Haven't been in DTJC in while. Does anyone know if the sale took place?

Does anyone know the real cost of attending a school like American Bartending in the city? Worth it? Tx

Just don't see the consistent demand for this route with fuel prices what they are?? Does anyone think there is enough daily demand to justify cost with fuel prices where they are?

The fact is the sooner those two (I've had several dealings with them) and all the "JC Bowery Bums" have died the better for everyone - themselves included. There will be no PC happy endings with that group.

Just hope they don't get replaced by a new generation.

And let's give thanks to Palace, which is probably a member of the Special Improvement District, for providing them with all the cheap booze they can afford in the little shot bottles they sell at the front counter.

In 7 years in Hamilton Park I've seen this escalation every time the weather starts to warm up. Sad reality but true. Keep your guard up. Especially when you see groups on bikes.

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Rain or shine!

Indeed, all the best always to one of the coolest people I've met during my stay in JC. Onwards and upwards.

As a regular who's been going to White Star since before Matt owned the place, I have to offer some counterpoint to a few of the recent posts.

White Star is - by far - the friendliest and most consistent local spot in all of downtown. Any place can have a bad night, but if you bring a problem/issue/suggestion to Matt's attention, it will be addressed.

Where else can a youngish crowd find such fairly priced food; a fight-free environment; no drug sales; great buy-backs; bartenders that don't change every other week, and an owner that is on-site and gives a damn every single day?

He was one of the nicest men in downtown. I feel so badly for this family. I was just in there this morning to buy the papers. I'm stunned. My prayers are with them.

I own a bunch of places downtown. If u live here do it yourself. If not, use Mike Del Forno at Harsimus Cove Real Estate.

As the person who started this I have to say l love the tone of this thread. To me it means it's close to a time to make a great deal of money.

Do you want to make a bundle off the current relative over-reaction by the pundits and the media - I recently had the joy of ripping Robert Shiller a new one at the Yale Club over his inaccurate and false reading of the NYC RE market...priceless.

While the media is whipping things up into a frenzy who is starting to BUY?

Carl Ichan tried to buyout one of the largest builders in Florida. Warren Buffett is rumored to be looking at Hovanian - might not be true but he did buy Clayton (a huge builder of manufactured housing) when Freddie Mac was melting down. Hank Greenberg and Eli Broad each invested 1 billion each into subprime related deals this week...

Guess what all these men have in common? They are billionaires. They are buying when others are losing their heads.

Do you want to make bundle? Do you want to be smart and not a little lamb? This is what you should do in approx 6 months or so...not just yet

Buy long options on the Dow Jones Builders index!!!! Companies like Toll and Hovanian have weathered 18% mortgage rates in the 80's so believe me they are not going out of business this time around.

The time to buy is "when blood is in the streets."

Have balls and make a killing in 24-36 months. That's what the billionaires and I are setting up to do. What about you?

Not the actual ordinance but just the broad guidelines. It used to be online in PDF form. Anyone know where to find them online?

Quote:


The start of your "analysis" is equally flawed is your sense of the phrase. I'll

stick with the fact that through all kinds of turbulant times the median home price in america has increased 5-6% a year. Production cuts by builders/Population growth/Private equity money bailing out subprime firms/"bailout" products being created by mortgage industry to save some of these borrower from default.

Again, at a minimum 30% of homes don't even have mortgages on them. So your talking about 1% of 70% of the market. I can't see that bringing the market down in any nationwide way.

Quote:

I also remember the famous Sallie Bros. reports predicting the RE markets wouldn't recover for 15-20yrs after the 80's. This is just more piling on.

This is going to effect maybe 1% of all the mortgages out there. Depending on who's info you believe 32-40% of homes in america don't even have mortgages.

The median price has creeped along through ww2, korean war, vietman, oil embargo of the 70's, watergate, S&L Crisis, 9/11...Do you really think things are as bad as any of those times?

Some individual markets (miami/phoenix/some parts of cali) will certainly get burned but on a national level it won't be a statistical huge story - though the media will play things up no doubt.


I wouldn't be surprised if the politicans don't force the banks to bail these folks out in the end in some way.

You can't win. banks didn't lend to the weak borrowers in the past and were accused of racism amoung other things.. This time they do lend to them and they get vilified once again. I rember mortgage rates at 16+% in the 80's and people kept buying and the market didn't crash. You really are expressing some adolescent-level thoughts here.

