Malcolm’s daily blog started a month ago. If you haven’t checked it out, you haven’t seen posts written only for the blog on everything from celebrity gossip to commentary on the broker community, the very latest market analysis, the mortgage environment and, today, the fireplace mantle from hell. To see what you’ve been missing, please click here – and always be up to date. Items of Interest TALK CAN BE CHEAP Brutally frank discussions about specific listings can draw hundreds of comments on sites like StreetEasy, Curbed and Brownstoner, where traffic has increased as buyers and interested observers seek insight into the turbulent real estate market, observes the New York Times. Commenters scour these Web sites, attend open houses or study brokers’ advertisements and then post their analyses. Reviews of specific apartments are a growing phenomenon. Drawing on reams of publicly available data on sales prices, comparable listings, creditors’ liens and even mortgage amounts (in the case of condominiums), commenters debate what an apartment is worth and how much a seller might be desperate enough to accept. They also pinpoint flaws ranging from imminent construction of a garbage facility nearby to crimes of linoleum. For their part, sellers and their brokers are seething over what they perceive as a lack of accountability, hidden or misanthropic motives, and the fact that defending one’s property - even correcting a factual error - can prolong or aggravate its turn under the collective microscope. SHOCKING NEWS FROM CON ED Electric bills will drop at least 7 percent this summer, Con Ed is predicting, according to the Daily News. That will put an extra $8 a month in the typical customer's wallet, despite a 6.1 percent rate hike that took effect two weeks ago. Although Con Ed charges for delivering energy, it doesn't mark up the cost of electricity, which has become less expensive to generate. "Natural gas prices are down 75 percent from their high last year, and oil is down more than 50 percent, so the wholesale cost of electricity is much lower - down where it was 10 years ago," said Joseph Oates, vice president for energy management at Con Ed. Typical residential customers using 350 kilowatt hours a month will pay $96.27 per month this summer as opposed to $104.23 per month last summer. AN INSPECTION MAY NOT BE NECESSARY WHEN BUYING A CO-OP Under normal circumstances, there is no need for an engineer’s inspection when purchasing a co-op apartment since the purchaser is not actually purchasing the apartment itself, but rather shares of stocks of a corporation that owns the building, Lior Aldad, a Manhattan co-op and condo lawyer, tells the New York Times. As a shareholder, the buyer will be leasing the apartment from the co-op corporation through a document called a proprietary lease. The responsibility for maintaining the building falls on the corporation and all shareholders. But many co-op offering plans and proprietary leases state that the shareholders are responsible for the repair and maintenance of elements within an apartment such as the windows, the opening in the wall for an air-conditioner unit and any alterations made to the original apartment. Therefore, the buyer should review co-op documents and question the current owner to determine if any major alterations have been done to the apartment. If so, an engineer’s inspection of the alterations may be beneficial. FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF UNMITIGATED GALL Authorities say a female impostor illegally took over three Upper East Side buildings after the death of her landlord ex-boyfriend seven years ago and collected rent from at least one unwitting tenant, reports the Real Deal publication. Flora Soto, 54, faces 21 felony counts of forgery, grand larceny, criminal possession of a forged instrument, offering a false instrument for filing and scheme to defraud, according to the district attorney’s office. The buildings, at 224 East 81st St., where she lives (for now), 405 East 90th St. and 313 East 61st St., are still owned by the estate of Fred Ziess, the ex-boyfriend who died seven years ago, said the trustee of Ziess’ estate, his brother Alan. Soto circulated letters and held meetings informing tenants that she was the new landlord, according to the criminal complaint. She also “demanded” rent, from tenants, the criminal complaint says, collecting more than $1,000 from at least one of them. Ziess said the small payout may have been because Soto had a difficult time convincing tenants to pay her the rent. “She was stealing the buildings in plain view of everyone,” he declared. IF YOU CAN'T PAY THE RENT, HAVE A PARTY “The rent party’s genesis was in Harlem during the early 1920s, according to Cary D. Wintz, the author of Harlem Speaks: A Living History of the Harlem Renaissance, in the New York Times. As blacks immigrated to the city from the South, they moved into Harlem’s formerly white, middle-class brownstones, which had been divided into apartments. Landlords charged high rents and managed to get them because racial segregation meant black tenants had few other options. “It was a cheap way to help a friend in need,” said Frank Byrd, who in 1938 lived on West 135th Street and tells his story in Works Projects Administration documents now held by the Library of Congress. “It was such a good, easy way out of one’s difficulties that others decided to make use of it.” Now as then, it looks like a way out for creative renters in the region, the Times