Bubble Wrap: August 2008
Entries
Unthinkable Happens: Manhattan Apartment Prices Fall
The Sun’s Candace Taylor reports on fresh data that sellers in Manhattan are starting to take losses on their properties, which could be the first sign of falling prices.
Real estate firms have continued to pump out market reports showing high sales activity and rising median prices, largely because they use home sales that took place several months earlier. Newly released city records — it can take several weeks or months before the records are made available — show apartment sales are falling. The data flies in the face of repeated assertions from industry insiders over the past several months that the Manhattan real estate market is impervious to the housing slowdown taking place across the country.
Madison Square's Mad Money
The New York Post reports on the dramatic transformation of the neighborhood surrounding Madison Square Park, which is about to get even more supercharged with new projects designed by Donatella Versace and Rem Koolhaas. Both buildings plan on having penthouses upwards of $50 million, breaking all Downtown records.
What bodes well for both the Koolhaas and Clock Tower buildings, aside from their starchitecture and iconic status, is that the Madison Square Park area has already bred not just one super-luxury building, but a slew of them. (And still on the horizon could be a Daniel Libeskind tower at One Madison Ave. – adjacent to the Clock Tower – being developed by Elad Properties, which did not comment on the project’s status.)
A Native Son’s Plans for Newark
Another announcement boosting Newark’s redevelopment efforts was recently detailed in the New York Times. Shaquille O’Neal and partners were recently named the developers of a new 25 story tower that would be the city’s 3rd tallest with a significant symbolic impact.
The glass-and-concrete tower on Rector Street, called One Riverview, would provide 152 high-end condominium units with amenities like those found in Manhattan, Hoboken and Jersey City (including street-level retailing, garage parking, concierge service, an in-house gym, and a 10,000-square-foot promenade with a dog run) in a city that has not seen such a luxury residential project in roughly four decades.
Slowing Foreclosures May Mask Bredth of Woes
The Wall Street Journal reports on the changing foreclosure landscape. Reports out later this month will most likely show a decline or leveling off of foreclosure filings, but this is most likely due to new state and municipal laws that put a temporary moratorium on foreclosures. Critics of these laws say they are just covering up the deep housing crisis.
Several other states are following, including New York which passed a bill last week that requires lenders to send a preforeclosure notice to certain borrowers at least 90 days before foreclosure proceedings may be initiated.
