New York City Housing Bubble - 'The BIG Picture'

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MAXED OUT
2007-10-23 02:45:00
If you haven't had the opportunity to watch MAXED OUT, now is your chance. Highly recommended. Enjoy!1 hr 26 min 58 sec How credit cards impose modern slavery on the people. To give people digits on their bank account and charge interest on something that is not real, backed up by nothing except debt, never had value, does not have value and will never have value. New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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Ivy Zelman: Housing Market Unlikely To Recover Before 2009
2007-10-23 01:34:00
Protecting Paulson's Pals by Slate - 10/16/07 snip:The subprime collapse didn't bother the Bush administration, until Wall Street bankers started whimpering...Housing Decline Threatens to Last Into 2009 by Bloomberg - 10/22/07 snip:Ivy Zelman's view of the U.S. housing market is gloomy, but it's probably the most realistic. A veteran Wall Street analyst, Zelman, chief executive of the research firm Zelman & Associates, says it's unlikely the U.S. housing market will recover before 2009, adding there's a "50 to 60 percent chance of a recession," as the housing slump curbs consumer spending. Zelman paints a much darker picture than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said last week that housing will be a "significant drag" on the economy into next year. When you consider the huge home inventories and tight-as-a- drum mortgage restrictions, it's easy to conclude that the housing slump could extend well past 2008. Unless financing loosens up and buyers return, her prop...
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Danger Will Robinson: Apply Goop To Breach In Spaceship Housing Debt
2007-10-21 23:28:00
Charts of the Week by Invest Tech - 10/16/07 snip:Existing home sales in August remained weak and continued to decline for the sixth month in a row. Now sitting at levels not seen since the fall of 2002, downward pressures continue to mount as bank lending standards are tight and affordability for first-time buyers is problematic. (chart -->)More ugly housing numbers expectedby MarketWatch - 10/21/07 snips:... The tightening of credit conditions meant that mortgages were either unavailable or much more expensive for many (but not all) buyers. "We are expecting big drops in the housing sales numbers over the next two to three months," said Brian Bethune and Nigel Gault, economists for Global Insight, in their weekly outlook. The National Association of Realtors will report on existing-home sales for September on Wednesday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch look for another 4.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.25 million, which would be the lowest sales pace since the rec...
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No Cure For Structured Investment Virus
2007-10-20 01:36:00
Warren - Buffett Avoids Bear Stearns, Countrywide Financialby Bloomberg - 10/19/07 snips:...Billionaire Warren Buffett said his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. won't buy a stake in Bear Stearns Cos. and that he "never came close'' to acquiring shares of mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp., which fell 61 percent this year... Buffett said he was skeptical about the U.S. Treasury's plan to create an $80 billion fund to buy distressed assets from structured investment vehicles linked to home lending. "I don't see any way that pooling a bunch of mortgages, changing the ownership, is going to change the viability of the mortgage instrument itself -- whether people can make the payments," he said. "It would be better to have them on the balance sheets so everyone would know what's going on" ...Wishful Thinking on the Housing Messby Comstock Partners - 10/19/07 snips:Just when a majority of strategists thought it was safe to go back in the water the proposed bailout of the SIVs once ...
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Commoditites Bull Breaks Down Housing Bull Utopians
2007-10-19 00:30:00
Gold Shorts are about to get reamed by the raging precious metals bull.(hat tip to Jim Sinclair for the great image)US Housing by Financial Times - 10/18/07 snips:In economic terms, ?decoupling? is the antidote to ?contagion?. Now, the notion of decoupling is itself contagious. Bull s espouse the theory that the rest of the world can shake off a slowdown in the world?s largest economy. Similarly, within the US, some contend that certain regions will prove immune to the general housing downturn. Official US housing data, released yesterday, showed a big drop in new starts. Worse, though, was a fall in the less volatile ? and forward looking ? number of permits. The National Association of Homebuilders? confidence index hit an all-time low. Meanwhile, the IMF cut its US economic growth forecast for 2008 by almost a third, partly on housing woes. ... the idea that prime spots like Manhattan are immune to the general fallout is flawed. The New York Building Congress has just relea...
