BrickUnderground

BrickPicks: Steal this one bedroom in Sutton Place

by A. Ready | 11/03/10 - 6:49 AM

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This one-bedroom, one-bathroom coop at 420 E. 55th Street comes complete with a "very motivated" seller. Just how motivated? Six days ago the asking price for the unit was lowered by 9%, or $50,000, to $499,000 (slightly less than $700 per square foot, which is cheaper than about 65% of similarly-sized Midtown one-bedrooms). In the original sponsor sale back in June of 2005, the sellers paid $574,349. The apartment looks to be in excellent condition, and the maintenance is a very low $994 per month for this 790-square-foot abode. Downsides....?

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filed under BrickPicks, buying
CompsWatch: What's going on in FiDi?
CompsWatch: What's going on in FiDi?
These days we frequently see apartments close below their last sale price, but rarely do they start out asking for less than the price they last commanded. Downtown, that may be changing: In the last couple of days, we've noticed a number of apartments come onto the market below their previous sale price. Here are a few that caught our eye:
- A two bedroom, two bathroom condo at the Cocoa Exchange on 1 Wall Street sold in November of 2006 for $977,250. Yesterday it came on the market for $875,000.
- A small studio at the Greenwich Club at 88 Greenwich Street, came on the market for $450,000 yesterday. It last sold for $580,000 in September 2007.
- A 1,681-square-foot two-bedroom at the Cipriani Club Residences at 55 Wall Street, was just listed for $2,100,000. It sold in November of 2007 for $2,530,713.
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filed under buying, overheard, selling
Rental Rookie: In which we spend a few days wondering whether our radiators are going to explode

by Michelle Castillo | 11/03/10 - 6:31 AM

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While apartments are supposed to have heat in New York City, what they don’t tell you is that it’s not always the well-regulated thermostat that you may be used to if you moved here from somewhere like L.A. These old radiators shake, rattle, bang and blast heat in only one temperature. So even though I had thought one of my biggest problems moving here from California would be freezing during the winter, I found that I was wearing my summer skimpiest indoors rather than bundling up.

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filed under heat, rentals, renting
A moment of silence

A moment of silence
is in order: According to CurbedNY, the Atelier, 478-unit luxury condo on E. 42nd is lowering its common charges...for the second year in a row. Nice bragging rights for the owners of the 69 apartments currently for sale. So how'd the Atelier do it? We already know that the building rents out its roof deck to non-residents for $5-10k a pop, but we'd like to hear more. And we want to know how much the common charges have gone down. Anyone? (CurbedNY)

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filed under overheard
Your iPhone doesn't want you to get bed bugs

by Teri Karush Rogers | 11/02/10 - 2:27 PM

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We’ve talked a lot about how to find out if your future apartment has bed bugs, and by now you probably know that bedbugregistry.com is a good place to look for information not only about apartment buildings but also hotels. (Tip: User reviews on many other travel review sites will mention bed bugs if they are present at a hotel.) But what if you’re en route somewhere and want to know whether bed bugs are waiting for you at your destination....whether it be movie theater, conference center, client's office or your best friend's apartment building? There's an app for that now. Read on for more info and our Q&A with its creator, who hasn't been to a movie in 6 months.

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filed under bed bugs, cool stuff
Apartment staging, Botox, and Brazilians

Apartment staging, Botox, and Brazilians
Apartment staging--aka the act of stripping your personality and personal effects out of your apartment to make way for someone else's fantasy--came into its own around the same time as Botox, Brazilian waxing, and real estate blogs. What happens if you don't conform to the erasure aesthetic? If you are Christine O'Donnell, you wind up savaged on Gawker by an anonymous 25-year-old raised on porn. (Sorry, but you are going to have to Google that one yourself.) If you are squashed with your young family into a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that you try to sell without staging it first, you are going to get a picture of your messy toy-strewn living room posted on Brownstoner, followed by psychographic portraits like this... more>>

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filed under overheard
Wanted: A perfect family for my townhouse

Wanted: A perfect family for my townhouse
Yesterday New York Times reporter Christine Haughney profiled a Greenwich Village couple with a rather unusual set of requirements for a buyer. In addition to asking $8.35 million for the townhouse they bought for $985,000 in 1986, the couple want "the buyers to be artistic, spend time with their children and make this a home for many years." A few commenters applauded: "A good way to keep out the people with too much money and not enough soul. I wish people had started doing this in that area (and others) a long time ago. Maybe Greenwich Village wouldn’t have become so overrun by tools." But most characterized it as arrogant, narcissistic, possibly illegal--and unrealistic: "[G]ood luck finding some hard-working bohemians w/ $8.35M to spare," says one. Another offers: "I’m thinking of moving on from my rent-stabilized studio in East New York, but I’m holding out for a new tenant who will cherish the place as much as I have." (NY Times)

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filed under overheard, selling
Ask an Expert: Help! I live in a 'hot house'!

by Teri Karush Rogers | 11/02/10 - 7:02 AM

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Q. I live in a building for people 62 years and older. The heat cannot be adjusted unless done so by the super. Two and a half years ago, he turned off 3 of the 4 units. Now that I am in NY all year, I requested that the last one be turned off too. I was left a message by the Manager who said that its getting cold and I have to keep one on! Her tone of voice was like she was talking to someone, because of age, cannot make a valid decision about the heat being turned off! Do I have any recourse or do I just have to live in a "hot house"?