Everything was fine when prices rocked up since 1994 and the family in JC that owned a property for 17K sold out to me 3 years ago for 500k. But a little market reality kicks in and the "industry" is to blame.


Quote:

Quote: WSJArticle differs with your doom and gloom Economy Can Withstand More Mortgage Foreclosures As payments jump on ARMs made in recent years, 1.1 million foreclosures could result, but the majority of borrowers will be fine, a new study shows. http://www.realestatejournal.com/buys ... erty.html?rejcontent=mail With the speed and extent of production cuts in new homes nationally i'm just not worried about most markets. I do agree with the dangers in overly speculative places like miami and phoenix and parts of cali but investor groups are already buying packages of properties in bulk. The markets remember the late 80's. The markets are much better prepared to handle this this time around.

Quote:

If anyone looks at my posts - 200 in 2 years vs. over 1000 in 6+ months for some people - I have been in the game over here since '04 (for much longer and thru more cycles in nyc)and i've consistently been told by some of the jclist that the party was over and to date they've been wrong.

Jeebus,

I get your points but you can't compare the stock market to RE and its ability to create wealth. 20% down on a property that appreciates 10% is really a 50% tax-sheltered gain with far less risk than buying on margin in the market because there are no margin calls and I have the power to drive and create value and returns. Warren Buffett couldn't do 50% and he's a genius. All you need in RE is average leverage (10-20%) and average historic returns (5-6%) and you blow away the stock market. I won't even factor in tax benefits.

There are other ways to make the deals more sexy (and risky but you need to know where you are in the RE cycle)For instance, when you pull most of your cash out at closing the returns can be astronomical.

There are deals where we've basically bought buildings for the cost of the first year's insurance, i.e.,pulled down payment out at closing , did minor cosmetic work to drive up rents, and 18 months later pulled out cash and bought a small apartment for almost all cash and used the income from that to pay the refi additional balance.

Two deals ago, we turned 10k into approx 310k cash out refi (how's that versus the s&P)in 18 months with about $500 per month neg cash flow using the above method. People like brewster know this is possible (certainly more risky but with those kinds of returns you can take that risk). Sure we had some neg cash flow - very low mortgage rates :> - but we had the "down payment" in our pocket so big deal.


Not all markets are the same. Places like miami, vegas, san diego and detroit WILL have trouble. But if you understand the dynamics of your local market you can do soooo well with RE. That is how real money is made.

P.S., can't believe your rent has stayed the same. I've been able to increase rents by as much as 20-30% after vacancies in downtown over the last few years.If you get a new landlord don't be surprised.

Keep waiting. Since the last flurry of posts with you last year I've made over $400k (my partners collectively made over 1.2mm) and you folks on the sidelines are just watching your rents skyrocket. Keep waiting for the sky to fall in JC. Thanks

Whatever happens in NYC is a harbinger for Downtown JC





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

February 19, 2007
Housing Market Heats Up Again in New York City
By TRACIE ROZHON
Since the new year began, a burst of activity has broken out in Manhattan and several Brooklyn neighborhoods as New Yorkers frenetically hunt for co-ops, condominiums and town houses, sending prices higher despite sluggish sales in many other cities.

Preliminary indications from real estate firms showed that this increased activity, with open houses jammed and bidding wars taking place, has occurred in all price ranges ? from tiny studios in the East Village to red-brick mansions on the Upper East Side ? in counterpoint to the heavily weighted record sales of luxury properties that led the market in the late summer and fall.

Real estate brokers and statisticians are quick to point out that not every single apartment is flying into contract. During the last quarter of 2006, the major real estate agencies differed on which way prices were headed.

But now, the three largest real estate companies in the city agree: for January, at least, both prices and the number of signed contracts rose in double-digit percentages compared with the same month in 2006.

With higher Wall Street bonuses, a strong regional economy and pent-up demand from New Yorkers who were once worried that the city?s real estate market would crash, buyers? attitudes have done an about-face. ?Their psychology has changed,? said Frederick W. Peters, the president of the Warburg Realty Partnership. ?For almost two years, they?ve been scared that the market would plummet and they?d end up like fools who paid too much.?