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New Construction Slammed As The World Flees USDollar
2007-10-18 01:56:00
Housing depression raises recession risk by CNN Money - 10/17/07 snips:Builders continued to slam the brakes on new homes in September, as the government's latest reading on the battered market Wednesday showed that housing starts and permits were weaker than expected and at levels not seen for more than a decade... It also raised the prospect that the Federal Reserve will have to go ahead with interest rate cuts in an effort to avert the U.S. economy from falling into a recession... The weak level of building suggests that housing is in an even deeper slowdown than originally expected, as the collapse in the mortgage market, falling home prices and an equally weak market for existing homes has dried up the supply of potential buyers... According to Bill Hampel, chief economist for the Credit Union National Association... "What I had always thought is that we would have a long, flat bottom for the housing market, but it is now apparent that the contraction is sharper than that,"...
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No Solution To Stave Off The Foreclosure Wave
2007-10-17 02:04:00
Housing Chartbook: October 2007 by Wachovia - October '07 snips:See Article Link For ChartFest...Recent months have seen the secondary market for subprime and nontraditional mortgages dry-up. It is nearly impossible today to sell subprime loans, stated income loans, interest-only loans, and even high quality jumbo loans into the secondary market. As a result, terms on such loans have tightened considerably... With lending standards remaining tight, we have again lowered our forecast for both new and existing home sales. Sales of new homes are now expected to plunge nearly 22 percent this year, while sales of existing homes should decline 11 percent... The meltdown in the secondary mortgage market makes forecasting home sales particularly difficult. Delinquencies and defaults typically take a while to show up and probably will not top out for several more quarters. Tighter lending standards in recent months mean that credit quality and delinquencies will most likely be the worst ...
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Ready Or Not, Shit Hitting The Fan
2007-10-16 01:22:00
Subprime Mortgages in NY, NJ, CT by NYT - 10/12/07See Article For Interactive Map At RightHigh-cost ?subprime? home mortgages became widely popular in New York City, as they have across the region and the country in the last few years. New data from the federal government show that subprime loans made up 32 percent of mortgages on 1- to 4-family residences in the city in 2006, up from 28 percent in 2005...Bernanke: Housing Slump Will Be a 'Significant Drag' on Economyby AP - 10/15/07 snip:A deepening housing slump probably will be a "significant drag" on economic growth into next year and it will take time for Wall Street to fully recover from a painful credit crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Monday...Operation White Noise Steps Into The Limelightby Jim Sinclair - 10/15/07 snip:I told you so. "Operation White Noise," (Banks set up fund to bail out investment vehicles) the attempt to hide the breakdown in credit structured products - SIV's (over the counter cre...
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It's The Dollar, Dummy - More Debt To Hide Debt, Brilliant?
2007-10-14 15:15:00
Banks May Pool Billions to Stop Securities Sell-offMarketWatch - 10/13/07 Full Article:Major banks, including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., are considering a plan to establish a $100 billion fund designed to shore up the shaky asset-backed commercial paper market, according to news reports Saturday.The talks were initiated by the Treasury Department, which is playing a key advisory role, The Wall Street Journal reported.The aim would be to avert a scenario in which bank-affiliated funds are forced to unload massive portfolios of mortgage-backed securities and other assets, stoking a meltdown that would require banks, brokerages, and hedge funds to take huge write-offs, the newspaper reported. Policymakers and others fear such a scenario could spark a broader credit crunch that would slow the economy.Discussions in the past two weeks have centered on concerns about structured investment vehicles, the Bloomberg news agency reported. In one plan under consideration, lend...
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NYC Metro & Long Island Foreclosures Surge in Sept '07 vs '06
2007-10-13 10:20:00
NYC foreclosures up 9.8 percent compared to last yearby NY Daily News - 10/12/07 snip:City homeowners are feeling the pain as foreclosure threats mount - and more trouble may be looming. In the Bronx, the number of foreclosure filings last month surged 21.7% from September 2006 levels, according to RealtyTrac, the real estate Web site.In Brooklyn, foreclosure filings were up 17.5% from a year earlier, and in Queens the numbers were 13.7% higher. Citywide, filings rose 9.8% - far better than the housing troubles nationwide, in which foreclosure filings have doubled in the past year. Some housing advocates cautioned that city homeowners' problems are worse than the statistics suggest. "The number of filings does not reflect the truth of the situation," said Carol Finegan, a foreclosure prevention counselor at Brooklyn Housing & Family Services. "Foreclosure actions aren't happening yet. Banks are stalling as long as they can." The problems she sees in Brooklyn are being repeated...
