Corcoran Group
Fresh Round of Recrimination? Manhattan Market Reports Due
The second-quarter Manhattan housing market reports will be out by Wednesday morning of next week. Last time they hit, for the first quarter, the reports caused quite the kerfuffle, including internal company e-mails and a New York Times article trying to sort the whole thing out.
Basically, it went like this: Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel's report showed a 34 percent annual drop in Manhattan home sales. Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property's showed a 5 percent gain. And the Corcoran Group's showed a mere 1 percent drop.
All good and well--different measures by different firms, different numbers. read more »
What Manhattan Prices Buy in Brooklyn
Condo and co-op prices dropped in brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods like Carroll Gardens and Park Slope in the first quarter of 2008, according to a new report from the Corcoran Group. Manhattan owners—and those who can afford to be some day—should take note.
The average sales price of Brooklyn condos and co-ops combined dropped 10 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the first of 2008 to $615,000. The median price dropped as well, 7 percent to $549,000. read more »
Corcoran Plans to Become 'Major Player' in Williamsburg in '08
The Corcoran Group's Brooklyn regional vice president, Frank Percesepe, talked to The Observer about some of the trends that pushed the average price of an apartment up 8 percent in the borough in 2007, according to the firm's year-end market report.
"If you look at the numbers, there is nice, mature growth in all neighborhoods," he said.
The report covered the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant.
"If the price of a two-bedroom in Park Slope dropped a little," Mr. Percesepe said, "it's because inventory went down not because the market was performing badly." read more »
Park Slope Condo Prices: Oh, So Trendy
The average price of a condo in Park Slope, Brooklyn's answer to the West Village, increased by 8 percent year-over-year, from $591,000 in 2006 to $640,000 in 2007, according to the year-end market report released by the Cocoran Group earlier this week. Here are some more Park Slope figures from the report: read more »
The Art of Shvo: City Real Estate Stars Jet to Miami for Art Basel
Avenue, a new condo he's marketing.
Besides being Manhattan realty mavens, what do Michael Shvo, Louise Sunshine, and Dennis Mangone have in common? They've all fled New York this week for the well-tanned haven of Miami Beach, where Art Basel ("the most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas") began yesterday.
"My clients are collectors... They collect art, they collect Yachts, they collect condominiums, they collect lifestyle," said Mr. Mangone, a senior vice president at the Cororan Group. On the art fair's first day, Mr. Mangone met a European gallerist who's now interested in an apartment at 40 Bond, the hip new condo building developed by Ian Schrager. read more »
Barneys and Corcoran Have a New Landlord—660 Madison Trades for $375 M.
Broadway Partners has sold for $375 million the first building it ever bought in Manhattan, 660 Madison Avenue. Broadway Partners' Web site says the 13-story building is 254,474 square feet, meaning it sold for over $1,470 a square foot, a hefty price tag in even today's heated investment sales market. Its tenants include residential real estate behemoth the Corcoran Group and the flagship retail location of Barneys New York.
Scott Lawlor's ravenous Broadway bought 660 Madison in May 2006 for $216 million, and went to contract on its sale in August of this year; the sale was recorded in city records this morning. The buyer was Etoile 660 Madison LLC.
Brooklyn Home Prices, Sales Up in the Third Quarter
A new report from the Corcoran Group shows that the prices and home sales in brownstone Brooklyn increased in the third quarter of 2007. The average sales price of Brooklyn condos and co-ops increased 11 percent from the third quarter of 2006 to $679,000; the average was up 4 percent over the second quarter immediately before. The median sales prices also increased for condos and co-ops, as they did for townhouses.
The median price of a one-family townhouse increased 10 percent over the third quarter of 2006 and 49 percent over the second quarter to $1.275 million.
Sales, too, despite the price increases, increased in the third quarter, which ended Sunday. Condo and co-op sales combined were up 28 percent over the same quarter last year and 38 percent over the second quarter, according to Corcoran.
Secrets of the Cronkite Townhouse Sale!
As The Real Deal magazine reported on its Web site late Friday, the godly anchorman Walter Cronkite just sold a townhouse at 160 East 95th Street for $4.275 million.
The deal has a few interesting back stories, starting with the fact that the 11-room house really belonged to his son Walter "Chip" Cronkite III, who lived there with his wife Deborah Rush (an actress from Strangers With Candy), according to a broker with knowledge of the deal. The couple is on the sales deed, along with the elder Cronkite.
The Real Deal named Thomas Carter as the buyer, but there are three more names listed on the deed, including Ginny and Guy Millner, the GOP big-shot who founded the staffing supplier Norrell. Mr. Millner poured millions into three anti-abortion, anti-crime campaigns--one for U.S. Senate (in 1996) and two for Georgia governor (in 1994 and 1998).
As for the Cronkite couple, they cycled through three brokerages--Warburg Realty, Leslie J. Garfield & Co., and then the Corcoran Group--before the house sold. "It was kind of a mess of a deal," said the broker Jed Garfield. Even though the Cronkites eventually took the townhouse listing away from Mr. Garfield and gave it to Corcoran, the buyers were brought in when he had the exclusive. (In case you were wondering, that means he gets the commission.)
The deed also shows that it took months for this deal to close. Maybe that's because the IRS put a federal lien on Chip Cronkite way back in December 2004 for $33,511.73, according to public records, though a "release of federal lien" wasn't registered until this July.
He did not return a call to his cell-phone. But considering that dozens of liens are filed in Manhattan every day, and that high-end Manhattan real estate brokers aren't quite easygoing, the family's townhouse troubles aren't all that surprising. And on the bright side, the elder Mr. Cronkite is supposedly coming out with a new show, on a network called Retirement Living TV.
REBNY Readies Its Web Portal--Where's Corcoran and Elliman?
The Real Estate Board of New York sent out a release this afternoon saying it would demonstrate on Thursday for the media its new Web portal for city home buyers and renters, called ResidentialNYC.com. The portal will become available to the public on Friday. But the release included nothing about the participation of the Corcoran Group and Prudential Douglas Elliman, the two largest residential brokerages in the New York City metro region.
The New York Times reported in April that neither brokerage would participate in the portal, which has been a long time coming to the often fractiously terrotorial industry. (Citi Habitats, the city's largest rental agency, also would not be participating, according to the Times, as it falls under the corporate umbrella of Corcoran.) ResidentialNYC.com will collect exclusive listings of homes for sale and rent from REBNY-member brokerages. The media demonstration will be led by Steven Spinola, REBNY's president.
We have a call out to REBNY about the status of Corcoran and Elliman's participation, and are checking with the brokerages.