Real estate experts say they see no reason for the trend to not continue, with economists predicting stable mortgage rates and a continuing city budget surplus. However, other factors may alter New Yorkers? renewed interest in buying real estate, including an expansion of the Iraq war, a changing employment picture or another terrorist attack.

Yet, there is ?cautious exuberance,? according to Steven L. James, director of Manhattan sales for Prudential Douglas Elliman.

A week ago, one open house attracted 100 people to an Upper West Side one-bedroom; a $2.475 million house in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn sold in a day.

Across the board, the prices of Manhattan apartments are rising. Jonathan Miller, the president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm, said the number of contracts signed this January was 19.4 percent higher than in January 2006. Prices were up 14.4 percent in the same time period. Inventory, which was mounting last summer, is shrinking fast.

Now, according to Mr. Miller, statistics showed that sales of studio and one-bedroom units, stagnant over the past year, were up 13.7 percent in January. ?It?s not like a lot of huge sales at the high end skewed the average up.?

According to a report released last week by the National Association of Realtors, prices are falling in many other metropolitan areas around the country. The report covered only the last quarter of 2006, and showed a modest increase of 3.1 percent for the New York area, which includes parts of northern New Jersey.

Anecdotally, there isn?t much talk of falling prices in Manhattan and in the most sought-after neighborhoods in Brooklyn, where young people looking for a break, empty nesters looking for a guest room and foreigners looking for a pied-?-terre say they want to live.

Katalin Shavely, a 30-year-old bedding designer in Manhattan, devotes her weekends to scanning the classifieds and attending open houses, searching for just the right one-bedroom apartment for less than $750,000. She can?t find it. ?I made a mistake,? she said last week. ?I should have started looking before Thanksgiving.?

Mr. Miller said New Yorkers had been reluctant to buy because of the feeling of an impending crash. ?Last summer, a lot of information was being dumped on the consumer: stories about the glut of condos in Miami, Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas, exacerbated by the constant debate on the blogosphere about housing bubbles, mixed together with a barrage of negative predictions,? he said in a telephone interview.

Although no one can pinpoint the moment when New Yorkers started feverishly buying again, Kirk Henckels, the director of the private brokerage division of Stribling & Associates, said he thought the luxury market picked up after Labor Day.

He and others said the resurgence was partly fueled by the fall?s record-setting (and well-publicized) sales of a few multimillion-dollar apartments and town houses, like the Stanford White limestone palazzo at 25 East 78th Street bought by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for $45 million and the Harkness mansion at 4 East 75th Street sold in October for $53 million.

Then came this year?s stratospheric Wall Street bonuses, and the market exploded, real estate executives said.

?The plunger that freed up all the hesitation at all price levels was those bonuses,? said Diane Ramirez, the president of Halstead Property. ?It cleaned the pipes and gave confidence to even small apartment buyers.?

Within the last month, the Corcoran Group, Halstead and Prudential Douglas Elliman, three of New York City?s largest real estate sales firms, say they have recorded double-digit increases in contract prices and in the number of transactions.

In a real estate market where 18 and 22 percent price increases were recorded in 2004 and 2005, last year?s 6 percent increase was depressing, Mr. Miller said.

Pamela Liebman, the president of the Corcoran Group, reported that the company?s contracts for this January totaled $1.3 billion, an increase of 53 percent from January 2006.

Prices in many areas of Brooklyn are going up, too. According to Marc Garstein, the president of Warren Lewis Realty in Park Slope, prices in what he called the downtown neighborhoods ? including Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights and Windsor Terrace ? are now approaching 2004 highs, after being off about 10 percent in the last two years.

A town house at 171 Garfield Place in Park Slope, priced at $2,475,000, sold for the asking price one day after it was put on the market. Fifty people had shown up at the open house, Mr. Garstein said.

Customers said they had expected a buyer?s market in which they could call the shots, but found a race track, instead.

Jane LaFarge Hamill, a 25-year-old painter who lives in a ?small, kind of stinky? studio in Chinatown, said she had looked at 60 apartments over three months, trying to take advantage of the lull she had noticed. ?We decided to look while sellers were still worried that the market was crashing,? she said.

When she started looking last fall, there was still ?wiggle room,? she said. But now, there is frenzy, said her mother, Leita Hamill, who, with her husband, Bill, is helping her daughter search for and buy a new home. The Hamills had gotten into a bidding war, one of many reported by brokers these days, for a two-bedroom co-op in Gramercy Park. They had started bidding above the asking price, but it wasn?t enough.

