Prices continue to go up in downtown — below 34th Street — as buyers flock to this area. According to The Corcoran Group report, median sales prices in new developments there are up 51% versus this time last year. For the first time in a decade in the fourth quarter of 2012, the average asking price in the downtown luxury market (the top 10% of co-op and condo transactions) overtook uptown and midtown. Luxury pads ...

According to the New York Post, 7 Bryant Park, the new office tower by Hines, is looking to command $200 per square foot for the 42,285-square-foot penthouse triplex at the top of the 28-story tower, on Sixth Avenue between 39th and 40th streets. The space comes with an alfresco roof terrace of just under 850 square feet that has Bryant Park for its backyard. Outdoor space traditionally had not been a priority in office towers, because the developer and tenants ...

Coveted Downtown neighborhoods like Soho and the West Village have commanded some of the highest residential rents in Manhattan. But now landlords – most recently Stone Street Properties and SMA Equities – have found that converting ground-floor apartments into retail space is far more profitable. Stone Street filed plans to convert a first floor apartment at 101 MacDougal Street, between Bleecker Street and Minetta Lane, to a store, while SMA Equities did the same at 22 Spring Street, between ...

There are three Midtown religious institutions that want to cash in on the city’s Midtown East rezoning proposal: the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Bartholomew’s and Central Synagogue. They want to sell air (aka: the right to build more Manhattan real estate). In fact they feel a bit left out because the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning plan would allow them to reap the material rewards of these rights, but they found themselves just outside of the rezoned area.
The proposal aims to ...

The trend of decreasing inventory (i.e. homes available for sale) is still very much a reality. Many brokers report stories of harsh bidding wars for the best apartments. One agent said that his client lost his bid since he was competing against 45 other offers for a condo in Williamsburg.
It is easy to believe that in some cases the closing price ends up being higher than the asking price.
The main element that can be of advantage to buyers ...

U.S. home prices jumped 9.7 percent in January from the same month in 2012 and  NYC properties grew at even a slightly higher rate, according to new report released by CoreLogic. This nationwide figure, which included distressed sales, marked the 11th consecutive monthly increase and the biggest  since April 2006. In the New York metropolitan area, which includes White Plains and Wayne, N.J., home prices with distressed sales factored in rose 11.1 percent year-over-year in January.