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Home Builders At Junk Status, Foreclosures Spike, Housing & Retail Forecas
2007-10-12 01:36:00
Moody's cuts Centex, Lennar, Pulte to junk statusby Reuters - 10/11/07 snip:Moody's Investors Service on Thursday cut its ratings on home builders Centex Corp, Lennar Corp and Pulte Home s to junk status, saying it expects bleak housing industry conditions to linger at least until 2009. Separately, Fitch Ratings said in a report that pressures on home builders are likely to get worse as the housing downturn proves more severe than previously thought...Home Foreclosures Doubled in September on Loan Ratesby Bloomberg - 10/11/07 snip:U.S. home foreclosures doubled in September from a year earlier as subprime borrowers struggled to make payments on their adjustable-rate mortgages, RealtyTrac Inc. said. There were 223,538 foreclosure filings last month, including default and auction notices and bank repossessions, an 8 percent decline from August, the research company said today. California had the most with 51,259 and Florida was second with 33,354. The national foreclosure rate was o...
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Housing Bottom Predictors Are Way Out Of Line
2007-10-11 01:44:00
HOME CRISIS WORSE - LOSSES SEEN TIL 2009by NY Post - 10/10/07 snips:A top economist predicted an even bleaker housing recession, saying it will last at least another two years, dragging down the American economy to trail the rest of the world. "Housing prices won't hit bottom until next summer and the losses won't peak for another two years, until 2009," said David Wyss, chief economist of Standard & Poor's. "We are not halfway through this crisis yet"... The company, which specializes in jumbo loans above $417,000 to buyers of more expensive homes, said its losses came when it tried to sell bonds backed by adjustable-rate mortgages that were increasingly falling into default. "The global dislocation of the mortgage finance and credit markets this past summer has had a greater impact on our balance sheet than we initially estimated," Larry Goldstone, Thornburg's president and chief operating officer said...Existing-Home Sales Forecast Cut Again to 5yr Low by NARby Bloomberg ...
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Overstocked And Overpriced - Charge It!
2007-10-10 02:31:00
Headlong toward a recessionby Long Island Business News - 10/4/07 snip:If the national economy stumbles into a recession ? and local economists are increasingly fearful it might ? it could very well start right here. Overstocked with overpriced homes and suffering equally from chronic brain drain and dwindling job creation, Long Island may become the poster child for all that has suddenly gone wrong with the U.S. economy.Foreclosures become windfalls for storage firmsby Staten Island Live - 10/7/07 snip:A recent spike in foreclosure filings on Staten Island is helping self-storage facilities here thrive like never before, according to those who manage them. Many of the Island's 11 self-storage facilities are near capacity. Thousands of units are filled with furniture, appliances and decorations owned by people whose mortgages are in default -- and those in the industry are hoping it stays that way. "A lot of people are having a hard time," said Jesus Sanchez, manager at Victo...
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The Lowdown On The Manhattan Market
2007-10-06 18:37:00
Manhattan Real Estate is Falling. That's Right, I said it!!! And Beware Those with Short Term Memoryby Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust & Bling Blog - 10/4/07 snips:When the residential real estate market falls hard, it falls. New York (Manhattan, too) is different from many other regions because it is denser, harder to build new supply, and has a generally richer demographic. Alas, buildings are still buildings, people are still people, and money is still money - Yes, even in NYC. Manhattan and Brooklyn have been on a tear during the boom. So much so that many actually began to believe that NY was somehow magically immune to real asset cycles. Developers have found a way around the supply issue as well. Just convert everything that stands into condos (NYC use to be a coop market). Those with short term memory must have forgotten the 90's, the 80's, and the '70s. NY residential real estate cycles reliably every ten years or so, give or take. Guess what. It's about ten years, a...
