Home ownership rate remains flat

While prices have surged for the past few years, and affordability remains very low in many major markets, WSJ’s RealEstateJournal reports: After climbing steadily for a decade, the nation’s homeownership rate appears to have leveled off.

“You’ve got seven quarters in which the homeownership rate basically has done nothing,” says Jan Hatzius, chief U.S. economist for Goldman Sachs. “It’s fair to say that it’s stagnating.”

Also included, a list of the least affordable housing markets.

Basic bubbleproofing

David Bach has put together a basic set of tips in How to Bubble-Proof Your Home in The Automatic Millionaire.

The first point is to “make sure your mortgage is affordable” and he presents several good tips for insulating yourself against a payment that becomes unmanageable.

Another point is to “get the facts” regarding the local housing inventory, prices and time-on-market. How could we disagree?

8,000 new businesses relocated to Lower Manhattan last year

Crain’s NY reports that the commercial occupancy rate downtown has improved from 13.7% to 10.6% the same quarter a year before. In Small tenants drawn to Lower Manhattan credit is given to a significant difference between downtown and midtown commercial rents: $31 vs $47 a foot, and other incentives.

The Gravity of Time Warner Center

The New York Sun reminds us what Columbus Circle looked like in the pre-Time Warner Center era.

Two Years Later, Time Warner Center Effect Apparent talks about a time when KMart and the Sports Authority were mentioned as possible tenants for what has instead become $2,700 per sq. ft. residential. The impact it has had on values in the Lincoln Center area is undeniable.

New mortgage advice

In Navigating the mortgage rate landscape CNN/Money gives five tips for finding the best mortgage deal.

While interest rates are going up, the whole mortgage industry is slowing, so home buyers have more leverage now than they did during the swirl of the past few years.

Hotels coming and going, fast!

While many hotels, like The Plaza and The Drake, are converting to residential, it seems as if every day there is annoucement of a new boutique hotel. curbed.com summarizes the recent news in HotelWrap: More Luxury Boutique Goodness! including 443 Greenwich Street where bidders are lining up.

Soho and Tribeca tops for rents

The Real Deal says that according to a report form Citi Habitats, Soho and Tribeca had the highest rents in January.

Two-bedrooms in the tony neighborhoods were renting for an average of $5,845 and studios for nearly $1,600

Gramercy Park and Flatiron were quoted as the areas with the best deals.

Meet the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance

The New York Observer introduces us to the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. South Bronx Confronts Robert Moses explains that the group is a consortium of “several community and city-wide organizations and the Pratt Institute”, which are mostly concerned with cleaning up the Bronx River and eliminating the stub of the Sheridan Expressway that Moses left.

Not your 70s glass

The Real Deal reports on the ever more frequent use of glass curtain walls in recent new developments. In Living in glass houses, shunning stone Richard Meier is credited with popularizing glass with his numerous downtown projects and One Prospect Park which will be a “15-story glass tower with 119 condos”. Philip Johnson’s Urban Glass House is another cited example.

André Balazs, explains that its use was inspired by better developed technology in Europe and wonders if it’s becoming overused in NYC and given that our buidings are so close together privacy becomes a real problem: “The proximity to your neighbor in full tilt glass is problematic for some people. Also, I think the truth is, unless you provide for the window closure, these buildings can look like a tenement house in Hong Kong.”

Softer landing?

Stating the obvious (and the not so obvious), UrbanDigs reaches the conclusion that, where there to be a slowdown, in NYC it would be softer and arrive later.

Manhattan being an island, the large number of rich and almost-rich people who need to live somewhere, and the fact that co-ops (what “75% of the city is made up of”) make it harder to speculate with real estate, are all listed as reasons as to why the bubble popping would be gentler in Gotham City.