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Of Recessions, Overtime Wins And Hydrox Cookies
This was a good weekend: both my 9-year and 14-year olds’ respective basketball teams won their games in overtime and the New York Giants beat the Green Bay Packers in OT in sub zero weather to go to...
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[Hope's Number] 800…88…888-995-Hope
Foreclosure counseling is becoming a growing industry in the post-housing boom world. Well, the federal government was the last to the party, but now seems to be trying a full court press to show...
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[REO Sting] Honey, A Foreclosure Bee
My assistant is a beekeeper so I have been especially attuned to the strange disappearance of more than 1/3 and perhaps as much as half the US bee population over the past year. For reasons unknown,...
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[GSE Pin Cushion] Will The Saviours Of Housing Need Saving?
Ok, let me get this straight. Fannie Mae: lost $2.2B in Q1 borrowed $7B and cut dividend by 30% at the end of ’07 will borrow $6B and cut dividend further this year rating agencies put some of...
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[Seasonal Sensibility] Isn’t It Supposed To Get Better In The Spring?
Housing markets are seasonal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Its May so we would expect the housing activity would be higher than it would be say in January. The weather is warmer, the birds are...
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[Getting Graphic] Portrait Of A Centerfold Anatomy Of A Meltdown
Getting Graphic is a semi-sort-of-irregular collection of our favorite BIG real estate-related chart(s). Source: WaPo Click for a slew of interactive charts. The Washington Post finally gets on the...
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[Storm Track] Bank Failures Are A Category 2
I turned on the TV this morning to catch an update on the hurricane in New Orleans, hoping it was better. Thank goodness no deja vu, the storm appeared to be less intense than originally feared. I...
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When A Cloud Is Over Your Neighbor’s House, Go Skiing
There is a lot of controversy, inconvenient truths and discussion about going “Green” (no, not Favre signing with the Jets). One of the key elements of discussion is the economic impact of climate...
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[Public Speaking] Harvard Business School Club Of New York
Well, I would have never been admitted back in the day (or even now), so it was an honor to be invited to speak in front of alumni from the Harvard Business School. (Love the nautical references in...
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Higher Mean Temperatures Mean Affordable Housing
It was close to 60 degrees in Manhattan yesterday which reminded me I neglected to post Ed Glaeser’s fascinating commentary in the Economix Blog of the New York Times called Revenge of the Rust Belt....
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[Media Behaving Badly?] Despite Bad Dunk, Housing Market Could Probably Care...
Ok, so we always need to blame someone because it lets us off the hook and it can make the issue more tangible. In the world of housing, the biggest target of blame is generally the media. I hear this...
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[Pretty Vacant] Shoots of Green Are Blossoming In The Metaphor Business
The weather is improving and I’m feeling the “this time of year optimism” where we get out of our log cabins after a long cold winter and admire the greenery around us. The first thing you notice is...
View Article[Social Networking+Real Estate] Diving for Wisdom from a Panel of Green Pearls
About a month and a half ago, I participated in a panel discussion on social networking held by Ryan Slack of GreenPearl. Allie Herzog of Quinn & Co. who was the moderator, posted an introduction...
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[Case Shiller 20 City Index] July 2009 Down 13.3% Y-O-Y, Up 1.2% M-O-M
[click to expand] Here’s the summary: The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index, a closely watched gauge of U.S. home prices, rose 1.6% in July from June in the third straight monthly...
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[Power Mailbox] Live Power Lines, Still No Power
The Northeastern US was hammered by a weather system that brought heavy rain and powerful winds – clocked at 70+ mph. 450,000 people in the Northeast lost power, 34 roads blocked by trees down in my...
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[NAR] Existing Home Sales – 3 Month Decline, Supply Most in Nearly 2 Years
[click to open report] NAR released their February Existing Home Sales report. Its becoming apparent to even the most optimistic that job growth will be the yardstick that determines when housing will...
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Visualizing US Distressed Sales – Katrina Edition
The WSJ presented a series of charts on US distressed properties based on information from the St. Louis Fed (most proficient data generators of all Fed banks) and LPS. Here are the first and last maps...
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[WSJ] The Crazy 8: Comparing Results of National Home Price Indices
Matthew Strozier over at WSJ with Column Five (a large producer of infographics) presented an interesting side by side of 8 national housing indices. All but one index shows a year over year decline...