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Open Discussion - Talkaboutit or Fuggetaboutit
2007-10-06 16:39:00
10/5/07For all the Goodfellas, Babes and Wiseguys, this new thread will remain at the top for 'Open Discussion ', anytime anywhere, outside the 'kool-aid drinkers' club. What's goin on with Real Estate or financial news in your boro, hood or head. Talkaboutit or Fuggetaboutit. New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture

Homeowners Are Getting Slammed
2007-10-06 05:25:00
BusinessWeek - October 15th IssueHousing: That Sinking Feeling - Homeowner s Are Getting SlammedLuxury Letter Indicates September Sales Debacleby Curbed NY - 10/3/07 snip:...We've been waiting on October's Luxury Letter—the monthly high-end market update prepared by Leonard Steinberg, Hervé Senequier and their team at Elliman—because while all those positive numbers for Quarter 3 were encouraging in light of all the mortgage/credit problems, they were inflated by deals that were agreed on in Q2, but not closed until Q3. Now we have some August and September sales intel, and it's an ugly sight....Homebuilders Liquidate Assets in Desperation Salesby Bloomberg - 10/5/07 snips:When D.R. Horton Inc., the second- biggest U.S. homebuilder, couldn't sell the one-bedroom condominium in San Diego it listed for $349,800, the property was auctioned as a last resort for 37 percent less. D.R. Horton, with annual revenue of about $11 billion, and Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. now face the wor...
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2007 Subprime Mortgage Bonds Incurring Serious Loan Delinquencies
2007-10-05 01:26:00
Subprime Loan Delinquencies in Bonds Are Accelerating in `07, Moody's Saysby Bloomberg - 10/4/07 snip:Subprime mortgage bonds created in the first half of 2007 contain loans that are going delinquent at the fastest rate ever, according to Moody's Investors Service. The average rate of "serious loan delinquencies" in the securities has been higher than 2006 bonds, New York-based Moody's analysts Ariel Weil and Amita Shrivastava wrote in a report today. Serious loan delinquencies are those 60 days or more past due, including properties in foreclosure or already foreclosed upon. "It is shocking what you see," said Kyle Bass of Hayman Advisors LP, a Dallas-based hedge fund that reported a 400 percent return on its bet the U.S. housing market would fall. "Anything securitized in 2007 has got to have the worst collateral performance of any trust I've seen in my life"...Home-Price Outlook Takes Another Shot by WSJ - 10/4/07 snips:The outlook for house prices is getting even gloomie...
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Re-Finance Traffic Jam May Frustrate Efforts By Regulators To Prevent Forec
2007-10-04 03:36:00
Mortgage lenders in subprime ?traffic jam? by Fina ncial Times - 10/3/07 snips:US mortgage companies are being overwhelmed by the large numbers of homebuyers who need to renegotiate their loans to avoid default, creating a ?subprime traffic jam? that could frustrate efforts by regulators to prevent foreclosures, experts say. Mortgage servicers, the operations that collect loans, say they are having trouble making profits because of record levels of late payments and delinquencies. Litton Loan Servicing estimates that costs have increased 20 per cent in the last year for mortgage servicers, who even in good times depend on razor-thin profit margins... ?Servicers have failed because there?s a huge resourcing issue,? said Barefoot Bankhead, managing director at Navigant Consulting. ?As lenders have gone out of business, the servicing arms have been in transition without the resources to handle the enormous number of requests for loan modifications and restructuring.? The problem coul...
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"The Existing Homes Sales Market Is Now In Freefall"
2007-10-03 01:51:00
Pending Sales of U.S. Homes Fell More Than Forecastby Bloomberg - 10/2/07 snip:The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes fell more than forecast in August, another sign the housing recession will persist. The National Association of Realtors' index of signed purchase agreements dropped 6.5 percent to the lowest level since record-keeping began in 2001, the group said today in Washington. The gauge plunged 11 percent in July. The stricter lending guidelines and higher borrowing costs resulting from the August credit turmoil will depress sales even more, extending the real-estate slump well into 2008. The Federal Reserve may need to lower interest rates again to prevent housing from ending the expansion, economists said. "The existing homes market is now in freefall," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics Ltd., in Valhalla, New York. "The downside from here is still substantial"...Crisis? What crisis? Stocks are just fine...
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Sellers Too Broke To Sell
2007-10-02 02:27:00
Here's a new one: Being too broke to sell by Chicago Tribune - 10/1/07 snip:Most anybody in the mortgage business will tell you that August was a month that will live in infamy: The market was in turmoil, as doubts about the stability of subprime loans spread to other sectors of the mortgage world. How bad was it? A survey of mortgage brokers suggests that one in three consumers who recently signed purchase contracts canceled in August -- up from just 4 percent three years ago, according to the research firm that conducted the survey for Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade journal. The cancellation rate undoubtedly was fed by two scenarios playing out: Many buyers couldn't get mortgage approval because lending suddenly tightened; or, financially strained lenders yanked funding from their borrowers at the last minute. But another factor was at work: Sell ers -- not buyers -- were in trouble as their closing dates neared. "Our office had four sales in one week that failed to close becau...