reports, providing anecdotes from the present. MIDDLE-CLASS TENANTS NOW FACE EVICTION MORE OFTEN Lawyers, judges and tenant advocates say the staggering economy has sent an increasing number of middle-class renters across New York City to the brink of eviction, reports the New York Times. Suddenly, residents of middle-class havens like Rego Park in Queens and Riverdale in the Bronx are crowding into the city’s already burdened housing courts, long known as poor people’s court. Even some affluent people in high-end places are finding themselves facing off with landlords. Overall, court records show that the number of cases filed citywide for nonpayment of rent jumped about 19 percent in the first two months of 2009 from the same period last year, to 42,257 from 35,588. “It’s cutting across all lines,” said Jaya K. Madhavan, supervising judge of Bronx Housing Court. WHY DID WW II CHANGE APARTMENT DESIGN It was really a combination of changes, according to the New York Times. “Between the end of the good times (1930) and the restarting of the construction engines (1945) was a 15-year period when the whole world turned upside down on just about every level,” observed Andrew Alpern, an architectural historian who has written several books on prewar-style buildings, in an e-mail to the Times. “With that sort of break, it is not at all surprising that the housing product was so different between 1930 and 1945. And prewar really means pre-1930.” When the war ended, much housing was needed, quickly. “And there wasn’t all that much money available to create it,” Alpern noted, “so we needed cheaper housing.” Some changes were societal: no more maids’ rooms or formal dining rooms and fancy kitchens that needed servants. Changes to the building code allowed the total space of each apartment to shrink. Wallboard replaced wet plaster. Furthermore, mechanical air-conditioning reduced the need for cross-ventilation, allowing the elimination of long halls “where so much art and family photos could be hung,” Alpern said. FORECLOSURES ARE DOWN FROM A YEAR AGO The decrease in April was 20 percent year-over-year, reports PropertyShark.com, according to Curbed.com. Moreover, the decline since March was 18 percent. Queens continues to record the most foreclosures, with 172 new ones foreclosures slated in April; still, that amount is 23 percent lower than March. Only eight foreclosure auctions were scheduled in Manhattan. HISPANIC MIGRANTS HELPED SPUR CITY’S POPULATION INCREASE A spurt in the number of Hispanic New Yorkers helped push the city’s population to nearly 8.4 million last year, reports the New York Times. Meanwhile, a slow but steady rise among non-Hispanic whites brought that group to the brink of regaining its majority in Manhattan for the first time in a generation, according to the Census Bureau’s new estimates. Of the more than 50,000 people added in the city between July 2007 and July 2008, 27,000 were Hispanic (nearly 10,000 of them in the Bronx) and 20,000 were Asian (fully half of them in Queens). The number of blacks declined slightly, as it has every year since 2000. In Manhattan, the steady decrease in black and Hispanic residents, coupled with the increase in whites, means that the borough’s population was 49.5 percent white - higher than it was in 1980 - as of last July. Citywide, 35 percent of the population was non-Hispanic white, 28 percent Hispanic, 24 percent black and 12 percent Asian. The city’s overall population gain, nearly 54,000, was the second highest of the decade. RENTS ARE LITTLE CHANGED IN APRIL Manhattan rents changed slightly between March and April, according to the April rental market analysis by brokerage Citi Habitats, reports the Real Deal. Studio apartment rents held steady at an average of $1,774. One-bedroom rents fell slightly to $2,434 from $2,443, and two-bedroom rents dipped to $3,460 from $3,551. Rents for three-bedrooms rose to $4,607 from $4,594. The overall vacancy rate fell to 2.28 percent from 2.37 in March. Midtown East had the highest vacancy rate, at 2.7 percent, of the 11 neighborhoods included in the report, while the Soho/Tribeca area had the lowest, at 1.78 percent. FED CHIEF SEES SIGNS OF THE MARKET’S BOTTOM “The housing market, which has been in decline for three years, has also shown some signs of bottoming. Sales of existing homes have been fairly stable since late last year, and sales of new homes have firmed a bit recently, though both remain at depressed levels,” Alan Greenspan told a congressional committee. “Although some of the boost to sales in the market for existing homes is likely coming from foreclosure-related transactions, the increased affordability of homes appears to be contributing more broadly to the steadying in the demand for housing. In particular, the average interest rate on conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages has dropped almost 1-3/4 percentage points since August, to about 4.8 percent. With sales of new homes up a bit and starts of single-family homes little changed from January through March, builders are seeing the backlog of unsold new homes decline -a precondition for any recovery in homebuilding.” PENDING SALES BUMP UP AS AFFORDABILITY TEMPTS BUYERS The number of homes in contract rose because many first-time buyers took advantage of historically good housing affordability conditions in March, according to the latest report by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on signed contracts, increased 3.2 percent from February; it