Open House Picks
Boerum Hill 243 Dean Street Cobble Heights Realty Sunday 1-4 $2,595,000 GMAP P*Shark Stuyvesant Heights 404 Stuyvesant Avenue Halstead Sat 12-2, Sun 12-2 $1,475,000 GMAP P*Shark Victorian Flatbush 2119 Albemarle Terrace Brown Harris Stevens Sunday 2-4:30 $1,250,000 GMAP P*Shark Bedford Stuyvesant 73 Lexington Avenue Agent Mike Sunday 10-1 $919,000 GMAP P*Shark
Boerum Hill
243 Dean Street
Cobble Heights Realty
Sunday 1-4
$2,595,000
GMAP P*Shark
Stuyvesant Heights
404 Stuyvesant Avenue
Halstead
Sat 12-2, Sun 12-2
$1,475,000
GMAP P*Shark
Victorian Flatbush
2119 Albemarle Terrace
Brown Harris Stevens
Sunday 2-4:30
$1,250,000
GMAP P*Shark
Bedford Stuyvesant
73 Lexington Avenue
Agent Mike
Sunday 10-1
$919,000
GMAP P*Shark
Sorry….should have said latest number ARE AT 8.25 million.
oops.
“Nope. The population remains unchanged. We’re still 8 million.”
No we aren’t. Latest numbers are not at 8.25 million.
Up from 8 million in 2000.
I agree with 1:07am, buying makes sense if 1. you found a place you love and are willing to live in it 20 years and 2. You can afford the monthly mortgage payments.
What disturbs me are people who think the real estate market will always go up, or at least are convinced it will never decline. It’s those comments like “buying is always better than renting” which are so idiotic.
Right now, buying is fine IF you are willing to buy and hold and wait many years while your property declines in value and then increases. Hey, you might be lucky and NYC will not suffer a big downturn, but please go into this intelligently with the understanding that there is a good possibility you will have to hold on to your property for years.
Do people buy places anymore because they like them as places to live?
I bought at the height of the market in 1986, watched values dive in 1987, and didn’t recoup my cost (accounting for inflation) until a few years ago when I finally sold.
In the meantime, I enjoyed nearly 20 years in a beautiful place in a great Brooklyn neighborhood.
Now I live in a new, bigger place that’s more than doubled in value in three years, but I fully expect another cycle that will wipe out this gain. But I plan to live here for another twenty years, so the ups and downs of markets mean little to me, at least not against the pleasures of being at home.
Remember what John Jacob Astor said (a man who rode out the market swings of 19th-century New York and died the richest man in America): “If I knew then what I know now about New York real estate, I would have bought all of it!”
Buy and hold. Meanwhile, enjoy a place to live.
“aren’t there real demographic pressures on NYC that do make it different than other places?”
Nope. The population remains unchanged. We’re still 8 million. There’s only been a class change – an outflow of lower class residents and an inflow of “middle” class residents. The REIC is trying to soak up an ever-increasing inventory with the same population figure. The notion that inventories are at all time lows is a smoke-and-mirror myth put out there by broker/bagholder propaganda. Total bullshit. Take a look around you.
Take another look at Shiller’s graph. You will not see 2008 real prices again in your life-time. Say bye bye.
“money down the toilet”
pay the landlord – rent
pay the bank – interest
pay the toilet – ???
12:12– you’ll pay off your mortgage faster if instead of overpaying, you wait and save. It takes seven or eight years to pay off 10% of a 30 year mortgage. Knocking 8% off an inflated price is much quicker.
But if buying is always better, I have a ten million dollar studio I’d love to sell you.
Yeah, ll:47 completely screwed up the calculation for someone who is living in the whole place.
It would be almost 12000/mo cash, plus the $4000 /mo opportunity cost, plus the lost equity. So using her numbers, you’d save $29000 per month by renting.
If you throw that much money down the toilet, you’d definitely better budget for a plumber too.
Also, the assumptions are wrong. You can’t get a $2 million dollar mortgage at 7% unless you are making so much money that you must be able to make more than 8% on your investments. These calculations are too low.
12:01 this is for you:
Over the past year, condo inventory levels have exceeded co-op levels as new developments (nearly all condo) continue to enter the housing stock at a steady clip. Residential development permits dropped sharply in 2007 and the expiration of the 421a abatement program on June 30th may choke off the high level of supply entering the market in 2009. So far, the elevated level of demand has kept inventory at modest to low levels.
The total number of listings has increased 9.9% from the end of December 2007 to the End of January 2008 (yesterday). Inventory tends to rise at the beginning of the year as sellers anticipate the upcoming spring market. The same period in four of the past five years has seen an increase in the number of listings:
1 Month Change (Dec-Jan)
2003, +2.3%
2004, -10.8%
2005, +16.9%
2006, +4.2%
2007, +9.9%
Clearly condo inventory is higher than it was two years ago, but co-ops are near the six-year monthly low since I began to capture this data. In fact, co-ops are 39.9% below their high in March 2003 (Just as the Iraq War broke out) and condos are 23.5% below their recent high in September 2006. Currently, overall inventory is consistent with levels seen in 2002/2003, which is contrarian to the increase seen in many metro area markets around the country at this time