The positive trend in the rental market continues, in some cases we are witnessing prices that are higher than the pre-crash period.
For example, a studio in a West Village doorman building was rented at $3,100 last month. The same apartment went for $2,950 in the summer of 2007.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has approved the first historical law that puts a limit on real estate tax increases. Taxes will be allowed to go up to 2% or the rate of inflation.
Municipalities can only overturn the rule with 60% voter support.
The law is aiming at making NY State more competitive in the national landscape and keeping families and businesses from choosing other States.

The magazine Crain New York reports that NY State has approved the project for the construction of a new building within the United Nations complex. The new tower will be built on an area that is now dedicated to a playground. The project will be pending until space for a new playground will be identified.

New York City is driving the rebound of real estate markets across the country.
According to data compiled by the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, in the second quarter of this year, the median price of an apartment sold in Manhattan was only 17% below the 2008 peak. It is a good comeback from the depth of the crisis when the mark was at 25% or 30% below the peak.
Conversely, markets like Las Vegas have lost 60% of their value in the last few years; while the broad average of many main cities seems to hover around 30% below the peak at the moment.

The commercial real estate sector is also fairing well in NYC lately.
The leasing activity has been recovering since the second quarter 2010.
The website CoStar, leader in the commercial real estate analysis, shows that average asking rents peaked in the second quarter of 2008 at $63.82 to descend to $42.63 at the beginning of 2010 and climb back 8% at $46.05 since then.
On a national level the opposite is happening.

On the investment sales side, buildings transactions in Manhattan were up 189% in the second quarter of 2011 from the same period 2010; a jump from $2.9 billion to $8.4 billion.

So in general Manhattan keeps faith to its tradition of being more stable than the rest of the country.
The dollar weakness is attracting foreign investments and the unemployment rate here is lower than the rest of the country: in May it was 7.1% versus a national average of 8.7%.

Timeshares
The concept of timeshares, which is when an apartment is sold to multiple investors who can enjoy the space for a limited time over the calendar year, is not very developed in the City.
There are just two buildings with timeshares: The Hilton Grand Vacations Club and The Manhattan Club.
If on one hand Manhattan seems quite immune from the foreclosures illness, then on the other hand the timeshares have been affected heavily lately. Between The Hilton Grand and The Manhattan Club there were 28 foreclosures since 2007.
The structure of the timeshares is complicated. Every apartment can be sold to up to 50 different investors. For this reason it can take years to complete one sale. A one-week share can cost $50,000 or $60,000. Financing is costly; usually the rate of interest applied to loans of this kind is 15%.
It is indeed difficult for a developer to put together a successful timeshare project, especially considering that marketing costs can be about 30% of the overall total.
I don’t think that we will see the tiny market for timeshares expand in the near future.
New York is no vacation resort!

This is it for today, my Dear Friends.
I am always available to answer your questions and provide you with more information on your next real estate investment in the Big Apple.
I will be glad to get back to you.

Warm Regards,
Riccardo Ravasini