was 1.1 percent higher than one year earlier. “This increase could be the leading edge of first-time buyers responding to very favorable affordability conditions and an $8,000 tax credit, which increases buying power even more in areas where special programs allow buyers to use it as a down payment,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun with characteristic optimism. “We need several months of sustained growth to demonstrate a recovery in housing, which is necessary for the overall economy to turn around.” The affordability index was below February because of higher home prices in March, but it was 30.8 percentage points higher than a year ago. A medium-income family, earning $61,100, could afford a home costing $291,600 in March with a 20 percent down payment, assuming 25 percent of gross income is devoted to mortgage principal and interest. First-time buyers with the same income and small down payments of roughly 80 percent of that amount could buy a more expensive apartment than the median price of an existing single-family home of $174,900 in March. 1st QUARTER SALES SLUGGISH FOR PREVIOUSLY OWNED HOMES Total existing-home sales, including single-family homes and condos, were down 3.2 percent from the fourth quarter and 6.8 percent below the first quarter of 2008, reports the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Seventeen states saw a sales increase from the fourth quarter, and six states were higher than a year ago. Sales in the first quarter do not reflect an impact from the first-time home buyer tax credit. The largest first-quarter sales gain from a year ago was in Nevada, up 116.8 percent, followed by California, 80.6 percent; Arizona, 50.2 percent; and Florida, 25.0 percent. Virginia and Minnesota also experienced double-digit sales increases. The median single-family home price of $169,000 for U.S. metro areas reflected a high volume of foreclosures and short sales, which typically sell for 20 percent less than traditional homes; foreclosures and short sales accounted for nearly half of transactions. The median was 13.8 percent below the first quarter of 2008, and NAR data show that 134 out of 152 metropolitan statistical areas reported lower median existing single-family home prices in comparison with the first quarter of 2008, while 18 metros had price gains. For condominium and cooperative prices, the median in metro areas fell 20.2 percent from the year earlier to $172,800. Five metros showed annual increases and 51 areas had declines. The range for apartment resales was from a low of $75,200 in Las Vegas-Paradise, Nev., to a high of $345,900 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont. The second most expensive reported condo market was Honolulu at $300,000, followed by the New York area at $282,300. WHAT’S A ‘GOOD’ PAINT Finding paint that not only looks good but is environmentally friendly or, at the very least, not toxic can be a challenge, says the Washington Post. There are several rungs in the ladder of eco-friendly paints, including clay paints and some milk-based products so pure that they're nearly edible. But they might not have the same opaque sheen some users of conventional paints have come to expect. The newspaper details differences among paint types. After you've picked a color comes the challenges of coordinating palettes, prepping walls and more. To help you, we recommend a handful check out some Web sites recommended by the Post. The trick is getting that paint on the walls in a reasonably expert fashion. You could hire a team of pros and be prepared to spend several thousand dollars. Or you can do the job yourself. You’ll end up with an almost professional-looking paint job by using a few of the tricks the pros use to make their work look so good. Master painters share their tips here, the first suggestion being to start with good paint. ATTEMPTS TO COMBAT INDOOR POLLUTION OFTEN FAIL So says Dr. Kirk Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the University of California, Berkeley, in the New York Times. “People think incense or candles are beneficial, but of course they’re not,” Smith concludes. “It’s just combustion, and the smoke has the same health effects as cigarette smoke.” Before you begin an air-cleaning effort, ask yourself what you are combating, suggests Dr. Richard Shaughnessy, director of the indoor air program at the University of Tulsa. Dust? Pollen? Traffic exhaust? “Consumers are usually responding to an odor in their house. It could be related to cooking, flooring, painting or even mold. These are all gases, and the portable air cleaners you see at the store are not very effective at removing gases,” says Shaughnessy.” THERE’S NO NEED TO AGONIZE ABOUT COVERING WINDOWS Claire Schwab an Alexandria, Va.