The notion that troubles on Wall Street are starting to filter out to the broader New York City economy got a boost this morning when a real estate group released its latest rental market report showing that all average apartment rents decreased in October. The downturn in rents was most sharply felt in doorman one and two bedroom units, according to The Real Estate Group which released the report.
This marks the first time this year that average rents in Manhattan decreased. But tell your studio-dwelling friends not to get too excited—rents for studios remain stable.
Also, you may have some added negotiating room when it comes to those always painful broker fees, as landlords are reportedly giving brokers who close deals things like all-expense paid trips, overseas airlines tickets, free I-Pods and digital cameras. Why not ask your broker if you can have the I-Pod?
Actually, the report raises some questions about how that deal led by Tishman Speyer to buy Peter Cooper Village/Stuyvesant Town might be working out. Recall that Tishman partnered with the Blackrock Group and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System to buy up the housing complexes for $5.4 billion just one year ago. At the time it was the most expensive real estate transaction in American history. Now the Real Estate Group reports that some of the most lavish deals for brokers—those free trips and airline tickets—are coming from Peter Cooper and Stuy Town.
Market Report [Tregny.com; pdf]
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real estate
Manhattan Real Estate Takes A Dip
Did Tishman and Blackrock Overpay For Stuy Town?
By John Carney
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how about china buying bear sterns?
How do you pronounce Stuy Town? Stewie-Town?
saw the ads for Stuy Town, marketing them as luxury apartments.
Seriously, unless they demolish those ugly apartments and build new ones, i doubt anyone would want to move there for a high rent
It’s pronounced ‘sty’, as in “Only a real pig would be caught dead living in (Pig-)Stuy Town.”
Finance ego aside, I recently visited Stuy Town and was impressed by how clean and friendly it was.
Apparently a lot of the rent control cheaters have been booted via the ingenious technique of making everyone get magnetic access cards and then flagging anyone who turned out to be illegally subletting their apts when they (or their illegal tenant) showed up to pick up a card. Genius.
a little low to call them ‘cheaters’ IA. The majority of them are middle class families striving to make a living like everyone else in Manhattan. Stuy town was one of the- if not the last- remaining bastions of affordable rent on the island. It’s rather a shame.
@ girl
Brooklyn and Queens are good places for strivers to live. Of course, Stuy Town may as well be an outer borough considering where it is
Girl – I wasn’t calling all rent-control tenants cheaters, but rather referring to the ones who do things like rent at a below-market rate and then turn around and illegally sublet at market rates. Based on what I hear, there were numerous people in Stuy Town who were doing just that.
I agree that Manhattan should have affordable housing for middle class families, but people who cheat the system make it worse for honest families by effectively stealing government subsidies.
IA, those cheaters are helping society by facilitating the efficient allocation of economic resources.
@ IA, I agree with you in that respect, thanks for the clarification. It’s a shame that the honest few have to pay for the cunning of the others, but its just part of the larger social contract.
@ just me- by means of being renters they are strivers enough. no need for banishment in entirety!
Rent control/stabilization severely drives up the price of uncontrolled housing and inhibits the building of affordable housing:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-274.html
The way to get the middle class back into Manhattan is to remove rent controls.
Oh yeah and stop letting foreigners take advantage of the exchange rate to buy up the whole island on the cheap:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/realestate/08irish.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
This thread is how future dialogue will be between Bear and Citic. The communists versus the capitalists. The communist party in china had to approve the bear transaction.
China is neither communist nor capitalist. They simply don’t have a coherent school of thought.
i’m not a commie either! I resent that.
Tishman speyer uses deceptive reporting. Average rents are high, but since they refuse to drop the rent prices, they have over 600 vacant apartments. Moving into Nov, Dec, they have dropped prices 20% and are not advertising it. They are also throwing in a free months rent. They have no ability to run the residential market and rely on their cheesy name thinking they can market like Trump. Next year when they have 1000 vacants they will have a fire sale.
Whatever. China still has a communist party, which weighed in on the decision. Read Bloomberg sometime.
As a Stuy resident I can attest to the fact that Tishman Speyer are awful landlords. They treat tenants like garbage. The plumbing is awful and so is service.There secutity cameras make you feel like Nazi Germany must have been.They only care about making themselves richer at the expense of others.Anyone who pays market rates is a fool.
Anonymous @1:47 is absolutely right. Rent controls create a disincentive for developers to build new units. It’s also more cost effective for landlords to sell apartments rather than rent them at below market rates.
The only people benefitting from rent control are the old, who have been in those apartments for decades. Rent control is one of the things that screws young people over the most. Why don’t those old people living in rent control apartments move to the outer boroughs instead of forcing young people to double their commuting time to work?
The fact that subletting is illegal is in itself preposterous and a great example (along with rent control) of market manipulation that smacks of socialism.