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Don't Be Fooled By Wall Streets Temporary Insanity
2007-09-29 21:13:00
A sign of bad things to comeNY Property Grunt - 9/19/07 Full Article:As everyone knows, newspaper advertising has taken a big hit in the last couple of years. However one thing that newspapers have always counted on is real estate advertising. And now it appears that has taken a dive in the New York City area. According to some intelligence from a source in ad sales, real estate ad sales have taken a significant drop. It was August when I first heard from this source and figured that there would be bit of a downturn since the real estate season doesn't start until after Labor Day so brokers aren't rushing out to buy ads. But when I checked in with my source this month, it was pretty much more of the same. The irony though is that it appears that ads for foreclosures have gone up. So in the end it evens out. So if you got to sell, sell. Unload your s**t now while people are fooled by the euphoria of the market because of a rate cut.Even in New York, Affordable Apartmentsby NYT - 9/...
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The Fed Does Not Have A Majic Wand To Fix This Mess
2007-09-29 01:43:00
Mortgage Defaults on Insured Loans in U.S. Increase 30 Percent, Group Saysby Bloomberg - 9/28/07 snip:More American homeowners are missing mortgage payments, pushing defaults on privately insured home loans up 30 percent last month from year-earlier levels, according to a trade group. Borrowers more than 60 days behind rose to 58,441 in August, Washington-based Mortgage Insurance Companies of America said today on its Web site. The report bolsters data that show the worst U.S. housing slump in 16 years may be getting deeper. Foreclosures set a record in the second quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and last month lenders sent a record 108,716 notices of default, auction or repossession, RealtyTrac Inc. reported. Fannie Mae Chief Executive Officer Daniel Mudd said yesterday the slump will last beyond 2008, increasing credit losses. "These defaults are a lagging indicator, so they're probably going to get worse from here," said Michael Darda, economist at Green...
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Home Price Declines Will Extend Beyond 2008
2007-09-28 03:03:00
Differing US house price measures: Which one to trust?by UniCredit - 9/27/07 snip:There is no doubt that the US housing sector is in the midst of a severe recession. Building activity is down more than 40% since the peak in late 2005, market sentiment just reached an all-time low and yesterday Lennar Corp., the largest US homebuilder, reported the biggest quarterly loss in its 53-year history. At the same time, inventories of unsold home are soaring and house price inflation has slowed. But the extent of this slowing is anything but certain. Our Chart of the Week compares the three most respected US house price indicators: The OFHEO House Price Index, the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Index and existing home prices as published by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) . And while the OFHEO still points to a 3.2% rise, y-o-y, the NAR existing home prices are unchanged (-0.04%) and the S&P/Case Shiller Index is down 3.9%. In our view, the Case Shiller Index is the most ap...
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Home Prices Are Notoriously 'Sticky' - Declines Are A Process, Not An Event
2007-09-27 01:49:00
Home sales take sharp tumble by LA Times - 9/26/07 snips:..."The good news is that the housing market did not collapse in August. Sales took a hit, and inventory increased, but houses, nonetheless, sold," said Patrick Newport, an economist with research firm Global Insight. "The bad news," he added, "is that the worst may be just ahead. August's sales do not reflect the full impact of the credit crunch"... The number of homes sold is expected to continue to decrease, further weighing down prices as the effects of the credit crisis continue to play out, other analysts said. Mortgage rates rose in the last month and lenders have tightened their standards for qualifying borrowers, affecting the ability of even the most-creditworthy borrowers to obtain loans. The supply of unsold existing homes nationwide is expected to grow, in large part because as more and more homeowners find themselves facing onerous monthly payments on their adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, they will have to...
