You know the deal going in
My parents bought an Apartment building (many years ago) when that was possible for people who were not really rich. The building was 90 percent rent stabilized, after about a year of struggling to pay the building expenses they had to sell the building at a loss. It all seemed so "unfair" that us poor landlords could not make enough profit on those 60 apartments. My parents simply accepted that they knew the deal "going in" and could not make it work out.Originally Posted by KipsBay
Happy ending, the man who bought the building, ran an efficient operatin, held on to the building - It is now worth about $12 milion dollars. He brought it for less tha $100,000. Poor Landlord---BS
People have a right to the housing they live in - and landlords must recognize the "positve law" AND the "moral law" of our constitution.
Greed.
Infoshare, in Economics 101 they teach that when Supply=Demand you have a fair market price. Well in NYC, especially Manhattan, we don't practice market economics. In turn we get, really high priced and really low priced rents, and fewer and fewer in between. This has nothing to do with the fact that your folks lost their lottery ticket to a more savvy landlord who took the same risk your folks took.
New Buildings
Anybody know what the new project is on the corner of 14th and University Place?
How about 36th and Fifth avenue?
Thanks
You can't just pull out the low numbers -- you have to show me the whole she-bang for a building (money in / money out). Then I will engage in a reasonable discussion.
Plus I'm not ignoring anyting. But I'm not going to do your research for you.
Read up on the law. If anyone (whether tenant or landlord) is taking "advantage" of a given situation there are legal remedies to that. (BTW: What would all those lawyers do if you got rid of rent laws?? That would be a killer for NYC economy.)
NYC has always been a tough place to do business.
If you can't stand the heat ....
Horsefeathers. There is no constitutional right to housing. Even if there were, there's no reason why a private landlord should have to bear that burden.
you know what I mean
It just that the rent controll "laws" are protected by Law. My guess my folks did not know what they were doing, so they were losing money - they did not break "positive law" by throwing people out physically or "moral law" by just being very mean to everybody in an attempt to drive them out.
However, It did not matter that the rents did not cover the taxes and operating expenses. That the property did not NEED to pay for itself - the OWners Equity alone would have made them money. As It made millions for the guy who brought the building and held-on-to-it, and made a killing.
Landlords in NYC make big mony on owners EQUITY, the rent is just gravy.
Greed
Last edited by infoshare; November 9th, 2005 at 05:32 PM.
From http://cityrealty.com:
Handsome office tower near Bryant Park may be residentially expanded 09-NOV-05
Mermel & McLain Management and ASB Capital have acquired the handsome, 173,108-square-foot, 20-story, office tower at 104 West 40th Street from RFR Realty and are reported to be planning a residential expansion.
Sources told CityRealty.com today that the sale was concluded last week.
According to an article in today’s New York Post by Lois Weiss, the new owners have hired Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to renovate the elevators and lobbies and a 70,000-square-foot residential expansion.
M. Myers Mermel, a principal of Myers & McLain, told CityRealty.com today, however, that "we are not discussing our plans right now," adding that the company had not expected "the Post article."
The green-glass-clad tower was erected in 1962 and has a F.A.R. (floor-to-area ratio) of 11.26 but can reportedly be built to a F.A.R. of 15. Its façade is similar to that of the tower of Lever House, which was designed by S.O.M. on Park Avenue.
The mid-block building extends through the block to 109 West 39th Street and its east façade is slightly angled in the middle of the block where it overlooks the low-rise Milliken Building on the Avenue of the Americas.
The building’s 40th Street entrance is set back in a very handsome plaza with side, gated Japanese-style gardens. It has a very large and sumptuous lobby.
The building, which is known as the Springs Mills Building, is across 39th Street from a new residential project, Bryant Park Tower, and it is very close to another major Garment Center office tower that is planning to convert its 20 top floors to residential condominiums, the 42-story building at 1450 Broadway on the southeast corner at 41st Street.
The higher floors of the east side of this building have views of Bryant Park across the Avenue of the Americas.
There are numerous gargoyles on nearby buildings on 40th Street.
what burden
What a burden; I am only making millions in owners equity with the passing
years.
Greed
Read the NY State Constitution ... it allows NY Legislators to pass laws -- which they have done so as to protect the rights of tenants via the laws regarding rent controlled & rent stabilized housing.
If you don't like it then get the law changed (good luck!). And certainly don't go buying any property with rent stabilized units in them, as it appears you might flaunt the law (you sound like my Landlord's scumbag **ahem** attorney).
Meanwhile face the fact that the laws exist and in specific situations tenants have legal protections.
For Choicest Apartments, Many More Choices
By MOTOKO RICH
November 10, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/10/garden/10turf.html
WHEN developers opened new buildings for sale in New York a year ago, brokers jostled for appointments, buyers camped out before open houses and people made decisions to part with thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes. One sales agent famously sold five luxury condos from the back seat of her BMW in a day.
