New York City Housing Bubble - 'The BIG Picture'

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Foreclosures Surge In Long Island's Hamptons Paradise
2008-05-13 01:13:00
TROUBLE IN LI PARADISE by NY POST - snip:In the first three months of this year, banks have launched preliminary foreclosure actions - known as lis pendens proceedings - against a record 120 borrowers in East Hampton and Southampton towns... "This problem didn't even exist before," said John Brady, a broker with Coldwell Banker in East Hampton. "They used to pop up once in a while, and you wouldn't even pay attention. Now you expect to see new ones every week"..  New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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The Last Post - REVISED
2008-05-10 00:26:00
Due to personal matters, as well as the lack of interest and participation by new york city metro residents, after a year and a half of steady dedication in providing this resource on a volunteer basis, unfortunately for the loyal readers, this blog has found its last day. I can no longer dedicate the time and effort necessary. I hope that you've all gained good knowledge and developed your own home prospecting strategy for the turbulent economic times ahead for us all. Best of luck and happy lowballing. ------First... to Everyone who has sent me emails and posted on this comment. THANK YOU! Its overwhelming to have gotten so many kind words. Although, I still have matters to attend to. I will try to post from time to time on important issues that arise. Secondly... perhaps someone out there can assist with posting on the NYCbubble and keep it alive? I'm sure readers will take you in and appreciate greatly. Send me an email... address is in my profile. New York Cit...
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Charge It!
2008-05-08 00:52:00
US Consumer Debt Increases $15.3 Billion, More Than Forecast by Bloomberg - snip:U.S. consumer borrowing jumped more than double the amount economists forecast in March, indicating a slowing economy is forcing Americans to accumulate credit-card and other forms of debt... "Consumers are strapped as incomes are not keeping up with inflation and this is leading them to rely increasingly on credit to see them through the worst housing downturn since the Great Depression,'' said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. "The days of extracting cash from one's home to spend on goods and services are long gone"...Bankruptcies on the Rise by BusinessWeek - snips:The numbers show a 49% increase in commercial bankruptcies over last year, with an average of 235 daily filings last month compared to 158 in April, 2007, according to data compiled by Jupiter eSources, an Oklahoma City company that runs a database called Automated Access to Court Electroni...
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David Lereah Visits The Housing Bust Confessional
2008-05-08 00:50:00
It?s Going to Get Worse Newsweek Web Exclusive - snips:Economist David Lereah (of the NAR) was once the housing market's biggest cheerleader. Now he says the bust isn't near over, and home prices still have a long way to fall... "We're not at the bottom," he says. "[People] want it to be near the bottom, but we're not there yet. The leading indicators are still very bad. Pending home sales are still in bad shape. Mortgage applications are low ? There's still supply out there in abundance ? This thing is going to get worse before it gets better." Lereah says that the industry may begin to see a slight uptick in sales later this summer, which could signal the start of the recovery. Home prices, however, will continue to fall... That's quite a turnabout from the view he articulated in his book, first published in 2005... "You knew there were a couple of [regional] balloons out there, and [I] said you could have a couple of these balloons pop," Lereah says now. "But I didn't thin...
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Brain Dead Couch Potatos Awash In Voluntary Debt
2008-05-07 00:43:00
America, The Ignorant by Boom2Bust - snip:Back on February 19, 2008, I wrote a post that talked about how Americans are in serious intellectual trouble. One finding by the National Science Foundation that I noted in that discussion and which really disturbed me was that one in five American adults think the sun revolves around the Earth. Now I know why we love ?reality? shows so much. Well, it?s time to revisit the topics of intellectualism and knowledge among Americans. On April 22, op-ed columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times talked about a recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core, which found:? One-quarter of teenagers could not identify Adolf Hitler? One-third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion? Fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900? One-fifth did not know who the United States fought during World War II? Eleven percent thought Dwight Eisenhower was the president for...