-based designer and a certified window treatment consultant with more than 20 years of experience offers Washington Post readers peace of mind. DO YOU SUFFER THE AGONY OF STREAKED OR DIRTY WINDOWS Stephen Treffinger, a writer specializing in design and products for the home, tested 20 window cleaners for readers of the New York Times. At issue were ease of use, efficacy, smell, wipeability and streaking. Nothing pleasant to use got high points if it couldn’t clean, and nothing that smelled awful could get high points. The good news is you can have sparkly, streak-free windows. Phew! The bad? Unless you clean often or the glass isn’t that dirty, you’ll need more than a quick spray and wipe. It’s not that hard, and you can get satisfying results from following the writer’s advice. IF YOUR CRYSTAL’S CLOUDY, PLEASE DON’T DESPAIR Waterford Crystal says hand washing to keep your glassware clean should be your practice, according to the Washington Post. But if you’ve left those tulips too long, that's no help now. So, the company's customer-care department recommends filling the vase with water and adding a denture-cleaning tablet. If that doesn't clear up the cloudiness, try filling the vase with a mixture of ammonia or white vinegar and water, plus uncooked rice. Swirl it around in hopes that the rice will act as a mild abrasive and remove the cloudy film. As a final resort, you might need to contact a crystal repair shop, which can evaluate whether the clouding is caused by mineral deposits, scratches or a chemical reaction with the lead content in the crystal. The cost of a repair depends on the nature of the problem plus the shape of the vase; a narrow neck could be a problem. THESE NEW BULBS ARE LEADING THE WAY Most people think of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as the lights blinking from inside electronic devices, observes the New York Times. But they are being used increasingly to light rooms, though not many. In the U.S., 78 percent of the public is “completely unaware” that traditional light bulbs will be phased out in 2012, said Charles F. Jerabek, president and chief executive of Osram Sylvania, a unit of Siemens. By law, bulbs must be 30 percent more efficient than current incandescent versions beginning that year. Even with the wide range of LED products now available, compact fluorescent bulbs will be the technology of choice for most consumers for years to come. That is a result of LEDs’ high prices - more than $20 for a 40-watt-equivalent bulb - and the difficulty in creating bright bulbs. PUT YOUR PAINTINGS AND PHOTOS ON WALLS WHEN MOVING Seemingly trivial memories are actually critical to our well-being, Peter Whybrow, a psychiatrist and the director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, tells the Washington Post. Our memories tell us who we are, he said. When you see things on your walls that evoke a personal connection, "it conveys a sense of security and this makes you feel more comfortable," he continues. When you live in a place that's furnished but not personalized, it's like living in a hotel room, according to Whybrow. Your home may be tastefully decorated, but there's nothing that's connected to your life. That's also why furnished model homes seem fake to most people, he says. Does it make a difference if the things you put up are art or a photograph of Granny? Of course you should have photographs of your family, but art can enrich your space in important ways that Granny can't, the psychiatrist avers. A photo of Granny will tap personal memories, but "visual art taps into our most ancient experience," says he. TEXAS BANK OWNS NEW HOUSES AND SO DEMOLISHES THEM Guaranty Bank of Austin, Tex. is nearly done demolishing 16 new and partially built houses acquired in Southern California through foreclosure, figuring it was better to knock them down than to try selling them in the depressed housing market, says the Wall Street Journal. The financial institution is wrecking the structures to provide a "safe environment" for neighbors of the abandoned housing tract in Victorville, a high-desert city about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles, a bank spokesman said. Victorville city officials said the bank told them the cost of finishing the development would exceed what they could sell the homes for. The bank also faced escalating city fines as vandals and squatters took over the sprawling housing project, leaving behind graffiti and drug paraphernalia, city officials said. BUILDER WELCOMES A DOSE OF HIS OWN MEDICINE John Wieland, 72-year-old CEO of Atlanta-based John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, has been on a promotional tour since March 6. He is visiting 56 subdivisions that his company is developing in four states, and each night he sleeps on the floor of a different unsold home. Wieland tells the Chicago Tribune in Realtor magazine that the experience has taught him a lot about what’s wrong with the homes his company builds, most of which average 3,400 square feet. "You get an entirely different perspective when you're sleeping in an empty, unsold home," he says. (For example, the true meaning of hardwood floors.) The trip has made him fond of smaller homes closer to metro areas. "American builders have been overbuilding, and Americans have been overbuying," he notes. "Now they're going to say, 'How much do I really need? Do I need all these rooms? Is this a great place to put all my assets?'" STUDY AUTHORS: IT SHOULD COST MORE TO DRIVE TO WORK According to a report released by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young, those who drive the furthest to work should bear the biggest responsibility for paying for roads, notes the Wall Street Journal. "We should shift the funding from taxpayers to users," said Michael Lucki, global leader of infrastructure and construction at Ernst & Young and one of the studies co-authors, at a news conference. The report suggests that those who live in the outer suburbs should pay a larger share to maintain better roads and bridges. The authors maintain that higher gas taxes or charges for vehicle miles traveled, as well as more highway tolls, will discourage car use, motivating people to "adjust driving patterns, including