CO-OP/CONDO BUYERS

Not every new condo construction looks like a Jenga tower. Just check out the Landmarks Preservation Commission-approved condo building rising at 130 Seventh Avenue South in the West Village. YIMBY reports that that the 7-story structure now boasts a teaser site, a new address (175 West 10th Street), and a new rendering. Moving away from the cold glass and steel high-rise model, this building has a traditional red-brick façade with a modern twist: it's "broken up with large, irregularly spaced sets of windows." The ground floor will be retail space, "topped by four stories of floor-through condos, and then a penthouse duplex for the sixth and seventh floors. Each apartment will measure about 2,500 square feet." Very nice. If you're wondering about the sticker price, it's too soon to tell, but sales are expected to launch early next year, and work is expected to finish in fall 2016.

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Arguably, one of the cooler aspects about New York City is its 1920s-era buildings with their exquisite detail. The old bank buildings are especially lovely. In the ever-changing landscape of the city, some of these old buildings get converted into condos. Other times, however, a building such as the imposing structure on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, becomes a casualty of supply and demand. The former Green Point Savings Bank building at 856 Washington Avenue will be demolished to make way for a 14-story apartment building, reports DNAinfo, citing permits approved by the city last week. If you're a fan of old buildings, then hurry to get a photo because building and property records show that the neoclassical stone structure will be ripped down soon. The new residential property will include 28 condominiums over about 45,000 square feet, according to DNAinfo, with one floor-through unit on each of the top three floors. Sounds nice, but it's still disappointing news to fans of old buildings and to those who were holding their breaths for a Trader Joe's grocery store.

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Is your co-op board flexible enough to adapt when a self-employed person — with fluctuating annual income — applies for a sublet?

Many co-op boards have strict procedures for vetting prospective subletters. Conventional requirements include a W-2 income tax form (for one or more years), credit and criminal background checks, a letter from the previous landlord, bank statements, and personal and professional letters of recommendations. As a final hurdle, sublet applicants who are deemed worthy usually have to appear in person for an interview before the board's sublet committee or the entire board.

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Condos are a bit like rabbits, aren't they? You start with a couple and before you know it, they start popping up everywhere. That's been the case in Rego Park — once a distinctly middle-class Queens neighborhood with its apartment buildings, multi-family and railroad houses, and commerce. Starting in 2000, but especially since 2010, prices in Rego Park have been climbing with the influx of young professionals. And gentrification in this once affordable neighborhood has been building significant momentum. Take this new 7-story condominium rising only one block away from the 63rd Drive-Rego Park subway station. It's only the latest project to pop up in the neighborhood, says DNAinfo, adding that "the 23,398-square-foot building, at 97-30 64th Avenue, will include 23 condo units." On that same block, just a month ago, another condo — Great Stone Tower — was completed. "Prices in that building, according to real estate listings, can surpass $700,000 for a two-bedroom apartment," reports DNAinfo. Over in the following block, "another developer, Kenny Liu, is also planning to build a new 7-story 50-unit condominium building at 97-45 63rd Drive." And of course, there's the upscale condo, featuring Manhattan-style amenities such that include a gym, rooftop garden, and bicycle room, being built at 65-38 Austin Street.

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In this week's Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times, Ronda Kaysen fields a question about mortgages: "Just before I went into contract on a condo, my bank denied my mortgage, citing 'investor concentration.'" Kaysen explains that while it's perfectly legal for someone to purchase several apartments in the same condominium, the problem lies with the banks. "In general," she says, "lenders will not give someone a mortgage in a building where one investor owns more than 10 percent of the apartments or where more than half the apartments are owned by various investors." We've talked about this problem before. For starters, too many investors tends to mean lots of rentals — and neither Fannie Mae nor Freddie Mac like that. There's also the very real concern that an investor who owns many apartments may default on his or her mortgage or stop paying the common charges. That's what happened at one Bronx co-op that found itself on the brink of extinction twice. Follow their story in the next few weeks.