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NYC Foreclosure Rates Soar 34%, And Manhattan Not Immune
2008-05-01 01:23:00
METRO FORECLOSE RATE SOARS 34% by NY Post - snips:The number of New Yorkers losing their homes to foreclosure jumped by a third compared with a year ago, a study has found - and experts are warning that the worst is yet to come... Analysts once predicted that New York's real-estate market would be largely insulated from the wave of home-loan defaults affecting much of the country. But lawmakers and local organizations are now working overtime to keep up with the volume of requests for help from homeowners in crisis. New York's foreclosure process is unusually long, taking more than a year for defaulting homeowners to lose their homes, so experts say the data probably does not reflect the level of foreclosures that will hit the area. "We are still waiting for the other shoe to drop," said RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist about the foreclosure rate in the city... In Brooklyn, one in every 241 homeowners is now in the foreclosure process. That is more than double the number of...
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Home Prices Plunge Again, Deliquencies & Foreclosures Accelerate
2008-05-01 01:15:00
Home Prices in U.S. Fall 12.7%, Most Since 2001 by Bloomberg - snips:Home prices in 20 U.S. metropolitan areas fell in February by the most on record, pointing to an imbalance between supply and demand that shows no sign of ending. The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 12.7% from a year earlier, more than forecast and the most since the figures were first published in 2001. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007... "This is just one more strain for consumers, in addition to high energy prices and tight credit," said Michelle Meyer, an economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, which forecast a price decline of 12.4%. "Prices are going to continue to fall, probably through the end of next year"... The group's 10-city composite index, with a history back to 1987, fell 13.6% in the 12 months ended in February, also the most ever...Foreclosures jump for seventh straight quarter by Reuters - snip:Home foreclosure filings jumped 23% in the first qua...
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Record Vacant Homes, Most Since 1956
2008-04-30 00:58:00
Nobody's home: Percentage of vacant houses sets record high in first quarter of 2008 by AP - snip:The percentage of vacant homes for sale in the U.S. set a new record high in the first quarter of this year, the government said Monday. The Census Bureau report shows that shows that 2.9 percent of U.S. homes -- excluding rental properties -- were vacant and up for sale, compared with 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007. It was the highest quarterly number in records going back to 1956. That works out to 2.28 million properties, up from 2.18 million in the same quarter last year, according to the report...Warren Buffett says recession may be worse than feared by Reuters - snip:Warren Buffett, the world's richest person, said on Monday the U.S. economy is in a recession that will be more severe than most people expect...Global adjustment will be long and painful by FT - snip:So this crisis is about to end, right? There are two failsafe ways to justify a solid dose of optimism: ...
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Foreclosures Spread To The Affluent
2008-04-26 01:08:00
Recession Spread ing from Housing to Starbucks, Eye Surgeries and Restaurant Meals by Nouriel Roubini - snips:While the housing figures are getting worse and worse (literally plunging new home sales, falling existing home sales, falling housing starts and permits) the effects of this housing recession and the ensuing financial crisis on the real economy are now in full swing. Three headlines this morning were indicative of how the housing recession has now spread to an economy-wide recession? The Financial Times had a front page story titled that started as follows: Slowdown Filters to Starbucks... Next, the Wall Street Journal had a front page article titled Restaurants Feel Sting of Surging Costs, Debt... Next, the front page of the New York Times business section had an article titled As the Economy Slows, So Do Laser Eye Surgeries... all three stories as well as dozen other ones that appear daily... suggest that what started as a housing recession has now spread to the rest o...
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New Home Sales Plunge To Lowest In 17yrs
2008-04-26 00:51:00
New-Home Sales in U.S. Plunge More Than Forecast, the Lowest in 17yrs by Bloomberg - snip:Purchases of new homes in the U.S. plunged more than forecast in March to the lowest level in almost 17 years as stricter loan rules and falling prices caused buyers to hold off. Sales dropped 8.5 percent to an annual pace of 526,000, the fewest since October 1991, from a 575,000 rate the prior month, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. The median sales price slumped 13.3 percent from the same time last year, the most in almost four decades. A jump in subprime mortgage defaults and record foreclosures have worsened the real-estate slump and led banks to limit lending. The threat of a prolonged recession is growing as lower home values constrain consumer spending and persistent declines in homebuilding subtract from economic growth. "The drag from housing is not going to abate any time soon," Drew Matus, senior economist at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in New York, said before th...
