New Rules

WSJ’s RealEstateJournal gives some old but new again advice to buyers and seller in a changing market. The New Rules of Real Estate For a Cooling Housing Market advises sellers to price very carefully, a common theme these days. The quoted advice is to price in the bottom 25% of comparables, and to reduce the listing price if there is not considerable interest in the first few weeks.

Overpriced homes may never even catch the eye of their intended audience. That’s because buyers and brokers increasingly rely on computers to screen listings based on price, size and other parameters when new properties come to market. Also, listings typically generate the most excitement and interest in their first few weeks on the market.

Fed raises rate 1/4 point, as expected

In Fed raises rates in Bernanke’s first meeting, CNNMoney covers the Fed’s 15th consecutive hike.

The Federal Reserve raised a key short-term interest rate a quarter of a percentage point Tuesday and signaled that more rate hikes may be needed, disappointing some investors who thought the central bank was nearly through with its rate-hiking campaign.

The target for the federal funds rate is now 4.75 percent, the highest in five years. This overnight bank lending rate affects rates consumers pay on auto and home-equity loans, as well as other types of debt.

California home sales continue slide

Inman News covers the report from California Association of Realtors, which indicates that existing-home sales are off 15.5% from the same period last year. In California home sales plunge 15.5%, it’s also noted that while prices are up 13.7% compared to the same period a year ago, they have dropped almost 3% since January.

Unsold inventory in February increased to a 6.7-month supply, one of the highest levels in several years, up from a 3.2-month supply a year ago.

Landmarks Preservation Commission vote causes a stir

The 11-member Landmarks Preservation Commission was created in 1965 as a result of the uproar from the destruction of the old Pennsylvania Station.

In Amid the Facades, Furrowed Brows the NY Times looks at the history of the LPC, some of the controversy from its recent decision to approve the demolition of the Purchase Building under the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as its growing role outside of Manhattan.

A Baby Time Warner Center?

The NY Times covers Minskoff’s mega development on the NYC site formerly known as Site 5A. In Big Deal: Luxury, With Its Own Forest, Louis Sunshine of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing remarked that 101 Warren Street is, “the single most important development ever…In TriBeCa.”

The new TriBeCa development will have a luxury condo tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, just like Time Warner, which Ms. Sunshine helped create and sell and which has featured prominently in the city’s current real estate boom.

The complex is on an L-shaped plot bounded by Warren, West, Murray and Greenwich Streets. It will have a 35-story tower with 228 condominiums, a midrise rental building with 163 apartments, a parking garage, a gym and spa, as well as 170,000 square feet of retail space, including restaurants, Whole Foods, a Barnes & Noble and a Bank of America branch.

Measuring square feet

Curbed has a great piece on the experience of a reader who checked the square footage of an apartment, as well as the offering plan, and found that the developer was including an allocation of common areas in the square footage for each unit.

In Measuring Square Feet at the Ariels Uptown you can see that this is meaningful when calculating the cost per square foot:

According to the Schedule A, the average price per sq ft is $1230. Sounds like a fair deal until you do the math and realize the pricing actually averages out to $1393 per sq ft!!!!

UrbanDigs covered this last month, and answered a readers question with a warning: Marketing Square Footage: Be Careful Not To Lie and recommends that properties be listed by rounding down:

If the apartment is listed between 400-450 square feet in the offering plan than list it at 400! If the apartment is between 450-500 square feet in the offering plan than list it at 450! Use this strategy all the way up to high end listings too for as long as the overall market is flat and make buyers happy when they show up.

For Example: An apartment listed at 738 sq. ft. in the offering plan should be listed at 700 on the website and print ads. An apartment listed at 986 sq. ft. on the floorplan should be listed at 950 on the website and print ads.

It’s good advice. Most potential buyers would likely be more interested if the unit felt bigger and not small than they expected based on the listing.

New credit score adopted today

Reuters reports that Equifax, Experian and TransUnion have adopted a new scoring system designed to be more intuitive. In US credit agencies adopt common reporting score it is said that the new “VantageScore” will range from 501 to 990, whereas the current “FICO” scores range from 350 to 850.

For consumers, it will create some confusion,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com, a provider of financial data and advice. “Saying you have a credit score of 750, for example, takes on a whole new meaning. It was a good score on the old system but is only fair in the new one.”

Experian and TransUnion said lenders and borrowers may interpret the new scores as though they were grades awarded in school.

A 901-990 score will be considered an “A,” for example. “B” would equate to an 801-900 score, “C” to 701-800, “D” to 601-700, and “F” to 501-600.

There will, of course, still be differences in the scores reported by each company because each credit file usually has different information.

Last day for WTC site deal

In Ground Zero Talks Approach the Deadline, the NY Times reports that there is still no agreement on a reconfiguration of the deal between Silverstein and the Port Authority.

Pataki had set today as the deadline for an agreement.

The shortfall, the debate over the pace of rebuilding and the role of Mr. Silverstein have deepened a sense of uncertainty over the future of Lower Manhattan, angering many downtown corporate and real estate figures, as well as the City Council.

Mr. Silverstein has repeatedly argued that he has the means and the ability to build the entire project, at a cost of over $7 billion.

There is only $2.9 billion in insurance money, however. In recent weeks, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said that the developer will run out of money by 2010 after building only two towers, default on his lease and walk away with millions of dollars in profit, leaving the authority without a way to finish the other buildings.

Baseball stadiums moving quickly

In Two Stadiums. No Waiting. the Village Voice chronicles much of the frustration of groups who have yet to have a chance to provide input into plans for the Mets and Yankess stadiums.

Yet key details of the plans remain unresolved, leaving some neighborhood activists and good-government advocates wondering if the teams’ rush to break ground is trampling on the need for open public debate. “The proposal to build a new Yankee Stadium is moving at warp speed, and nobody can get on this train,” says Bettina Damiani of the subsidy-watch group Good Jobs New York. “The New York Stock Exchange subsidy deal didn’t move this quickly; even some 9-11–related projects didn’t move this quickly. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, how quickly this project is moving, and at the same time completely excluding the input of local community members.”

Most think WTC redevelopment going too slow

Crain’s NY covers the recent Quinnipiac University poll of New Yorkers opinions on the pace of development at Ground Zero.

“A mere 10% of city voters surveyed in a new Quinnipiac University poll said the redevelopment process is going well, with 33% saying plans were developing somewhat well. Forty-seven percent said redevelopment was going somewhat badly or very badly.”