where they live and work, to gain economic advantages." Freeways, they conclude, "can no longer be free." SOME BIG BUILDERS DETECT REASON FOR HOPE Pulte Homes says its loss narrowed in the first quarter, though the large home builder warned that the housing market remained challenged amid rising job losses and foreclosures, according to the Wall Street Journal. Pulte reported a loss of $514.8 million, or $2.02 a share, compared with a year-earlier loss of $696.1 million, or $2.75 a share. Pulte said its acquisition of Centex Corp, to form the nation's largest home builder, is on schedule to be completed in the third quarter. Centex also is reporting that its quarterly loss narrowed as its gross margins improved. Horton said it lost $108.6 million, or 34 cents a share, for the first quarter in comparison with a year-earlier loss of $1.31 billion, or $4.14 a share. And Weyerhaueser CEO Dan Fulton said that the company's April home-sales activity "picked up" in most of the markets where the timber company sells homes, adding that the increase could help show "some stabilization" of the long-battered housing market is occurring. Beazer Homes' fiscal second-quarter loss narrowed on bigger prior-year write-downs as the home builder said it's too soon to say a recovery is under way, while peer M.D.C. Holdings posted a narrower first-quarter loss. "We believe it is premature to conclude that a sustainable recovery is yet under way," commented CEO Ian McCarthy. ALAN GREENSPAN AGAIN SAYS IT’S NOT HIS FAULT
INSTITUTIONS AND INDIVIDUALS NOW CAN BET ON PRICES A new exchange-traded product provides a way to place bets on the direction of residential housing prices. The trusts are tied to the value of the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index measuring home prices across 10 major U.S. cities. The trusts, which began trading May 11 on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbols UMM (for "up" bets) and DMM (for "down" bets), are the only way that retail investors can play the housing market without actually buying real estate. The underlying value of the two trusts tracks three times the percentage change in U.S. single family home prices as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller index, which is recalculated on the last Tuesday of every month. If the index rises by 2 percent, for example, 6 percent of the assets of the Down Trust are moved into the Up Trust. GUESS WHICH CITY IS THE MOST OVERPRICED OVERALL Thanks to bloated housing prices, lofty living costs and unemployment rates among the highest in the nation, the Los Angeles metro area tops the Forbes list of America's Most Overpriced Cities. Chicago, Miami and then New York follow in respective order. High costs and an 8.8 percent unemployment rate overwhelmed the considerable earning power of New Yorkers with bachelor's degrees - $69,200 per year on average, according to PayScale.com. "For the average professional, New York's premium is not as high as you'd expect, given the cost of living," says Al Lee, director of Quantitative Analysis at PayScale. "The premium for a software developer in New York is actually less than it is in Seattle, and about the same as it is in Atlanta." The magazine looked at the 50 biggest metropolitan statistical areas and metropolitan divisions. COLLEGE GRADUATES ENJOY BETTER HEALTH THAN OTHERS
PEW SAYS HOUSING’S ILLS HIT MINORITY GROUPS HARDEST The boom-and-bust cycle in the U.S. housing market over the past decade and a half has generated greater gains and larger losses for minority groups than it has for whites, according to an analysis of housing, economic and demographic data by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center. From 1995 through the middle of this decade, homeownership rates rose more rapidly among all minorities than among whites. But since the start of the housing bust in 2005, rates have fallen more steeply for two of the nation's largest minority groups - blacks and native-born Latinos - than for the rest of the population. As of 2008, 74.9 percent of whites owned homes, compared with 59.1 percent of Asians, 48.9 percent of Hispanics and 47.5 percent of blacks. PICKUP FORESEEN IN REMODELING ACTIVITY The residential remodeling market showed signs of improvement during the first quarter of 2009 with significant growth in all indicators, according to the latest National Association of Home Builders' (NAHB) Remodeling Market Index (RMI). The current market conditions measure rose to 34.5 from 25.5 in the fourth quarter of 2008. Future expectations jumped to 30 from a historic low of 18.6 the previous quarter. Any number over 50 indicates that the majority of remodelers view market conditions as improving. The RMI has been running below 50 since the final quarter of 2005, following decreasing remodeling expenditures since that time. $8,000 TAX CREDIT NOW CAN BE USED FOR DOWN PAYMENT The first-time homebuyer tax credit can now be used as a down payment, according to a mortgagee letter released by HUD today. It can be used for a second mortgage or a short-term loan (bridge loan). Qualified homeowners thus can make a purchase with little or nothing down. The credit also can be used for closing costs and other prepaid expenses. RATES ARE LITTLE CHANGED The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.86 percent for the week, up from last week’s 4.84 percent but down from 6.01 percent one year earlier. The 15-year FRM this week was 4.52 percent in comparison with 4.51 percent the prior week and 5.60 last year at this time. Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 4.82 percent, down from 4.90 percent last week and 5.57 percent a year ago. One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs were 4.71 percent, having averaged 4.78 percent last week and 5.18 percent last year. FORECLOSURES INCH UP FROM APRIL BUT SOAR OVER A YEAR