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Lenders Swamped by Delinquent Mortgages
2008-04-24 01:54:00
Lenders Swamped by Delinquent Mortgages by Washington Post - snip:Seven out of 10 troubled mortgage borrowers remain without a plan to work out their loans despite increased industry efforts to help them, according to a new report from a coalition of state attorneys general and banking regulators. The group collected data from 13 of the largest subprime lenders from October through January and found that the lenders are overwhelmed by their workloads and unable to keep pace with the number of borrowers who are falling behind on payments...Ambac gets crushed, another bank wobbles by Financial Ninja - snips:Remember those monoline insurers that used to move the market by a couple hundred points in either direction? The ones that everybody seems to have forgotten about? Well, Ambac (ABK) just reported earnings.. Ambac's $1.66 Billion Loss Wider Than Estimated on Subprime; Shares Plunge ...Ambac Financial Group Inc., having staved off a credit-rating downgrade, posted a wider loss tha...
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Existing Home Sales Continue To Plummet
2008-04-23 01:22:00
Existing-Home Sales Decline by WSJ - snips:Existing-home sales fell during March after making a surprising climb in February. Home resales fell to a 4.93 million annual rate, a 2.0% decrease from February's unrevised 5.03 million annual pace, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday. Resales fell 19% from March 2007's 6.11 million rate. The median home price was $200,700 in March, down 7.7% from $217,400 in March 2007. The median price in February this year was $195,600. Falling prices have kept would-be buyers from signing off on property as they wait for still-lower price tags... Sales fell 6.5% in the Midwest, rose 2.2% in the Northeast, rose 2.2% in the West, and fell 3.5% in the South...The Market Economist by David Rosenberg at Merrill Lynch - (Chart at Right) snip:...We expect both new and existing home sales to show declines next week, in a sign that the housing market is far from bottoming. Existing home sales are expected to post a modest 0.6% decline, while n...

As If Housing Meltdown Wasn't Enough, Food Rationing In New York
2008-04-23 01:00:00
Rice, flour, & cooking oil purchase restrictions on East & West coasts by NY Sun - snip:Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York , in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks... "It's sporadic. It's not every store, but it's becoming more commonplace," the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. "The number of reports I've been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I'd say in the last three to five weeks"...Credit getting even tighter for condo buyers by Chicago Tribune - snip:If you own or plan to buy a condo, a new phase of the mortgage credit squeeze could be looming. Because of underwriting changes by giant investors Fa...
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The Road To Financial Disaster With Nouriel Roubini
2008-04-19 21:33:00
Part 1The Road To Financial Disaster , Assessing The DamageCanadian TV - The Agenda w/Steven PankinInterview w/Nouriel RoubiniPart 2Part 3 New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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The Other Shoe Yet To Drop - Alt-A Time Bomb
2008-04-18 13:12:00
Housing Starts Still Collapsing!by Chuck Butler of Everbank - snips:Yesterday, we saw U.S. Housing Starts continue to collapse when the March reports printed... Both Housing Starts and Building Permits showed a 59% fall from the high two years ago... Let me put this in perspective... In previous crashes, the decline from peak to trough has been 40-60%, so we are on the verge of breaking all records for a down-move. Nice to know that the men put in place to protect the economy thought this meltdown had "bottomed" last August, eh? ...After the report, Reuters reported that Fed Head Mishkin was overheard saying that "THERE IS ROOM TO LOWER THE FEDERAL FUNDS RATE IF NEEDED"... This what I've been talking about, folks... The U.S. rates are going lower, and you can take that to the bank! OK, well... Maybe the legal beagles won't like me saying that, so, let's just say, I think that you should think that U.S. rates are going lower...by Goldman Sachs - snip:...Our message has been cle...
