. Stimulating reading! And if that's not enough to lull you to sleep, a new government Web site may help; it includes online tools that can help troubled borrowers determine whether they are eligible to participate in the "Making Home Affordable" loan modification and refinancing program. The site, MakingHomeAffordable.gov, is intended to help communicate how the program works and who is eligible. UNWELCOME NEWS FOR PROSPECTIVE CONDO BUYERS Fannie Mae has added restrictions making it more difficult for developers to sell their units, says the Wall Street Journal. The government-backed mortgage-finance company stopped guaranteeing mortgages in condo buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold, up from 51 percent. In addition, the company won't back loans for sales in buildings where 15 percent of current owners are delinquent on association fees or where more than 10 percent of units are owned by a single-entity. The new policy became effective March 1. LOW RATES PUSH UP LOAN ACTIVITY Mortgage applications zoomed upward for the week ending March 12, rising 21.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, reports Realtor magazine. On an unadjusted basis, the increase was 20.7 percent compare with the previous week and 31.2 percent from the same week a year ago. Much of the increase was in refinances, reflecting a significant decline in rates. The growth was 29.6 percent, while the purchase volume went up only 1.5 percent. BRONX REAL ESTATE BROKER IS CHARGED WITH FRAUD A licensed real estate broker from the Bronx who hosted a radio program on WBLS was one of two people accused today in an alleged $800,000 mortgage fraud scheme, the United States Attorney for the Southern District in Manhattan said, according to the Real Deal. Lavette Bills, the CEO of Bronx-based MTC Real Estate, along with Kirk Lacey of Florida, allegedly submitted fraudulent mortgage applications in order to defraud homeowners and lenders. In one example, Bills convinced a homeowner to put Bills' name on the deed with the promise that she would obtain a new mortgage to help the property owner make repairs and pay down the original loan, prosecutors said. Instead, Bills resold the house to a straw buyer who had obtained another loan under a fraudulent loan application with Lacey's assistance, the US Attorney's office said. Bills and Lacey allegedly garnered $150,000 from the scheme, and the home owner is now in foreclosure proceedings. Cheaper by the Dozen, It Isn't Anymore In olden times, apartments of a certain size were flying off the shelf. Demand was substantially outstripping supply. That was less than a year ago, and the condos and co-ops that sold swiftly at inflated prices were those for large families. Generally speaking, the units had at least four bedrooms. How times have changed! Now those apartments go begging (as do many others). According to StreetEasy, in the fourth quarter of 2008, studios represented 13.77 percent of the total properties in contract, up from just 9.59 percent the year before. By contrast, properties with more than four bedrooms fell from 2.21 percent of the market to just 1.59 percent. The numbers are even starker for the first two weeks of 2009, where studios represented 17.42 percent of new contracts and four-plus bedrooms, just 0.56 percent. It is possible to imagine a variety of causes, and they will be explored below. Consider four-bedroom apartments offered between $2 million and $12 million in the 12 months following mid-February of 2007. Some 274 of them had price cuts during that year-long period. As their popularity continued, such units had precisely the same number of price cuts until November of that year - no changes in nine months. In November, there was but a single price change. In other words, virtually all the price reductions recorded for the large apartments in that 12-month period did not occur until December, well into the recession and well past the Dow's tumble in September. By the end of 2007, three quarters of the apartments had yet to have their offering prices cut. Only by the middle January did the percentage of price changes dip to 58 percent; much of the remainder would be reduced in the ensuing four weeks. The story for two-bedroom apartments listed between $1.3 million and $2 million is somewhat similar. There were 470 price cuts during the same 12-month period. Again, nothing much happened until mid-January, by which time 56 percent of the units had not registered a price reduction. Underlying whatever all the reasons might be is the steep decline of consumer confidence as the recession deepened, spending sank, jobs vanished, Wall Street went into paroxysms of pessimism, lenders refused to lend, and the bursting of the housing bubble finally reverberated in the New York housing market. In such an environment, buyers understandably feared going to contract if the bottom of the market would occur at some distant, yet unknown, future time. Reinforcing their reluctance was the wish of many sellers to obtain asking prices at the exalted heights of days gone by. Not all segments of the housing market reflected those times in the same way. Something besides the economy in general apparently affected the housing market. Could it have been expectations of family size? Could it have been an unwillingness of some parents to have more children than they had planned? Unfortunately for the sake of analysis, more than one variable has an influence on birth rates - for example, immigration, demographic trends and use of birth control. Still, it can't be mere coincidence that the last four recessions in the United States have been followed by a dip in the fertility rate, according to economic data from the National Bureau of Economic Research and fertility data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the CDC.