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No Respite In Home Price Declines
2007-09-26 01:26:00
Summer Swoon Evident in the S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indicesby Standard & Poor's - 9/25/07 snip: (more charts at link)Data through July released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller® Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, shows a continuation of negative annual returns in the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite, as well as 15 of the 20 metro area indices. Both composite indices have registered negative annual growth rates since the beginning of the year. In addition, both indices rate of decline has become larger in each of the seven months from January through July. The chart above, depicting the annual returns of the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite, shows the 10-City Composite was down 4.5% versus July of 2006, while the 20-City Composite was down 3.9% over the same time period. "The decline in home prices clearly continued into the summer months," says Robert J. Shiller, Chief Economist at MacroMarkets ...
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A Neat New Source For NYC Real Estate News: IntoTheBox.TV
2007-09-25 11:05:00
Hat tip to IntoTheBox.TV for contacting me. They're website is a blast to explore and covers... well... here is what they have to say about that...IntoTheBox is all about peering inside the surreal housing market here in New York City. With approximately 13 million people residing in the New York Metropolitan area ? and available housing at an absolute premium ? it's no wonder the market has been compared to a blood sport. People will lie, cheat and steal for a small slice of the scrumptious real estate pie.IntoTheBox takes a look at the news, trends and politics of the NYC real estate market. The stories here are even better than fiction. Our daily videocasts provide you with an intimate view of the way New Yorkers cope with the absurdities of living in the best city in the world.Show us your pictures, send in your comments and join the dialogue with the community that is now IntoTheBox. Enjoy!Soo.. we're going to follow along and watch the Video info they come up with over the...
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The 'Housing Futures' Market Outlook Is Very Grim
2007-09-25 03:35:00
The Roof Is Caving In On the Housing Market by SeekingAlpha - 9/23/07 snip:The housing data don't lie: the sky is falling, and the roof is caving in too.(see chart at right)Earlier this week, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) extended the futures market on the S&P Case-Shiller Home Prices Indexes from one to five years. Now, futures investors can make bets on where home prices will be as far out as 2011.For all of you who think a 15-25% pullback in the real estate market can't happen, I suggest you take a look at the. CME pricing Web site. The market is new and illiquid, so price discovery may be imperfect. But futures traders are putting real money on a major pullback in real estate prices. The table below shows the estimated percentage change in real estate prices in 10 cities based on the most recent futures sale on the CME...Risky Loans Help Build Ghost Town of New Homes by NYT - 9/24/07 snips:Along the streets of Far Rockaway, many recently built two- and three-family ...
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In Denial? Why You Should Be Terrified
2007-09-23 19:48:00
Guess Who?s Feeling the Mortgage Pain by NYT - 9/23/07 snip:DENIAL is a powerful thing, and nowhere is that more evident than among companies holding mortgage securities that are on the skids. Nine months into the meltdown of the home loan market, investors are still waiting for banks, brokerage firms and other companies to come clean on losses incurred on those securities...Frustrated New Yorkers Grapple With Loan Rates by NYT - 9/23/07 snips:A MONTH after the mortgage markets started to crumble, mortgage brokers and lawyers say that New Yorkers are finding it harder than ever to get mortgages and are increasingly backing out of deals. This lending slowdown has seemed to affect a broader segment of New York City apartment hunters, many of whom are now waiting to see if prices drop because of the mortgage crisis before they commit to buying... Many people hoping to buy new apartments are finding that, months before their closing dates, they cannot lock in rates. Buyers who do not q...
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Sunday School: Why The World Thinks The US Populace Is Stupid
2007-09-23 19:01:00
This is why we're in the current crisis both politically and economically.This is absolutely shameful! New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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North Williamsburg Brooklyn Prices Down 10%+
2007-09-22 03:33:00
Neighborhood Watch: How vulnerable are you? A risk analysis by New York Magazine - snip:Is your neighborhood oversupplied with condos? Still in demand? Cruising along? Cruising for a fall? Here's the definitive guide, with risk factors (see key at right) for each neighborhood...HIPSTER BROOKLYN:WILLIAMSBURG AND GREENPOINT at 7.0The fact is, asking prices are down already in Williamsburg . Local broker David Maundrell says the area is off as much as 10 percent, though he?s quick to add that it looks like it?s stabilized. The culprit appears to be the huge amount of new construction (and reconstruction). According to the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, the Department of Buildings issued 559 new certificates of occupancy here in 2005?more than five times as many as in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens combined. That said, some Burghers have a lot more to worry about than others. "Everything good that Williamsburg is known for, it?s on the north side,...
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