Category Archives: New York Real Estate

Manhattan Valley Leads Strong Sales Uptown

The WSJ is reporting something that most New York real estate agents have known for a while: sales are strong, inventories are down, and prices are going up in Uptown Manhattan. After the sale of West 109th Street, a building of 40 rent-controlled units that has had a number of management issues in recent years, it seems that investors are ready and willing to take the plunge in the rental market uptown.
This isn’t surprising at all. Some investors have shied away from uptown, because the rest of Manhattan has seen higher …

by Michael Foster on September 2, 2011

Wall Street 2 Penthouse Sold for $15 Million

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The subprime lending crisis of 2008 changed everyone’s lives; arguably, it will be the greatest financial disaster of our lifetimes. The impact on the housing market, the job market, government solvency, international business sentiment, the stock market, and the financial industry has been greater than a nuclear fallout. So great and so dramatic was the disaster that Oliver Stone effortlessly resurrected his diabolical Gordon Gekko in a reprisal in a sequel to the original Wall Street.
I liked Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, even if it had the eminently annoying Shia …

by Michael Foster on September 1, 2011

Tunnel Boring Machine Laid to Rest

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The NYC subway and rail system is one of the oldest in the world, but it is still expanding. A new tunnel has just been completed into Grand Central Station that will bring Long Island Railrod (LIRR) lines into the station. Beginning in 2007, this project has been a painstaking process of burrowing into the rock beneath Manhattan with the help of two 200-ton, 22-foot-tall tunnel boring machines.

The machines are so big and the process is so laborious that the machines themselves are extremely worn by the end of the project–so …

by Michael Foster on August 31, 2011

4 Great Gardens of NYC: Urban Escape

Cloisters - New York Condo Loft for NYC Condos & Lofts

Sometimes the city life gets to be a bit too much and some time is needed to step away from it all. That’s why we’ve found four gardens in New York City that are close enough to home that you won’t have to do much traveling, but enchanting enough to help you feel like you’ve left the City.

The Cloisters Museum and Gardens are thirty minutes from Midtown, but feels like a step back into time. It’s location is Fort Tryon Park at the top of a grassy hill. This medieval backdrop has been …

by Phylis J. Iqbal on August 30, 2011

The Changing Faces of 113 E. 90th Street

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I have waxed lyrical about Upper East Side townhouses before. The area has preserved a number of classical, European-inspired homes from the pre-war and inter-war periods that have been cherished throughout the decades. It’s not unusual for these buildings to change shape and purpose over time, with each permutation being another chapter in the building’s history.
Developments at 113 E. 90th street have been particularly newsworthy, because the property had been the home of the Allan Stone Gallery for the past 16 years. The gallery had been a stunning space full of …

by Michael Foster on August 29, 2011

Rental Market Heating up with Summer

It’s hot in the city. Maybe it’s the concrete, but the city tends to be hotter than the countryside around NYC. As city-dwellers struggle to keep cool with their air conditioners and “cooling centers” around the city (basically open fire hydrants for kids to play in), it seems that rental prices are having difficulties cooling as well. Curbed is reporting that the rental market is heating up, with rents up an average of 1.21% since June and vacancies down 2.39%.
This means a one bedroom apartment without a doorman will cost an …

by Michael Foster on August 26, 2011

Another Downtown Development

While the WTC construction site is still ongoing, new projects around the area are being planned or constructed. The interest in downtown Manhattan is not surprising; for the past couple of decades, the center of the city has really moved from Midtown to Soho (for living), Chelsea (for playing), and the downtown area encompassing the southern tip of the island (for working). Smart developers have been taking advantage of the few vacant lots and buildings ready for demolition in southern Manhattan to offer the public more living options.
Downtown is a …

by Michael Foster on August 24, 2011

NYC Rental Market Exploding

The New York Daily News is reporting something that every New Yorker already knew: the rent is too damn high. The rent has been too damn high for a while now–but that shouldn’t surprise anyone with a basic understanding of economics. Manhattan is a rather small island, only 22.96 square miles in area. 1.32 square miles of that is reserved for Central Park, leaving barely more than 20 square miles for all of the houses, shops, hospitals, schools, roads, rail lines, and offices that a city needs to function. Early on in …

by Michael Foster on August 17, 2011
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