Observes Daniel Gross in Slate, "Babies, like corporate earnings, are a lagging indicator. After all, they're produced nine months before they arrive in the marketplace. When Pediatrix reports its second-quarter earnings in August, we'll know whether this single data point is growing from its embryonic stage into a bouncing baby trend." Demographers say it's too early to tell what effect increased anxiety as measured lately by psychologists will have on the U.S. birthrate. But they don't expect the current recession to lower the rate below the so-called replacement level, at which each couple reproduces itself. "We'll know in about nine months," Carl Haub, a demographer for the Population Research Bureau, a private company in Washington, tells the Los Angeles Times. "It depends on how low it goes." Certainly the boom years produced a rise in birth rates: More babies were born in the United States in 2007 than in any other year in American history, according to preliminary data reported by the National Center for Health Statistics. The 4,317,000 births in 2007 just edged out the figure for 1957, at the height of the baby boom. (And it seems half of them occupy the strollers clogging the streets of New York.) As for demographics, the U.S. Census Bureau says in its release of new data that the declining fertility rates and the aging of baby boomers have contributed to a decrease in the percentage of families with their own child living at home. The drop was 46 percent in 2008 from 52 percent in 1950. Said Rose Kreider, family demographer at the U.S. Census Bureau: "In 2008, not only were baby boomers old enough that most of their children were 18 and over, but they were having fewer kids than their parents, as well." When the baby boomers were young, the 1950 percentage reaching a high of 57 percent in the early 1960s. Still, it is interesting to note that the percentage of family households with children under 18 in 2008 that had three or more of their own children present was 21 percent in both 1998 and 2008. Another demographic factor concerns increases in longevity: The older householders become, the less likely they are to have children living at home. Childlessness, too, was attributed to the decline; for women 40-44 years old, it went up from 10 percent in 1976 to 20 percent in 2006. Below, recently visited apartments (with and without children) listed by various brokers:
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Jim Long, a spokesman for the New York City Fire Department, tells the New York Times that grilling on a terrace is not entirely prohibited, but it is subject to several restrictions. For example, a charcoal barbecue grill can be used on a balcony or terrace if there is a 10-foot clearance between the grill and the building. Also, there must be an immediate source of water such as a garden hose or four-gallon pail of water, which would be heavy water. Long adds that propane grills may not be used on a terrace, balcony or roof under any circumstances.
"New York is much, much more than a financial center," writes Richard Florida (his name apparently no joke). "It has been the nation's largest city for roughly two centuries, and today sits in America's largest metropolitan area, as the hub of the country's largest mega-region. It is home to a diverse and innovative economy built around a broad range of creative industries, from media to design to arts and entertainment. It is home to high-tech companies like Bloomberg, and boasts a thriving Google outpost in its Chelsea neighborhood." In The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid measured the concentration of different types of jobs in New York relative to their incidence in the U.S. economy as a whole. "By this measure, New York is more of a mecca for fashion designers, musicians, film directors, artists, and - yes - psychiatrists than for financial professionals," Florida continues. "The financial crisis may ultimately help New York by reenergizing its creative economy."
continues, the city's population will top 8.4 million in 2010. Gains and stanched losses in New York and a number of other large metropolitan areas in the Northeast, the Midwest and coastal California reflected, in part, slower growth in traditional domestic migrant magnets in the South and West. "This is one of the most complex patterns of migration change in a short period that I have seen in 30 years," said Kenneth M. Johnson, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire. "This is new, a real deviation from the average," added New York City's chief demographer, Joseph J. Salvo. "Whether it's a trend is another thing." As of July 1, 2008, the census counted 8,363,710 New Yorkers, an increase of 355,000, or 4.4 percent, since April 2000. As a result, New York City residents now account for nearly 43 percent of the state's population. In the year beginning July 1, 2007, the city grew by nearly 54,000. During that year, 76,000 more people left the city for other states than arrived from other states, a sharp reduction from the annual average since 2000 of 148,000. 