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Ah, Brooklyn. Every quarter, it seems to get more prohibitively expensive. Remember the first quarter results? To refresh your memory, Brooklyn was still not as expensive as Manhattan, but the price difference between the two was starting to shrink. Now, according to Douglas Elliman's third-quarter report, it looks like Brooklyn is narrowing the gap even more. Jonathan Miller, the author of the report, confirmed to Brickunderground that "he doesn't expect Brooklyn sales prices to surpass Manhattan anytime soon, but the gap is, indeed, getting smaller. The difference between median Manhattan and Brooklyn prices during the third quarter of 2008 was $418,000; now it's $321,000." Inventory has declined by 13.6 percent — couple weak inventory with strong sales and you have a recipe that results in rising prices, explains Miller. It's no wonder Brooklyn is still breaking records. So what does it all mean? Well, if you're in the market for a co-op or condo in Brooklyn — and you can afford it — now's the time to move, because prices are only going to continue to climb.

Photo credit: Postdlf for English language Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Speaking of Tribeca, check out 5 Franklin Place. Work there is finally reaching the end, reports YIMBY. But it's what's on the inside that counts, and despite the outside showing "the cladding and window installation are complete, interior work appears to be ongoing." It shouldn't be long, however, for this 20-story building with 53 condominiums to be finalized. Wonder what the ticket price will be.

Photo of 5 Franklin Place by Tectonic

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It's always been about a race to top in New York, hasn't it? When the Chrysler Building was being constructed, William Van Alen — the architect who designed it — was in a race against H. Craig Severance's building at 40 Wall Street. After Severance increased the height of his building and gave it the title of the world's tallest building, Van Alen got the green light for the Chrysler's telltale 125-foot-long spire. It beat 40 Wall Street as the tallest building in the world (not to mention the Eiffel Tower as the tallest structure). But the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet would hold the title for only 11 months, because then rose the Empire State Building, and then… You get the picture. Fast-forward to the present, and not surprisingly, it's still a race to the top. Who will dominate New York City's iconic skyline? Lately, it's the residential giants — the luxury condo towers, such as the ones on Billionaires Row. The Real Deal sized up the "supertalls" recently: "At 1,396 feet high, 432 Park overtook Extell Development's 1,004-foot-tall One57 earlier this year. But Extell is now on track to reclaim the title. Extell's latest "supertall" building, dubbed Central Park Tower, is scheduled to top out at 1,550 feet in 2019. What's more, the tower will reportedly have a record $4.4 billion sellout." But, asks TRD, can that race really continue? Is it feasible (or wise) for these tall, skinny towers to keep rising all over the city? Maybe there will be a slowdown, but as long as there's a way, we bet developers will keep trying to reach higher.

"Chrysler Building at night" by David Shankbone. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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Despite it being in Tribeca, 149 Church Street isn't exactly memorable or remarkable. "With a bland façade featuring windows pockmarked by inefficient air conditioning units," writes YIMBY, "its demolition will usher in a brighter and more productive future for the lot, and while its use is still the same, 30 Warren will certainly be both denser and better than what existed before." That's right. It was so meh, that it's not just getting demolished to make way for new shiny condos. It's getting a new address: 30 Warren Street. According to YIMBY, "Cape Advisors is developing the site, while Post-Office Architectes is serving as the project’s design architect. The building will stand 12 floors tall, and will have 44,830 square feet of condominiums and 5,578 square feet of ground-floor retail [and] takes up the entire blockfront on Church between Warren and Chambers Streets." So, what do you think? The extruded elements, which YIMBY compares with 12 Warren Street, another condo rising just a block away, make the building look like a Jenga tower. But maybe that's just us. 

Rendering by Post-Office Architectes

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With all the new construction happening everywhere you turn in Manhattan — and co-op and condo prices dipping slightly again in August — you have to get a little creative when it comes to grabbing the attention of potential buyers. William Reue Architecture wanted to inject a sense of human scale into the open rooms of a newly constructed $12 million West Village townhouse at 372 West 11th Street. To that end, the architectural firm collaborated with Norbert Waysberg, the building's developer, to commission a dance that would be performed inside the building. The final result is the four-minute video "Elevation," an art-performance piece that seeks to explain the building in a kinetic way, much more descriptive, real, and alive than any photographs ever could. Is this the beginning of a new trend in real-estate sales? The tone in this one certainly speaks to the luxury market set. It may still be, however, something for co-op and condo boards to keep an eye on when they have their own spaces to sell.

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