$50 MILLION PROJECT TO HELP MUNCIPALITIES BUY HOMES The Ford Foundation plans to pump $50 million into a new nonprofit venture that will help municipalities buy foreclosed homes from financial institutions in an effort to stem property-value declines plaguing U.S. neighborhoods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The money, among the largest so-called program-related investments by a foundation, will go to a consortium of community-based nonprofits that will serve as a middleman between as many as 100 cities trying to rehabilitate neighborhoods and mortgage servicers looking to unload seized properties. The consortium, called the National Community Stabilization Trust, hopes to simplify and accelerate this market, which can get bogged down when municipalities have trouble negotiating with financial institutions. It will work with state and local governments and other groups that have received special grants from HUD to buy and redevelop foreclosed homes. PURCHASE APPLICATIONS TREND UP AND REFINANCINGS, DOWN The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says mortgage loan application volume for the week ending May 8, was down 8.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. Unadjusted basis, the decrease was 8.1 percent compared with the previous week. But activity was 28.4 percent higher than the same week one year earlier. Refinancing demand has trended down from its mid-April peak, while purchase mortgage demand has increased modestly in recent weeks, even after accounting for normal seasonal increases. Refis were off 11.2 percent, and purchase applications went up 0.5 percent from the prior week. The refinance share of mortgage activity fell to 71.9 percent of total applications from 74.4 percent the previous week, and the adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share grew to 2.3 percent from 2.1 percent. TIME SAYS COMPONENTS FOR RECOVERY ARE MISSING Except for low home prices and very low mortgage rates, all of the elements for a recovery in housing are missing, contends a piece on the magazine’s Web site. “Those two things should be enough, but balanced against them are shrinking access to credit, an inability of Americans to get higher wages, and crippling unemployment,” the article says. It identifies no increase in real wages as the “single biggest enemy” to a housing recovery. “Home prices will not get better until the elements that made housing prices perform so well for almost ten years return,” Time continues. “Those elements may not come back with the force that they had in 2003, 2004 and 2005, but they must make a modest recovery for housing to recover. People have to be able to believe that they have some meager job security. A bank has to tell them that it wants their business. And, they have to feel that they can, if only rarely, get a raise.” ONE FORECASTER SEES NEW HOMES RECOVERING INTO 2015 Real estate advisory firm the Concord Group predicts recovery of the market for just newly-built single-family homes could stretch into 2015, according to the Wall Street Journal. Recovery should start in Ventura and San Jose, Calif., in the first quarter of 2011, based on an analysis of unsold inventory and expected changes in demand based on employment growth, the firm says. But the Golden State’s Coachella Valley, home to Palm Springs, won’t follow until 2Q, 2015. Concord predicts that foreclosure capital Las Vegas will recover – or see one new home sale per week per project and low, single-digit appreciation – in early 2012. The Concord Group reports that average prices for similar single-family new homes nationwide have slid 18 percent from a year ago, while sales volume has plunged 66 percent from the 2005 peak. Total inventory of potential new homes is estimated to top 2 million units, including standing inventory, finished and ready-to-go sites, and newly built homes in the foreclosure process. OMIGOD, THEY’RE HERE Brangelina has landed - at the Waldorf Towers. According to the New York Post, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are plunking down nearly $100,000 a month to rent a super-deluxe pad in the hotel’s residential unit. The couple plus their four kids recently began living in a newly renovated, roughly 6,000-sf apartment after deciding to make Manhattan their home, at least for the time being, sources said. It's only a stone's throw from the United Nations, for which Jolie is a goodwill ambassador, near the tony French school that eldest child Maddox attends and light-years from Hollywood. The sprawling apartment features five bedrooms plus a library that they have converted into a sixth, as many as six baths and a huge gourmet kitchen. In addition, the place boasts terraces with sweeping views of the city. "It's actually grander than the [Towers'] Presidential Suite," one broker said. And security? "If they can take care of the leaders of the free world, these people shouldn't be that much of a problem," a building source said, referring to the Towers' past guests, including every U.S. president since Herbert Hoover. STARCHITECT’ PUTS SOME ROOTS DOWN IN MANHATTAN Norman Foster, whose work has