NYC Real Estate News by Fernando Branco, Real Estate Broker, GRI, ABR, CNE - Fernando Branco Realty

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There were fewer homes listed for sale at the end of 2011 than in any of the previous four years, a positive sign for the housing sector. But appearances can be deceiving, and it remains to be seen whether the drop is the beginning of a real recovery or if inventory is being held down by sellers waiting for prices to pick up and banks moving slowly on foreclosures. The 1.89 million homes on the market at the end of December represented a 6% decline from November and a 22.3% decline from one year ago, according to data compiled by Realtor.com. Low inventories are an important ingredient for any housing recovery because prices could firm up in markets that have worked through their inventory. Still, some real-estate agents aren’t celebrating because there’s a large backlog of potential foreclosures that haven’t yet been taken back and listed by banks. The inventory declines are particularly pronounced in certain states where banks have sharply slowed down foreclosures ...

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment sales fell 12 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier as Europe’s debt crisis and sluggish U.S. job growth dimmed buyer appetites. Purchases of condominiums and co-ops declined to 2,011 from 2,295 in the fourth quarter of 2010, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a joint report today. The median price of units that changed hands in the final three months of 2011 climbed 1.2 percent from a year earlier, to $855,000. “Consumers paused to see how things play out with all the information that’s coming at them right now,” Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, said in an interview. “Europe, the impasse in Washington over economic policy, the stagnant nature of the economy -- there’s a lot of conflicting economic news, and if you’re on the fence, maybe you wait a little bit.” Financial firms globally disclosed plans in 2011 to eliminate more than 200,000 jobs as they ...

The Rudin family's $800 million redevelopment of the St. Vincent's Hospital site is one step closer to a reality. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rudin Management obtained $525 million in construction financing and can begin construction once the government approval process, already underway, is complete.  The relative ease with which the Rudin's cleared the financing obstacle given today's tight lending environment was surprising, the Journal said. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of New York Mellon and M&T Bank contributed to the loan.  But that last hurdle, government approval, could be the highest.  The City Council may respond to  pressure from Village residents  and demand more concessions from the developers for the right to proceed with building. The Rudin family has already reduced the height of the development from 266 feet down to 203, agreed to renovate existing structures rather than replace them, provided a 15,000-square-foot park ...

American debt has been downgraded. Has Manhattan real estate? A data-driven review. W e know the eurozone is barely hanging on, job reports are terrible, and nobody’s hiring. What we don’t know—because it typically takes a few months to become evident—is what all of this means for New York real estate. Is this a moment to buy? To sell? To  panic -sell? In the weeks after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade, we asked a wide range of brokers, analysts, and executives to size things up. As you’d expect, they more or less fell into two camps—the ups and the downs—but their opinions tended to funnel down to one conclusion. From the optimists:  “In my opinion, we’ve already come off the bottom,” declares Barbara Corcoran, founder of the Corcoran Group and commentator for the  T­oday  show. She says newcomers are still pouring in, especially from China and Brazil, and that those wealthy buyers are indifferent to the downturn. She’s b...

 Lets get right to the freshest data available on the pace of new supply and the pace of newly signed contracts to see how the Manhattan market performed in July compared to both the prior month and the year ago period. First, lets look at the pace of new supply coming to market on a monthly basis: Conclusions : This is now the 10th  consecutive year-over-year monthly  decline of new supply to hit the market. If it feels like there is not that much new supply out there, your right. The data shows that the current pace of fresh, new listings hitting the Active marketplace right now is way down from both last month, and the same period last year. Inventory remains tight which means there is even less high quality product out there that is priced to sell quickly. This is adding to downward pressure on inventory levels right now. Second, lets look at the pace of new contracts signed on a monthly basis: Conclusions : We saw a big drop in new deals signed in July, to 713. This ...

Great article about how different and ahead of rest of the Country the Real Estate market in New York City is. Prices going up... Multiple offers... Yap! It is real here!! In New York, a Sprinkling of Higher Prices In New York, a Sprinkling of Higher Prices Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times BEFORE the financial markets’ most recent drubbing,  New York City ’s real estate prices had been flat for the better part of a year. But over the spring and summer, prices in certain pockets of property sprinkled around  Manhattan  and  Brooklyn   had rebounded to or beyond pre-recession levels. Read the article:  In New York, a Sprinkling of Higher Prices By VIVIAN S. TOY, New York Times Published: August 19, 2011