?There were people bidding on the apartment sight-unseen,? Mrs. Hamill said. The victors got the co-op through a sealed bid, she said. ?It was like a pair of shoes that you absolutely had to have,? she said.

Real estate executives say they do not know how long the market?s heat will be turned up, although they say the regional economy looks strong.

They also say that the first two quarters of the year ? the spring market ? are traditionally stronger than the last two. Thus, the average for the whole of 2007 may or may not show the double-digit growth that the first part of the year is showing. ?It?s all about price now,? Ms. Ramirez said. ?The market is not in a spike mode, when anything, for any price, will sell.?

Ms. Ramirez, who has sold real estate for more than 30 years, said she expected that the current rocketing growth would be followed by a period of slower yet steady increases. ?I don?t want to hear, ?Oh my gosh, the market is slowing up again,? ? she said. ?With the number of deals we had last week, it has to calm down. But I feel much more confident than at any time in the last five years when the market had fits and starts and there was always a certain underlying nervousness.?

Toward the end of 2004, the real estate market in the city was booming. But then, brokers started seeing ?great concern among clients that mortgage rates were about to jump and that house prices would suffer a sharp correction,? Mr. Miller said.

Since then, there has been change of leadership in Congress, Mr. Miller noted. In the region, unemployment has dropped. Mortgage rates didn?t soar. ?Two years ago, we were predicting they?d be up to 8 percent now,? he said. (Rates for a 30-year fixed loan on a New York City co-op hover around 6.25 percent, according to the Manhattan Mortgage Company.)

After months of trying to push shoppers over the edge of indecision, brokers now say they spend time warning house hunters not to rush in heedlessly ? advice the would-be buyers don?t always listen to.

?When my wife and I got into the market in mid-December, people told me there was a glut of one-bedroom apartments and I could take my time,? said Shelly Cohen, 51, an empty-nester. ?When we actually got into the market, I found it was just the opposite.? He just found a newly created condominium in a beige brick high-rise at 1438 Third Avenue at 81st Street and quickly signed the contract. He said he felt he had to.

Mrs. Hamill, the mother of the young artist in Chinatown, offers her own advice to friends.

?Now I tell everybody: Be ready to write the check the minute you see something you love,? she said. ?If it?s any good, it?ll be gone by the next day.? She paused. ?Or, even by that same day.?



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Is Journal Square really where the displaced Downtown artists have moved? I've heard about Mott Haven in the Bronx for going on 7+ years as another popular spot.

Passed by the store on Grove Street (tween columbus and wayne) with the newpapers outside. There were about 10-12 cops inside the place in addition to a Homeland Security vehicle outside. Anyone know what's up?

You're testing the limits of JCllist. I'm more than willing to unleash the lawyers if you want to pursue this adgenda bitch. I guess it's destiny that I will meet you in court. Well, bring it on! I can't wait to crush your ass. Get ready to spend some bucks cupcake.

P.S., don' t try to lable my disagreement with mr. James' assessment as an "attlack." i respect him and i just disagee with his conclusion, that is all . As I mentioned, he did a great job vis-a-vis, the history of the area, and he deserves credit for that. i just disagree with him on some points.

Let's go Mr. President! And you better watch your language!

Quote:

You saying the level of jobs "appears to greatly exaggerated" doesn't mean anything. It's just another one of these vauge statements you use to sound like you know what your talking about while saying nothing. To you, it's modest employment to the 300-400 people that will have jobs it means a lot.

This one tax paying property will bring revenue not only from property taxes, but also from employee payroll taxes, and peripheral taxes and fees. It will also generate additional jobs for people to support the workers and truckers coming through.

People need jobs BEFORE they can buy/rent housing. Give them employment and housing will follow. It doesn't work the other way around.

This area is not suitable for residential development given it's noble "history" as a landfill and the fact that it is already in the middle of industrial businesses.

There is plenty of more suitable land to be developed further up the river that makes more sense.

I speak for no one but myself. I just can't stand people that sit on the sidelines criticizing but creating nothing.

Quote:



Oh, I didn't realize it was only the short term benefit of years of tax revenues from a well-established, successful business listed on the NYSE and permanent jobs for 300-400 people, plus 5 acres of dedicated open space and $500k for Ward improvements.