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Another Shoe Is About To Drop - PRIME Mortgage 'Walkaways'
2008-04-17 00:49:00
REUTERS - US TREASURY'S MCCORMICK-SWEEPING REGULATION, BIG INJECTIONS OF PUBLIC MONEY WON'T CALM MARKETSHere Comes the Next Mortgage Crisis by Slate - snip:Subprime was just the beginning. Wait until California's prime borrowers start handing their keys to the bank... California is to mortgage lending what Chicago is to pork bellies. For years, that meant it was a place with soaring house values; today, the foreclosure rate across the state is twice the national average and going up fast. Riverside County, outside Los Angeles, may be the foreclosure capital of the country, with a rate close to six times the national average. And housing prices are in freefall. California should be the poster child for a mortgage-loan bailout. In few other places have so many taken on such onerous debts with so little equity. Unfortunately, the crisis in California is going to get much worse, and there is no bailout that will solve it. Why? Because if the first stage of the foreclosure crisis was...
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U.S. Foreclosures Surge 57% - Bank Reposessions Double
2008-04-16 01:11:00
US Foreclosures Jump 57% as Homeowners Walk Awayby Bloomberg - snips:US foreclosure filings jumped 57% and bank repossessions more than doubled in March from a year earlier as adjustable mortgages increased and more owners gave up their homes to lenders... one in every 538 U.S. households, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said today in a statement. Nevada, California and Florida had the highest foreclosure rates... About $460 billion of adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc. Auction notices rose 32% from a year ago, a sign that more defaulting homeowners are "simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender'' rather than letting the home be auctioned, RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said. "We're not near the bottom of this at all,'' said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of Rosen Real Estate Securities LLC, a hedge fund in Berkeley...
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Staten Island's Foreclosure Row
2008-04-15 00:39:00
FORECLOSURE ST. ON STATEN ISLANDby NY Post - snip:Welcome to New York City's foreclosure capital - tree-lined Blackford Avenue on Staten Island. On two tiny blocks in the Port Richmond neighborhood, eight houses are in foreclosure and five other families have received formal notices from banks informing them they are in danger of the same. In the first quarter of 2008, 174 foreclosures were filed on Staten Island - the highest per-capita rate of any borough, up from 34 foreclosures in the same period last year, according to data compiled by PropertyShark.com, a real-estate search Web site. As the city finds itself in the maw of the national housing crisis, these buyers - many lured by subprime and other adjustable-rate loans to buy houses out of their price range - are now losing their homes...AP poll: Mortgage payments worry manyby Associated Press - snip:One in seven mortgage holders worry they may soon fail to make their monthly payments and even more fret that their home's v...
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A 'Long & Deep Recession' - Worse Since Great Depression
2008-04-13 05:34:00
CNBC 4/12 SquawkboxProfessor Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winning Economist-Subprime problem just beginning, 2mil more foreclosures to come-30%+ House price drop as a national average-Real Estate brokers and industry experts too optimistic-Zero consumer savings rate-Banks don't know what is on there balance sheets-States and localities tax revenues are dropping-Very little the Fed can do, Bernanke is struggling-US Financial system badly damaged-The current stimulus package is couterproductive New York City Housing Bubble - The BIG Picture
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NYC Commercial RE Market - The Worse In 20 Years
2008-04-12 01:00:00
The Financing Market : Worst in 20 Years by NY Sun - snip:During the first quarter of 2008, fear of recession and a scarcity of financing are causing a significant reduction in investment sales, perhaps the most precipitous drop in decades. It is difficult to comprehend that during the first 90 days of the year contracts for sale were signed for only two prominent office buildings: Murray Hill Properties' purchase of the 39-story, 748,000-square-foot office building at 1250 Broadway for $310 million (which is scheduled to close in May) and Ben Ashkenazy's recently purchased the 27-story, 600,000-square-foot tower at 650 Madison Ave. which closed on Tuesday. Twelve months ago, both of these buildings would have fetched at least 20% more and purchasers would have been able to secure up to 90% financing. Last week, two of the real estate industry's most prominent leaders went on the record with their feelings about the state of the market. "During my entire career of more than 55 yea...