The frenzy has died down, but the buildings keep going up.
With close to 16,000 units being built in Manhattan alone this year and next, and another 23,700 planned, according to Yale Robbins, a real estate publishing company in New York, there is much to choose from, especially at the high end, where a disproportionate amount of building is going on.
The plentiful options mean that buyers can now return to a sales office repeatedly to examine floor plans before writing a deposit check. Where some buildings might have sold three or four apartments in a day, now developers are happy to sell that many in a month. And some buyers even feel bold enough to offer less than the asking price, though few developers are biting.
"I just feel like people are waiting to pull the trigger," said Ariana Meyerson, project manager at 225 Fifth Avenue, a 192-unit building with $1 million one-bedroom apartments. "They are waiting to see where the market goes."
Some brokers predict that sales will slow more as newer apartments, often with fancier amenities than the building down the street, come on the market. "I do think that there is going to be product sitting on the market a year from now," said Michael Shvo, a broker who markets new developments.
Citywide, developers applied for building permits representing 15,870 new units in the first six months of this year, census figures show. Last year they applied for 25,208 units, the most since 1971. A large proportion of the newest units are being marketed as "luxury" apartments, a term that has come to mean anything from $600,000 studios in Brooklyn to $40 million penthouses on Central Park West.
The bounty of choice includes the planned condominiums at the Plaza Hotel and in the Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue near the Metropolitan Museum; chic new apartments designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel at 40 Mercer Street in SoHo; and the Philip Johnson-designed units at the Urban Glass House on Spring Street nearby.
"We do have a healthy amount of developments coming on stream," said Kirk Henckels, director of Stribling Private Brokerage in Manhattan. "And if there is one question mark" looming about the state of the market, he said, "that may be it."
Although condo prices are still increasing, brokers said buyers are being shrewder about what they are willing to pay. Six months ago the luxury market was so heated that "you could basically put a 3,000-square-foot coal chute on the market and three people would try to buy it," said Frederick W. Peters, president of Warburg Realty. Now, he said, buyers were being more selective about location and quality.
Stacey Silverman, 41, has been looking for a two-bedroom apartment in a new development for the past six months. She has yet to put down a deposit. "I think there is a lot to choose from, and there is more coming on the market," she said. "So I'm taking my time."
Some developers have not caught on to this new reality. "Sellers are in denial that the market has shifted," said Jonathan Miller, a New York appraiser. "On projects that appear to have stalled, the developer kept ratcheting up the prices systematically - which was the norm for the past few years - until it was priced out of the market."
Some new developments are still selling briskly, even at the superluxury end of the market. The developers of the condominiums at 15 Central Park West have had no trouble selling 74 units worth $650 million in the two months since the sales office opened.
William Zeckendorf, a partner in the development, said 12 of 16 penthouses, including one at $45 million, were under contract. A prominent Wall Street investor lost out on a duplex penthouse when he tried to buy at a discount and another buyer offered full price, Mr. Zeckendorf added.
But brokers said the scramble at 15 Central Park West, designed by Robert A. M. Stern in the spirit of such grand buildings as the San Remo and the Dakota, was largely a reflection of its irresistible location, lavish amenities and old-world charm.
Alex and Luba Rabey were not even looking to move from their apartment at the Grand Millennium on Broadway when they heard about 15 Central Park West. Mr. Rabey, a 65-year-old consultant, said they were attracted to the building's particular vantage on the park, its gym facilities and its 11-foot ceilings. They have signed a contract to buy a $4.87 million three-bedroom apartment.
Name architects have not necessarily spurred sales at either the Richard Meier tower at 165 Charles Street or Charles Gwathmey's undulating glass building at Astor Place. They are both in downtown locations that some brokers said wealthy buyers do not prefer.
The tower at 165 Charles Street, the third to be designed by Mr. Meier overlooking the West Side Highway, has been on the market for over 18 months. Out of 31 units, 24 have sold, including a $20 million penthouse. One broker who asked not to be named because she did not want to criticize a building where she might bring clients said it should have sold out by now. Izak Senbahar, the developer, said, "It's a very specialty product that sells at its own speed."
Despite extensive media coverage and a model apartment sponsored by Esquire magazine, the Related Companies, developer of the Gwathmey building, has sold only 24 of 39 units there. David J. Wine, vice chairman of Related, said he was perfectly happy with those numbers, given what buyers were paying: $1,400 to $2,600 a square foot.
But, he acknowledged, "buyers, at those numbers, because they have more choices, are being more cautious about where they buy."
Even at less lofty levels, buyers are hesitating. "It's taking longer to sell out buildings," said Richard Cantor, a principal at Cantor & Pecorella, a marketing firm that is handling 1,500 units in 10 new buildings around Manhattan.