Mr. President,

Beyond pointing it out I won't bother disputing your revisionist history regarding no one objecting to higher density being built along the waterfront. That is laughable.

You are harping on "professionals" deeming these properties historically significant as providing the reasoning for granting these buildings landmark status. Give me a break, even in Rick James' paper on the district he just points out the architectural aspects of the individual buildings. He doesn't even mention what each building was used for. Besides the point, guys like James are hired guns. While he has done a good job pulling together the history that is a "puff" piece of the first order. The language is laughable and could only be swallowed by a true zealot.

ULI? I've been a member of ULI for years and they would sell their mothers down the river for a buck. They spit out documents just like a consulting firm working for Enron. They know what their audience wants to hear and they produce it.

And I don't care if Goldman's attorney threw you a bone....they already knew they had the case won.


4 historic districts is enough. The groups I discussed are groups like yours that believe they have more rights to someone else's property than the owners do. That violates everything I believe in, as well as the the basic priciples of the Constitution.

It's one thing when someone buys a property that has already been deemed a landmark (probalby without just compensation to its original owner) but when it is used as an almost de facto weapon of eminent domain it really pisses me off. That has happend more than once in this town.

Quote:


How is that besides that point in you world of "ideal" development? Does it make sense to have all these forms of open space right next to each other. Bought by a city that can't currently afford it. Especially with your friends wanting all that money to go towards their Embankment Project.

And don't tell me you are suggesting building houses on a location that is in the middle of and industrial zone and had underground fires burning on the site for 40 years.


Central Park = 843 acres
Liberty State Park = 1212 acres

MCA, The city is actually showing some sense. The abatements to developers keep PILOT dollars in the city as well as helping to bring taxpaying citizens into JC today. As the abatements expire over time they will raise revenues for the city in the long term. The abatement are a good short and long term strategy.

Same thing goes for the abatement to employers. There are other treads on this. The bottom line is they work. Cities have to compete like any business. If a city does not create incentives, history shows us that business goes elsewhere. Jersey City has been across the river from Manhattan for hundreds of years. It's only started booming in the last 30. Smart abatements are part of the reason.

New Jersey awards $21.9M jobs grant to Deutsche Bank to bring 1,200 jobs to Downtown Jersey City

Quote:

What was the legislation Landmarking the Warehouse District but an effort to preserve "every" building?

And the fact that you and your ilk feel you lost the battle years ago does not change the fact that TODAY only a handful of buildings in what remains in those couple of streets have any architectural merit. I know all about the history of the area. i've read the rick james paper on the district as well. But no architectual merit = No Landmark.

As such, I have no problem with a handful of buildings being deemed landmarks, but other than that I might think there is another agenda. Perhaps a self-aggrandizing, elitest organization trying to increase it's influence and own adgenda removed from common sense and current reality.

Now that's what I call chutzpah!

Any city this size that is not pro-business is doomed. Under any scenario this project will create construction jobs, permanent blue collar jobs (both of these will create payroll taxes that accrue to the city) and pay some level of property taxes. These are good things.

I'm getting killed on property taxes as it is. I don't want the city using public funds it doesn't have to purchase more open space land that it doesn't need and will cost money to maintain each year.

If anyone has more details about the Distressed City Aid I'd like to hear them.

Quote:

First of all, I don't care how many times you say it, it's not true. A 2 block by 2 block area is not a "district." Just because a handful of mostly old, ugly buildings are still barely standing does not make the area "historic." By that standard, nothing old could ever be removed and the city would never be able to grow. Every old building necessarily has history - that doesn't mean though, that every old building should be able to stop modern progress.



With regard to the westside, as I mentioned in another post, look at the site from google earth. Within less than half a mile from the site is the huge Lincoln Park, another park with at least a half a dozen baseball fields, and across the street from that is a golf driving range. How much open space do we need in JC vs. productive tax producing property? In a city of 250,000 we probably have more open space than Manhattan that has a population of 1.5 million.

People need to be realistic about the need to create jobs. You are not living in the suburbs. Yes, there will be trucks but the place is going to be run 24/7 so the trucks will be staggered and won't need to operate only during rush hours.

People are always complaining about abatements. Well this place will be bringing in about $1,000,000 a year in taxes and create approx 300 blue collar jobs.

It's tough to enjoy open space, when you are broke and out of work.