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Ya Think The Economy Will Recover By 2Q07?
2008-04-11 00:57:00
"I suspect that we are coming to the end of this downtrend, as applications for new mortgages, the most important series, have flattened out. I don't know, but I think the worst of this may well be over." - Alan Greenspan, October 6, 2006George Soros Says Credit Crisis Will Worsen Before Improvingby Bloomberg - snips:...He said regulators and the U.S. administration "failed to perform their job" in a crisis that began in the U.S. housing market and which the International Monetary Fund estimates will cost global financial institutions almost $1 trillion. "This is a man-made crisis and it's made by this false belief that markets correct their own excesses," Soros, 77, said. "It will take much longer for the full effect of the decline in the housing market to be felt"... Authorities did not accept the responsibility "to try to control asset bubbles from going too far," Soros said. Recently established markets, including credit-default swaps, are "totally unregulated; that's the ca...
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Median Incomes Way Behind Bubble Pricing
2008-04-10 01:53:00
For Many, a Boom That Wasn?t by NYT - snip:...The bigger problem is that the now-finished boom was, for most Americans, nothing of the sort. In 2000, at the end of the previous economic expansion, the median American family made about $61,000, according to the Census Bureau?s inflation-adjusted numbers. In 2007, in what looks to have been the final year of the most recent expansion, the median family, amazingly, seems to have made less ? about $60,500. This has never happened before, at least not for as long as the government has been keeping records. In every other expansion since World War II, the buying power of most American families grew while the economy did...The Cost of Maintaining Ownership in the Current Crisis: Comparisons in 20 Cities by CEPR - snip:This paper compares ownership and rental costs in twenty major metropolitan areas. It shows that in many areas, ownership and rental costs are more or less in balance.... However, the paper also shows that in many cities h...
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FED - Prolonged Severe Economic Downturn Not Ruled Out
2008-04-09 01:07:00
Fed minutes: Severe downturn possible by Reuters - snips:Members of the Federal Reserve's policy-setting committee worried at their most recent (March 18th) meeting that housing and financial market stress could trigger a nasty slide in the economy, even as inflation pushed higher, minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday show. "Some believed that a prolonged and severe economic downturn could not be ruled out given the further restriction of credit availability and ongoing weakness in the housing market,"... At the same time, Fed officials found recent inflation reports "disappointing," noting also with concern that some indicators of inflation expectations were edging higher. Policy-makers said there were limits to what could be done through interest rate cuts to deal with problems underlying the collapsed housing market and the credit crunch...February pending home sales index drops to record low by Reuters - snips:Pending sales of previously owned homes fell a bigger-than-ex...
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Big Changes Ahead In Our Way Of Life
2008-04-08 01:24:00
Full Version Has Been Removed From GoogleThe End of Suburbia:Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream - 1hr 17minAs we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of this way of life. With brutal honesty and a touch of irony, The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era, as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now, some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary...---Bloomberg - Nationwide Bankruptcies Jump 30% in MarchBloomberg - Lenders Overwhelmed by Foreclosures, Delinquent Borrowers Stay in Homes MoneyWeek - Why this housing crash could be worse than the 1990sNY Times - A Road Not Taken by LendersNY Times - The Mortgage Bust Goes GlobalNY Times - Across the globe, hints of more perils in housing Financial Times - UK Housing: Sell Everything!BusinessWeek...
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Talkaboutit or Fuggetaboutit 2
2008-04-08 00:51:00
For all the Goodfellas, Babes and Wiseguys, this thread remains 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

NYC Developers Afraid To Break New Ground
2008-04-08 00:50:00
Developers afraid to break new ground by NY Real Deal - snip:Projects starting up in '08 will be rare, developers say. Lenders looking for a reason to call in defaults? Banks showing up at closings without any money? Fire sales on newly built condos? These are just some of the grim realities that New York City developers are dealing with in this less forgiving economic terrain. Developers interviewed for The Real Deal's Q & A offered up blunt assessments on lending standards to their novice counterparts ("they are done"). In addition to the stories of lenders searching for reasons to call in defaults, banks pulling out of deals they have already offered letters of intent for, and planned projects that will not see shovels hit the ground, developers said projects slated to start up in 2008 will be virtually nonexistent. "Everything coming up now is a '09," said Daren Hornig, managing partner at SAXA. Some developers said they are getting regular phone calls from lenders and ...