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filed under heat
Confessions of an on-site leasing agent

by A.J. Craft | 11/02/10 - 6:56 AM

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For the past nine months, I’ve worked as an on-site leasing agent for a major Manhattan landlord. Every day people come through my office in various stages of frustration, looking for a suitable place to call home. Having sat on both sides of the table--I personally have rented three apartments in three years, so I understand what a colossal pain finding a place in Manhattan is--I’ve learned a thing or two about how to go about securing the best apartment on the best terms. Read on for the view from the other side of the desk.

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filed under rentals, renting
CompsQueen: The developer unit dump

by A. Ready | 11/01/10 - 1:21 PM

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During giddy real estate times, developers show a fair amount of patience throughout the sales process, steadily increasing prices as they make additional units available for sale. In less robust times like these, developers are likely to remain as firm as possible on their published sticker price early on even as they deal out concessions on transfer fees, attorney costs, common charges, storage lockers, etc. However, there comes a point when getting out becomes more important than upholding sticker price.

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filed under buying, developer, new construction
No-Fee Rental Building of the Week

No-Fee Rental Building of the Week
If you're the type to want your recreational opportunities close at hand, The Ohm may be the rental building for you. As the NY Times reported earlier this year, The Ohm, located at 11th Avenue and 30th Street, not only provides a freshly minted place to live, it appeals to those for whom music is a religion and like having twice-monthly music events in their atrium. This is not a building marketed to older tenants with children, but if you're an unencumbered 20- or 30-something, it could be a fun place to unpack your bags for a couple of years. (more>>)

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filed under overheard, rentals, renting
Shiny happy renters pack StuyTown meeting

by A. Ready | 11/01/10 - 7:29 AM

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BrickUnderground attended StuyTown's tenants' association meeting this Saturday, where hundreds of rather festive renters packed Baruch College's Mason Hall to discuss what happens now that CW Capital has successfully rebuffed the attempts by a couple of hedge funds to take control of the complex. Among the topics that drew a positive crowd response: The likelihood that the complex would convert to co-op or condo (likely!), the return of rent overcharges (maybe by next summer!), and whether apartments would remain rent stabilized if renters did not buy them (hopefully forever!).

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Q&A with author Michael Gross: Real estate isn’t fair.

by Kelly Kreth | 11/01/10 - 7:25 AM

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Photograph by James Maher

Michael Gross at home in his ballroom-turned-co-op: "It doesn't suck."

New York City-born author/editor/blogger Michael Gross first became interested in writing about real estate while driving down Fifth Avenue: Looking at the grand, manicured buildings, he realized that real estate was the perfect window into the lives and times of the powerful, rich and famous. That initial interest sparked the writing of his famed book, 740 Park: The Story of the World’s Richest Apartment Building. Today he explains why he would never live in a loft again, how the West Village has been ruined by 'hedgefund-hogs,' and why he wouldn't buy a co-op at 740 Park even if he could.

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filed under Q&A
A Doorman Speaks: 'Nanny Wanted (To Possibly Raise My Child)'

by Openthedoor-man | 11/01/10 - 6:46 AM

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“Deez chil’ren hav no respeck-t for their par-unts. But sometimes me hav to blame de par-unts because they too sof wit de kidz. That’s why me no play games wit dem. Sometimes you hav to be tuff. But in de end, they still luv me you nah. Look at me? I picked dem up from sk-ool and giv em a little snack. Around tr-ee o’clock or so me started to cook for dem. I then clean-d up a bit e-round de house. Suddenly it becomes six or seven tur-ty and me hav-unt gwon home yet because me hav to bathe them now. And de par-unts iz home."

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No heat for YOU!!

No heat for YOU!!
As part of its ongoing tales of apartment terror, CurbedNY gives us a landlady not soon forgotten, even by the casual reader. A woman of Eastern European descent who initially charmed her future tenants with hugs turns out to be anything but cuddly--among other things, accusing her two young renters of being sluts whenever something went wrong. In fact, we can imagine an entire 'S--- My Landlady Says' franchise spinning out of this apparently recurring exchange: "We'd knock on her door and say 'It's 32 degrees in our apartment. Can you please put on the heat?' and she'd go 'NO! YOU ARE SLUTS!' and slam the door." They did not renew their lease. (CurbedNY)

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filed under landlords, overheard, rentals, renting