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NYC Residential sales volumes set record | Chappaqua Real Estate
A record number of fourth-quarter sales in Manhattan drove inventory to historic lows, according to a report released Friday by Douglas Elliman Real Estate, while the prices for luxury properties and condos soared, far outpacing the modest gains logged by market as a whole.
“Normally the fourth quarter is the weakest quarter of any given year,” said Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel Inc., the appraisal firm that complied the data for the report. “We didn’t have that this time.”
Instead, the 3,297 sales in the final months of 2013 were the most Mr. Miller had seen in a fourth quarter in 25 years—up nearly 30% from the same period in 2012. In response, the supply of units on the market shriveled to 4,164, the lowest tally in 14 years.
The year-end buying frenzy was in part the result of demand that had been depressed for years by buyers’ fears about the strength of the recovery—and the housing market. Those same people have recently been gaining the confidence to take the plunge, an urge that has gained urgency as fears have mounted that mortgage rates will finally lift off from their historic lows of recent years.
“There is a lot of pent up demand and a lack of inventory,” said Dottie Herman, president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman. “You can’t take your time to shop around.”
While the robust fourth quarter did break some records, it also continued the year-long trends of low inventory and high demand, meaning relatively modest overall growth. Several reports also released Friday painted a steady market overall, with median sale prices gaining by single-digit percentages in Manhattan.
But within that market, condos and co-ops performed very differently.
For instance, median sale prices for condos reached an all-time high of $1.32 million, up 14.3% from the same time last year, in a spike that owed primarily to a different sales mix as more pricey larger units hit the market, according to Mr. Miller.
Prices also got a lift from the number of new and/or luxury units sold. The median sales price for luxury condos and co-ops rose to $4.9 million, a 10.4% increase over the same time last year. But in the huge market for co-ops, which comprise about 60% of sales, conditions were much more subdued. There median prices rose a modest 4.6% over the course of last year to $680,000.
Several other market reports painted a similar picture.
The year-end report from the Corcoran Group on the Manhattan market noted the drastic increase in prices for new luxury housing, with a whopping 72% year-over-year increase in the median sale price of new luxury housing, which hit $7.85 million. However, sales topping $5 million only made up 5% of the market.
And while 2013 has often been compared to 2007 and 2008, with several record-setting luxury sales this year, the annualized median sale price at year end was about 16% below where it stood in the second quarter of 2008, according to Mr. Miller – and that might be a good thing.
The double-digit price growth and easy credit associated with the last boom turned out to be stuff bubbles are made of, while this time around the industry seems to be building itself up on more solid footing.
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20140103/REAL_ESTATE/140109975
Celebrity Real Estate: LA’s 2013 Roundup | Chappaqua Real Estate
They buy. They sell. We look at the pretty pictures like the celebrity real estate snoops that we are. Somewhere deep inside us, we love the visceral thrill of trash-talking Mark Wahlberg’s master suite or thinking that Bruce Willis’ kitchen needs an update.
But at the end of the day, celebrities trying to buy or sell in the housing market are just like us — with maybe a few more layers of money, managers and financial advisers.
Here are some of our favorite celebrity properties listed, bought or otherwise appearing on the real estate Multiple Listing Service in Los Angeles during 2013.
Photos courtesy of Realtor.com.
Casey Kasem 
Radio personality Casey Kasem and his blonde, beehived Mrs. Jean listed in early spring what was uncharitably described as a teardown near Brentwood for $42 million. That wasn’t rocking anyone’s Top 40 list — despite the heart-shaped pool — and the price for the seven-bedroom mansion may have been out of whack with the times. The property came off the market, unsold, in September as concerns about Kasem’s health surfaced.
Bob Hope 
Bob Hope’s longtime Toluca Lake home remains listed at $27.5 million. While the address may not be as trendy as Beverly Hills, there’s a lot of house in this estate — almost 15,000 square feet of mansion sitting on more than five acres, just a proverbial spit from Universal Studios and City Walk. Not to mention a one-hole golf course and enough room for Richard Nixon’s helicopter to land so the two could play a few rounds.
Ellen DeGeneres & Portia DeRossi 
Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DeRossi bought this Santa Barbara-area gem that was listed at $26.5 million in May. The restored Tuscan-style hacienda was built in the 1920s and was extensively renovated by its previous owner, architect and designer John Saladino. Landscaped with 30-foot Italian cypresses and mature olive trees for that Old World ambience, the property has a 10,500-square-foot home with five bedrooms and nine fireplaces.