hit snags at the New York Public Library, 980 Madison, Lexington Avenue’s Shangri-La, and Ground Zero’s Tower 2, still is taking Manhattan. The 73-year-old British architect and his wife Elena Foster just paid $7.2 million for a co-op at 912 Fifth Ave., a building that brokers call “nice” but not particularly top-crust, reports the Observer. Even though Lady Foster – who, before their marriage, had been a celebrity sex psychologist in Spain – is listed alone on the deed (with her title, of course), a source said the apartment is for the couple. Apparently, Lord Foster even appeared for a co-op board interview. Only two rooms face Central Park in the 2,725-sf apartment. HE HAS A LITTLE LESS TO CHEER ABOUT Kelsey Grammer and his wife Camille have sold a Los Angeles house for $3.3 million, 19 percent less than they paid for it in 2007, says the Wall Street Journal. He leased a seven-bedroom English-style manor after it failed to sell for $18.9 million. The house that the couple sold last month is a 7,600-sf 1999 dwelling on 1.5 acres in the Bel-Air neighborhood, with views of a canyon and the city. The leased home, on nearly an acre in Holmby Hills, was recently renovated and has a cobblestone driveway, a pool, a landscaped yard, a media room and wood paneling. Grammer paid $13.7 million for that house in 2007, and the lease price couldn't be learned. ACTRESS GETTING AN APARTMENT Anne Hathaway is now a tenant downtown, according to the New York Post, which says it learned that she's living in the Avalon Bowery rental complex. There, one-bedroom apartments start around $4,000 per month and two-bedrooms, around $5,500. Hathaway previously lived in a $37,500-per-month rental penthouse in Trump Tower with her then-boyfriend, Italian real estate scam artist Raffaello Follieri. HE SEEMS TO BE BATTING ZERO THESE DAYS The Thousand Oaks estate of former outfielder Lenny Dykstra has been showing up on the Multiple Listing Service's pre-foreclosure activity report for the last several weeks, notes the Los Angeles Times. The home is listed for sale at $25 million, having been priced as low as $16.5 million in December. It has been on the market for about a year. Public records show the baseball player purchased it for $18.5 million in August 2007. The seven-acre compound is gated and has views of the Lake Sherwood community and the country club facilities. The main house has 12,713 square feet of living space, including a receiving parlor, a formal dining room and a state-of-the-art screening room. A receiving parlor? GODFATHER’S DAUGHTER SAYS SHE’S TAKING A BATH ON HOUSE HE’S TALKING TURKEY NOW Dick Cavett paid $4.2 million for a seven-room apartment at the 101-year-old Kenilworth at Central Park West and West 75th Street, says the Observer. According to the remarkably phrased listing, the three-bedroom apartment has a “repertoire of stunning early 20th Century detail,” a renovation marked by “a perfect balance of panache and logic,” “lovely patterned floors with marquetry borders,” “an impressive ambience,” “superb handmade cabinetry,” “dazzling wood paneling” and one maid’s room, which could be used as “the consummate home office.” Said the former talk-show host, 72: “Elevated language, but it is a superb place.” He has long been renting Woody Allen’s old six-room duplex in a brownstone on East 79th Street that Cavett once described as looking like the Athenaeum Club, only unfurnished. “Foolishly,” he told the Observer, “I had friends who didn’t encourage me to own an apartment way back.” Undoubtedly, he is not alone. When Bland is Blah
The theory is that many buyers don’t have enough imagination to see themselves in a place that is too evocative of someone else. Thus, nearly bare walls of linen white in stripped-down rooms are said to be the rule. (Removal of clutter, oversize furniture and the odor of pets or tobacco are wisely recommended.) But the question of too much personality can be overstated. Consider the totally renovated two-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive that has a living room with a walnut-paneled wall, walk-through closet in the master bedroom to the single bath and other signs that the owner is an architect. Perhaps the most notable element is the eat-in kitchen, redone four years ago with striking gray and crimson cabinetry, marble countertops and highest-end appliances. Not every potential buyer is going to warm to that kitchen. But some will be turned on by its high, individualistic style. Because of the kitchen, the apartment will stand out in their minds. While universal appeal often is the goal, the niche market may more likely make an offer sooner and better than scores of folks who don’t envision themselves changing the kitchen or embracing it. A loft with chartreuse walls, a seven-room apartment with a foyer that has a black floor and black-lacquer bookcases can sell just as easily as a sparely furnished two-bedroom apartment that has white walls and forgettable paintings suitable for hotel rooms. It’s just a question of marketing to the few rather than the many. Too rarely is memorable well marketed. Too often is bland just blah. The apartments below represent a sampling of listings that various brokers are marketing and that have been visited recently:
Some of Manhattan's Latest Listings Please click here to view a sampling of newly listed properties. To see more of them or to obtain more information, please don't hesitate to be in touch. Click Here to Sign Up For Your Free Issue of Realty Digest!