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Brooklyn Home Prices Tumble, Queens Foreclosed
2008-04-04 02:03:00
Brooklyn apartment prices drop by NY Real DealBrooklyn showed a 10 percent decrease in average sales price of condos and co-ops in the first quarter, as prices dropped to $615,000 from $686,000 in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to a quarterly report from the Corcoran Group. The median price was down 7 percent over the same period to $549,000. The average sales price for a single-family townhouse in Brooklyn fell 8 percent to $1.39 million from the previous quarter, the report said. The median price fell 11 percent over the same period to $1.15 million.City foreclosures up in first quarter by NY Real DealNew foreclosures soared in New York City in the first quarter, increasing 51 percent compared to the fourth quarter of last year and 65 percent over last year's first quarter, according to a PropertyShark.com report. Queens especially saw "substantial activity," with a 90 percent increase in first-time foreclosures compared to the last quarter and a 59 percent increase compar...
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Manhattan Condo, Co-op Sales Decline Most In 18yrs
2008-04-03 03:48:00
Manhattan Condo , Co-op Sales Decline Most in 18 Years by Bloomberg - snips:Manhattan apartment sales plunged the most in 18 years in the first quarter as buyers faced the prospect of a recession and job cuts at Wall Street securities firms. Sales fell 34 percent from a year earlier and inventory rose 4.6 percent to 6,194 units, New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report today. The median price of a Manhattan co-operative apartment or condominium increased 13.2 percent to a record $945,000. "If it continues along this pattern, we're in a period of transition to a weaker market," Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller said in an interview. "You typically see a slowdown in sales activity precede a slowdown in pricing." Financial companies have cut at least 34,000 jobs in the past nine months as losses and writedowns related to mortgage- backed securities climbed to at least $230 billion. Wall Street drive...
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Housing Slump Whacks The Hamptons On Long Island
2008-04-01 18:53:00
Housing slump comes to the Hamptons by Financial Times - snip:The US housing slump has arrived at the Hamptons, summer playground of the Manhattan elite. In a sign that falling prices and home sales gluts are no longer limited to the nation’s declining rust-belt cities or bubble markets, prices for gilt-edged properties in East Hampton and Southampton have fallen sharply. The Long Island resort towns, among the wealthiest and most well-connected in the US, experienced a boom between 1998 and 2007 when home values quadrupled. “The downturn has caught up with the Hamptons,” said George Simpson, who runs Suffolk Research, a local real estate data company. The three-month running median sales price of single-family homes in the two towns fell 19.2 per cent to $638,600 (€400,000, £320,000) between December and February, according to Suffolk Research. That is almost as much as the 19.3 per cent drop in home prices that Miami and Las Vegas, where the boom and bust in the housing m...
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NYC Real Estate Market Slows As Wall Street Cuts Jobs
2008-03-31 15:49:00
New York City Real Estate Market Slows as Wall Street Cuts Jobs by Bloomberg - snips:March 31 (Bloomberg) -- New York City's residential real estate market is showing the first signs of fallout as U.S. banks and securities firms cut the most jobs in seven years. Manhattan apartment sales fell in January and February from a year earlier and new properties came to the market at the fastest pace since at least 2000, according to data from New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. Transactions slid 6.4 percent to 3,250, while the number of condominiums, co- operatives and townhouses for sale at the end of last month climbed to 6,225, 15 percent more than at the start of the year. Declining sales indicate that the nation's most expensive urban property market may founder this year as Wall Street retrenches, said Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller in an interview. Financial companies have taken at least $208 billion in asset and mortgage-related writedowns. They've c...
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