Bundle up for these chilly accommodations and bars around the world | Chappaqua Homes
ICEHOTEL, Jukkasjarvi, Sweden
Sweden’s ICEHOTEL is the world’s largest hotel made of ice and snow. Each year, thousands of visitors descend upon the small village of Lapland — 125 miles from the Arctic Circle — to experience the unique accommodations from December to April. The hotel is the perfect place to view the northern lights while on a dogsled ride.
Listing Portals: What’s the Real End Game? | Chappaqua Real Estate
The ongoing contention regarding the ultimate motives of the major online listing portals recently came to a head during a rousing panel discussion at RISMedia’s Real Estate CEO Exchange earlier this fall. During the session – “The Data Debate: Is Disintermediation a Real Risk?” – the true intentions of the online portals were debated with the hopes of revealing whether the current players are in fact, broker and agent friendly.
Held at New York City’s prestigious Yale Club on Sept. 18, the panel was moderated by longtime industry veteran Ken Jenny, managing partner, Mediatise, LLC. Panelists included leading listing portal executives and brokerage representatives, including: Curt Beardsley, VP, Customer & Industry Development, MOVE/realtor.com®; David Charron, president and CEO, MRIS; Alon Chaver, vice president, Industry Services, Trulia; Bob Hale, president and CEO, Houston Association of REALTORS®; Greg Schwartz, chief revenue officer, Zillow; and Andy Woolley, vice president/GM, Homes.com.
Jenny opened the discussion in the spirit of unity. “It’s not my goal to push the two factions further apart, because the idea is to learn to work together,” he stated. “We just love to hate something in this business. When something comes along that does a great job of working with us, we’re highly suspicious of the motives. We want to know, ‘how can it hurt me?’”
According to Jenny, given the voluminous amounts of listing data flowing through today’s market, if real estate professionals only advertised their listings through traditional avenues, they would be doing a disservice to themselves and their consumers. Jenny asserted that the distribution solutions offered by online portals, when blended with a print strategy, provide brokers and agents with the right marketing strategy for listings.
Jenny launched the debate, therefore, by asking listing-portal executives the question on the minds of many brokers: “Are you a disintermediator?”
“I get up every morning with the same purpose,” responded Zillow’s Schwartz. “Our purpose is to help real estate consumers find homes they love and can afford by working with the world’s best agents. We do that by mining data and utilizing social community. I never woke up saying, ‘we’re going to get our brokerage license.’ We know how to write software and how to sell ads. That’s our thing. You all do something that is very hard, complicated and demanding. We think we amplify your efforts. That’s our purpose.”
Trulia’s Chaver put forth a similar assertion. “We are not disintermediators in any sense of the word,” he explained. “We have a very simple mission and that is to connect consumers with agents. We want to partner with brokers as they are transitioning from newspapers. We also want to take the looky-loos and teach them about real estate, so when they are ready, we can connect them with an agent. We never take FSBOs. We work with over 2,500 brokers. Consumers generally don’t know much about Trulia, and that’s because our intent is to accelerate and build the broker’s brand, not ours.”
Dive Into New York’s Historic Rental Ads, From The 1830s On | Chappaqua Real Estate
As the world has transformed over time, so, too, has the courtship between the owners of empty rooms and potential tenants. The Roman burden of donning your toga and trekking to the agora to find your next rental in one centralized marketplace has given way to virtual tours. (Which you can also do in a toga, should you so desire, although no one needs to know.) But because of various changes to the way letted spaces move, the past century has seen a full circuit in the evolution of rental ads.
[Want to check out this tony Clinton Hill residence on your own time? You know where to find it! (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 14, 1865)]
In the 1800s, such ads were usually posted by the owner. Unencumbered by character-limits, spots for rentals were filled with prose and description. The landlord wanted to fill his vacancy. Nothing else mattered. If your space came equipped with rosewood furniture and a piano—to some, the 19th-century equivalent to Carrara marble and a private gym—all the better to pitch. The newspaper, of course, was a common resort (or the only resort) for those who couldn’t fill their spaces by word of mouth or through their own networks.
[Really pitching to the perfect “respectable genteel family.” The ad (click for big!) sells the lots’ proximity to the Peck Slip Ferry, which connected the Williamsburg waterfront with downtown Manhattan, or the base of today’s Brooklyn Bridge. (Williamsburg Gazette, June 24, 1837)]
Then, in the early 20th century, brokers began to flood the market. Although the oldest of today’s largest firms, Brown Harris Stevens, traces its roots to 1874, what is now the National Association of Realtors was founded in 1908. But perhaps most importantly, a ten-year moratorium on taxes for new housing (warning: PDF!) led to a building boom starting in 1920. Those units needed people to live inside them… and fast.