It has taken 10 months to sell 43 of the 79 units at Beacon Tower, a high-rise condominium in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn, despite the lure of a Zen garden, a gym and high-end kitchens. Steve Rutter, who handles marketing of new developments for Corcoran Group in Brooklyn, said the developer, Leviev Boymelgreen, closed down the sales office for part of the summer because sales were sluggish, and reopened after Labor Day. Only four apartments have sold since then.
So far, nobody is predicting a glut or that prices will collapse. That is partly because today's building boom pales in comparison to the one that took place in the 1980's (developers built 125,623 units in Manhattan from 1985 to 1991, Mr. Miller, the appraiser, said). That building spree exacerbated the effects of the stock market crash and a severe recession, and median prices fell as much as 45 percent.
Since 1999 builders have put up only 13,374 units, about a tenth of what was built in the 1980's.
This time around, Mr. Miller pointed out, developers have focused on the upper third of the market, making it vulnerable to the impulses of one group of buyers.
For the moment, many remain in the game. Ali Akansu, a professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, recently bought an $815,000 one-bedroom apartment in Bryant Park Tower, a 94-unit condominium that will sit atop a hotel. He said he figured that it would be a good investment, and that maybe his college-age daughter would move in at some point. But when he was looking, he said, he saw several other projects that he deemed overpriced.
Its my guess the addition will be built on the plaza.From http://cityrealty.com:
Handsome office tower near Bryant Park may be residentially expanded 09-NOV-05
Mermel & McLain Management and ASB Capital have acquired the handsome, 173,108-square-foot, 20-story, office tower at 104 West 40th Street from RFR Realty and are reported to be planning a residential expansion.
Sources told CityRealty.com today that the sale was concluded last week.
According to an article in today’s New York Post by Lois Weiss, the new owners have hired Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to renovate the elevators and lobbies and a 70,000-square-foot residential expansion.
M. Myers Mermel, a principal of Myers & McLain, told CityRealty.com today, however, that "we are not discussing our plans right now," adding that the company had not expected "the Post article."
The green-glass-clad tower was erected in 1962 and has a F.A.R. (floor-to-area ratio) of 11.26 but can reportedly be built to a F.A.R. of 15. Its façade is similar to that of the tower of Lever House, which was designed by S.O.M. on Park Avenue.
The mid-block building extends through the block to 109 West 39th Street and its east façade is slightly angled in the middle of the block where it overlooks the low-rise Milliken Building on the Avenue of the Americas.
The building’s 40th Street entrance is set back in a very handsome plaza with side, gated Japanese-style gardens. It has a very large and sumptuous lobby.
The building, which is known as the Springs Mills Building, is across 39th Street from a new residential project, Bryant Park Tower, and it is very close to another major Garment Center office tower that is planning to convert its 20 top floors to residential condominiums, the 42-story building at 1450 Broadway on the southeast corner at 41st Street.
The higher floors of the east side of this building have views of Bryant Park across the Avenue of the Americas.
There are numerous gargoyles on nearby buildings on 40th Street.
^ Perhaps the plan here is to go UP ...
It's an odd site the way it is wedged behind the Milliken Bldg. and the other small buildings on the corner.
I'd think there would be concern that those sites along 6th Ave. could build up and block this building, but those are the chances you take in NYC.
Really? What properties are you specifically involved in and what is the total rent roll versus carrying costs for the building? When you say "And a lot of this subsidized landlord rent is not being benefitted by indigent New Yorkers either...", do you mean "most", the "majority", "some", or a "few." And, what do you do for a living that gives you access to all of the subsidized rent rolls in NYC. Based on your statements, I would assume you oppose the NYS Home Financing loans that are used to build market rate housing that does not benefit "indigent" New Yorkers, who can't afford the costs of living in those projects afforded development loans from the state.
I am assuming that if you are seeing tenants pay such rents "everyday" you are working in the residential real estate management business. Please substantiate your claims so we can afford you credibility.
You mean there are rent control and rent stablization laws? Wow, I never noticed...
Duh, the reality is that the laws exist. That doesn't make them right.
VC10-
Your lopsided research was inadequate to bolster your argument. If we are to consider the rents you cited as being ridiculous and unreasonable, the following information should be provided in addition to the rent price: the income of the tenants, the source of income (e.g. Social Security, Public Assistance) and the year they moved in. Knowing the rent prices does nothing to contradict a tenant's right and / or need to be served under rent control laws. Also, as you have cited the prices of these rents, could you tell us now if these units pay their own utilities, how many total units are in each building, what is the record of complaints against the landlords for failure to provide adequate services under the law. And, the true test of "fairness", what is the annual rent roll vs. the annual carrying cost for these buildings. Someone owns that building and that someone thinks it is a good enough investment to hold onto.
Your attempt at intelligent argument is eroding in the face of a failure of evidence and the disintegration of clear communication. When responses are prefaced with the non-word "duh," it becomes impossible to take you seriously.
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