Williamsburg Condos

1 beds seem to be moving well. 2beds, and for that matter, anything close to or over 700K seem to have ground to a complete halt. I would very much like to buy in the neighborhood, but given all the new devs are still a ways from closing, i feel it's safer to wait and see what the market does in the next 6-9 months.

That's true, the 2 bedrooms don't seem to be selling.

Any stats from new devs like the EGDE?

-575 units in Phase One of The Edge. I haven’t seen figures for Phase Two, but renderings make is look about the 60% the size of Phase One.
-360 units left to build at Northside Piers (180 per tower).
-The Domino development will be even more massive. I don’t have figures for sales units, but a quick search brings up an interview w/ Michael Lappin and a rendering depicting 11 Towers and a bunch of smaller buildings. The low/middle-income component is 530 units, which is always a small percentage of the total build.
-Literally dozens of other developments.
-Outside of Williamsburg proper, even more developments in neighboring Greenpoint and East Williamsburg/Bushwick.
-The promised parkland so far is underwhelming at best. Hopefully it will improve, but it is nowhere close to what was promised in renderings. With the city claiming a budget shortfall (in part because of a decrease in RE tax revenues), will the parks even be completed, never mind built to spec?
-The Water Taxi is doing so poorly it shut down for the winter and is asking for a government subsidy just to continue warm weather operation.
-Near total reliance on a single train line that is already an overcrowded nightmare most mornings. The MTA is reneging on promises made just months ago as a result of its own budget shortfall (caused by a loss of RE revenue). Can there be any reasonable expectation of service improvements?
-Obviously some of the buildings will be well made, but with all the stories of shoddy, rush-job construction, you’d be wise to diligently research the developer, architect and builder of any project you were considering.
-In new dev RE, unless you negotiate otherwise, you have around 5% total transaction costs. You have the 6% you’ll eventually pay your listing broker when you sell. Anyone buying a future resale will be factoring in the expiring tax abatement, anticipating much higher carrying costs than the original owner, and the building and apartment will no longer be shiny and new. Factor in opportunity cost and the difference paid between renting and owning; how long will your time horizon have to be just to break even?
-Early buyers in some buildings have had more recent buyers purchase in the same building at significant discounts. If someone in a comparable unit buys after a 10% price-chop and you made a typical 10% down payment, you’ve effectively lost all your equity.
-Further out on the fringes (Bed Stuy), etc., there are foreclosures and subprime conditions like middle America. How is this affecting lenders with regards to loans in the borough?
-Much of Williamsburg is still an industrial wasteland, though to be fair, many long-timers like it that way. Most new dev purchasers, I’m going to guess, don’t. As things turn down, can developers and the city really be counted on to plant all the trees, repair all the sidewalks, etc?

The rush for developers to get in while the market is hot always results in them overshooting the appetite for supply. The unsold units will simply sit empty because developers will resist lowering their prices for as long as possible. You see, the effect of the market's decline will only be felt on paper as long as they don't actually SELL their units at a lower price. If they were to actually transact at the prices demanded by the market, then the decline becomes real. As long as the units are still owned by the developer, they can still mark the value of those units at whatever price they want to for accounting reasons, regardless of what price those units would actually sell for.

This is just like those illiquid mortgage-backed-securities that never actually traded. The banks that owned them booked them with preposterous values that had no basis in reality. Once people started realizing that all these securities were actually worthless, the banks had to write-down billions of dollars that were never there to begin with. This is exactly what's going on in the real estate market.

Smart buyers who realize this (and who don't fall for all the BS coming from brokers) understand that this exact effect is playing out in terms of properties sitting on the market longer and longer before they sell. Longer days-on-the-market leads to increased inventory. Increased inventory (especially with falling demand due to tighter financing requirements and decreased job security) leads to lower prices. Both longer days-on-the-market AND lower prices, combined with sizable job-losses, leads to significantly lower governmental tax revenue, which leads to cuts in services. Eventually, neighborhoods that were once "hot" lose their cache, which only compounds the problem. It all gets very ugly very quickly, boys and girls.

The developers and brokers will try to combat this with as much marketing as possible to keep everyone's sentiment positive. They do things like hold publicity events, create canned press releases masquerading as actual news articles, or simply blitz the media with advertising. Unfortunately, some foolish buyers will believe the hype and jump in - foreign investors who don't know the local dynamics, the uber-rich who have nothing else to do with their money, and the plain 'ol stupid who believe anything they see on tv. These people are the equivalent of the gazelles at the end of the herd that get eaten by the lion as the rest of the pack gets to escape. People who actually understand the market will know to wait and side-step this minefield.

So don't fall for all this broker crap when they say that the market is still strong because prices haven't come down. Developers are resisting to sell at lower prices and are holding on to units longer. Or they sell at actual asking-prices but then offer the buyer significant concessions towards closing costs, transfer taxes or common charges, which do not get recorded in the official price of the sale. Either way, the market is crumbling beneath them. Don't get caught under the rubble.

anyone know how sales at warehouse 11 going? thats a building that needs to move a lot of units as well. good luck..

NYCnewbie, my above points aside, please go to curbed.com and search Roebling Oil Building. I think Warehouse 11 is a toxic nightmare.

Honestly, I think Williamsburg is overhyped. Is there any subway out there besides L? Well, I guess at least it's not G, huh? :) Near the subway is kinda important. It cracks me up every time I'd ask if the place is near the subway, and I get an answer about the G train being a block or two away. You don't go to downtown Brooklyn, so you can easily access Queens. :) At least, that's not my plan.

Interesting that Warehouse 11 has no sales posted on the apts and lofts website. They had three offers accepted a few weeks ago when I looked. I wonder if people backed out or they simply don't listed the sales, you would think aptsandlofts would list the offers since its not selling well. Agreed that building has a certain stigma to it that may be difficult to overcome.

Hard to lump all of Williamsburg together, but yes, in some ways it is overhyped. Some buildings are going to turn out great, but places like Warehouse 11 are the ones that are likely to suffer. I just signed on a 2BR very close to the Bedford stop, and would have had a hard time looking at anything further out. For those of us that work in the Financial District, being close to the Marcy stop on the JMZ is useful, so I think the southside will eventually turn out ok. As for the G, it does suck, but it does provide access to Ft Greene, downtown Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens.

who would want to buy in area that has one of the highes asma rates in newyork and the countrie, not to mention the 17 million gallon oil spill creeping into the basements in greenpoint and williamsburg, and the heavily polluting industries that left there marks in the soil. where are they going to build the NYU dorms,? on some toxic lot".. Does anyone care?
GOOGLE it TOXIC BROOKLYN, it mind boggling...

I bought a 1 BR a bit further east near the Montrose L stop. Prices for a comparable 1BR are at least 50k less versus the ones closer to the Bedford stop. Also, I am less than a 10 minute walk from the L, G and J-M-Z so it's very well connected.