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Alan Greenspan brushed back critics who contend that easy monetary policy fueled the housing bubble and ensuing bust, saying, "I respectfully disagree; they're wrong." The Wall Street Journal says the former Federal Reserve chairman was asked after a speech to a National Association of Realtors conference whether, in hindsight, he thought interest rates should have risen more when he was chairman earlier this decade. He responded by saying that housing activity is driven by long-term rates and not the overnight rates set by the Fed. The housing boom, he added, actually began in 2000, one year before the Fed started cutting interest rates. "I think there is a recalibration of financial history that I find very puzzling," Greenspan declared. In his remarks, he said he is starting to see "seeds of bottoming" in the U.S. housing market, though that isn't reflected yet in home prices. Calling home prices the "Achilles' heel" of the U.S. economy, "which is otherwise running extraordinarily well in recent weeks," Greenspan opined that the economy could withstand a further 5 percent drop in home prices.
Adults with less education are more likely to be in less than very good health than college graduates, according to a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Commission to Build a Healthier America. In the United States, 45 percent of adults 25-74 reported being in less than very good health, but the percentage varied widely from a high of 53 percent in Mississippi to a low of 35 percent in Vermont. The health gaps related to education were evident within states as well. For example, in Vermont, 68 percent of adults who had not finished high school reported they were in less than very good health in comparison with 22 percent of college graduates. More than 45 percent of adult New York residents say they are in less than very good health; by that measure, New Yorkers rank as the nation’s 31st healthiest. The researchers say that relatively low rank is not fully explained by social factors such as level of education, race and ethnicity. For instance, college graduates are 2.5 times more likely than adults without high school diplomas to be healthy. With more college graduates (33 percent of residents) in New York than high school dropouts (14 percent), residents ought to be healthier than average, not the other way around. “At every education level and in every racial or ethnic group, adults in New York are not as healthy as they could be,” the study concluded, without positing why.
Default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions were reported on 342,038 U.S. properties during the month, an increase of less than 1 percent from March and of 32 percent from April 2008, according to RealtyTrac. The report also shows that one in every 374 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing in April, the highest monthly foreclosure rate ever posted since RealtyTrac began issuing its report in January 2005. Noting that much of the activity was in the initial stages of foreclosure, CEO James J. Saccacio said it seemed that many lenders and servicers were beginning foreclosure proceedings on delinquent loans that had been delayed by legislative and industry moratoria. “It’s likely that we’ll see a corresponding spike in [bank owned properties] as these loans move through the foreclosure process over the next few months,” he added. The 10 states with the most properties with foreclosure filings in April accounted for more than 75 percent of the national total. California topped the list with 96,560, followed by Florida (64,588), Nevada (16,266) Arizona (16,245), Illinois (13,647), Ohio (12,324), Georgia (11,521), Texas (11,314), Michigan (10,830) and Virginia (6,254).
Victoria Gotti’s palatial Long Island estate - which she and her sons once flaunted in the reality show "Growing Up Gotti" - is now under foreclosure, reports the New York Post. Despite a vast fortune amassed by her late father, Gambino boss John "Dapper Don" Gotti, she has skipped two years of loan payments and will lose her home in tony Old Westbury, according to court records. Gotti, 46, owes $650,000 to lender JPMorgan Chase - a debt secured by a mortgage on the nearly $4.2 million mansion that she won in her divorce with ex-husband Carmine Agnello. "I was awarded full ownership of marital property . . . and all I inherited was a house with millions of dollars worth of debt," Gotti told the Post. "This should finally put to rest all the government lies and rumors that I have $200 million buried in my back yard." The couple split in 2003, while Agnello was serving a prison stint for racketeering, and the six-acre property was deeded to Gotti in 2005. But Gotti claims Agnello had secretly taken out an $850,000 loan in 1997 without her knowledge and has left her holding the bag. Not so, according to lawyers for the bank, who convinced judges with the Brooklyn Appellate Division that Gotti is crying wolf. Nice family.