Crafted by hired hands, ads began to take on a sense of urgency—and offered much less description. Mentions of specific addresses gave way to pitches for streets or neighborhoods; vowels became the victims of cost-cutting measures when every word cost cash.
[KITCH PRIVLS BMT EXP? I’ll take two! Translated: furnished room somewhere in the five miles(!) between Prospect Park and Sheepshead Bay, with kitchen access, and close to the express BMT, which is today’s B train. (New York Post, August 25, 1975)]
This modern format—concise, with no frills—remained the standard for generations, and is still in occasional use today. Such a listing published in the last few decades usually lays out the specifics of the apartment’s interior (“2 BR, 1.5 BA, southern light”) while giving a vague idea of its location (“3 blocks from the R”).
[In some cases, no location is given at all. Given the broker’s coordinates, we assume they are in northwest Brooklyn, but… (Brooklyn Paper, April 6, 1985)]
The intentional omission of a street address was actually a matter of self-preservation—not for the landlord, who just wanted a steady stream of income, but for the broker, who risked losing his fee if others got wind that an owner was actively seeking a tenant and moved the apartment before she herself did.
NAR leaves list of MLS ‘basic services’ untouched | Chappaqua Real Estate
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) did not change its classification guidelines for MLS “basic services” at its annual conference, ensuring that, for at least the near future, multiple listing services (MLSs) may confidently charge all their members to operate public-facing websites — a practice that has riled some large brokers.
Asked of his reaction to the committee meeting, Craig Cheatham, CEO of The Realty Alliance, said that public-facing sites should be switched from “basic” to “optional” in NAR’s MLS service classification guidelines “immediately and without hesitation.”
“Giving the committee and the board of directors the benefit of the doubt, they simply must not understand the stakes of what they have done and the direction they continue to head,” Cheatham said. “Our conscience is clear. We have sounded the alarm loud and clear. We were optimistic for progress, but actions speak volumes.”
In an announcement that has kindled anxiety among MLSs, Cheatham recently announced that The Realty Alliance is planning to roll out an unspecified “big initiative” to address some brokers’ concerns with MLSs.
Some brokers have clamored for NAR to remove public-facing websites from a list of examples of services that it considers reasonable for MLSs to choose to offer as “basic services” — MLS services that all members are required to pay for in their dues — ever since NAR added them to the list in May.
The inclusion of public-facing sites in a list part of MLS Policy Statement 7.57, “Categorization of MLS Services, Information and Product,” allows MLSs to force their members to pay for a service that can compete with their own websites, those brokers say.
– See more at: http://www.inman.com/2013/11/11/nar-leaves-list-of-mls-basic-services-untouched/#sthash.utywKTka.dpuf
Chappaqua NY Weekly Real Estate Report | #RobReportBlog
| Chappaqua NY Weekly Real Estate Report | 11/8/2013 | |
| Homes for sale | 92 | |
| Median Ask Price | $1,156,000.00 | |
| Low Price | $380,000.00 | |
| High Price | $24,750,000.00 | |
| Average Size | 4101 | |
| Average Price/foot | $369.00 | |
| Average DOM | 162 | |
| Average Ask Price | $1,672,839.00 | |
Malibu Ranked Most Expensive Real Estate Market In U.S. | Chappaqua Real Estate
It’s long been the home of Hollywood celebrities, white sandy beaches and some of the most picturesque views in all of Southern California – and now a new report says it’s the most expensive place to live in the United States.
According to an annual report, an average four-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the affluent beach community of Malibu
lists for $2.15 million, compared to the average $63,729 price of a similar-sized home in Cleveland, Ohio.
The star-studded, 12,832-resident Malibu is just one of several California cities to rank among the most expensive markets in the U.S., along with Newport Beach, Saratoga, Los Gatos, and San Francisco, according to the 2013 Coldwell Banker U.S. Home Listing Report.
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2013/11/06/malibu-ranked-most-expensive-real-estate-market-in-u-s/
Teatown Lake Reservation | Chappaqua NY Homes
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called “Ecology,” for those interested in working in environmental science is being offered by Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES and is being held at Teatown. In this course, learn and participate in hands-on exploration of several ecosystems including lake, stream and forest. The course will build students’ knowledge of science research and give them an opportunity to explore and learn about the field of ecology. 
Thursday, October 24, 7:30pm
Tuesday, October 29, 7:00pm
exploring the Hudson River and its