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Sandy Language Summary: Snor’eastercane, SoPo and a Sturdy Mailbox
Remember this mailbox? It’s been through a lot. The photo is of my street in my CT home town, one of many downed trees and wires on my street. It’s been a long work week, especially since I haven’t...
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Sandy’s SoPo Nabe Is No More, But T-Shirts Live On
Late last night the utility crews came through our street and made quick work of the series of large trees blocking the road. They left in the evening and this morning the crews returned to clean up...
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Sandy Update, Social Media Helped Us Understand, But Patience Wearing Thin
[click to read post (h/t gizmodo, laughingsquid)] People who don’t see the coolness of Foursquare are clearly missing out (see above). My twitter feed @jonathanmiller was my primary source of...
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[Sandy] The SoPo New York Magazine Cover
Since my company is located in neighborhood formerly known as “SoPo” (South of Power) I thought I’d post the amazing New York Magazine cover.
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Hamptons High End Market in 4Q: Hedging Against Possible Rise in Capital Gains?
[click to expand] This chart is an enlarged version of a chart that appeared within our just released Elliman Report: Hamptons/North Fork Sales. I’ve expanded it because I was struck by the randomness...
View ArticleSandy Aftermath – 60 Minutes Story on Belle Harbor, Queens, New York
A few thousand people in Belle Harbor have endured so much – inspirational – community. This is one of many areas devastated by Hurricane Sandy in NYC region. And it’s why I feel so petty when asked...
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Manhattan’s 1% Prefer Proximity to Central Park Over Waterfront
With the post-Hurricane Sandy heightened awareness of waterfront living and flooding risk, I thought I’d provide a visualization of where the top 1% most expensive properties in Manhattan are located....
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Lower Manhattan’s Early November Rental Activity Down 70% Y-O-Y
I took a look at closed rental activity for the first part of November, two days after Sandy left us to observe it’s impact of rental activity in Lower Manhattan. For these purposes, I defined this...
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Manhattan Co-op/Condo Closed Sale Records By Year
[click to expand] I took a look at the past 20 years of co-op and condo sales and pulled the highest closed sales for each year. I may have a few close seconds in the list. Co-op sales prior to 2006...
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[NYTimes] What Could Disappear Interactive Charts
I’ve been remiss in not presenting the now week old interactive web page on the New York Times site called, alarmingly, What Could Disappear. These maps are based on elevation data from the U.S....
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Looking For That Ray – Knight Frank’s Sunshine Index
[click to open WSJ article] As a followup to my analysis of light on property values, I came across this fun way to look at the market. …real-estate consulting firm Knight Frank looked at 14...
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[Three Cents Worth NY #239] 13 Thousand Little (Manhattan) Closings
It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements. Check out my 3CW column...
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Group Claims Glass Curtain Walls “A Major Step Backward Environmentally”
The Wall Street Journal released an intriguing article about the use of glass curtain walls on new buildings: Study: Glass Condos Could Pose Health Threat Through Overheating: Hot Summer Could Raise...
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[Pre-Nor'easter Keynote] Long Island Housing Market: Transitioning from...
A while back, I was invited by the Long Island Chapter of the Appraisal Institute to keynote for their winter dinner/seminar tonight in Westbury, Long Island: LI Housing Market: Transitioning from...
View ArticleManhattan Luxury Housing Buyers: ‘Eager but not Desperate’
There was a terrific Bloomberg News story by Oshrat Carmiel: Manhattan Trophy Home Sellers Test Buyer Limits on Price that delved into the disconnect between reality and perception of the luxury...
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[Three Cents Worth #259 NY] Snowy Weather Keeps The Listings Away
It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements. Check out my 3CW column...
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Housing Starts Drop: Whether the Weather or New Trend?
Yesterday I did a quick interview for CNBC at 30 Rock (right next to the new Tonight Show/Jimmy Fallon set which was all abuzz). We were talking about housing starts before they were released. While...
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Is Housing Recovery Thwarted By The Polar Vortex?
Since we have another cold snap in our midst, I thought I talk about cold weather and housing trends. Back in early January, the US experienced what has now become a household phrase – “The Polar...
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NAR Existing Home Sales Blink, And So What?
NAR released their Existing Home Sales Report on Thursday with a headline that read: February Existing-Home Sales Remain Subdued that blamed the severe winter weather and low inventory for lower sales....
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Incentivized by FEMA, ‘Houses on Stilts’
Nearly a year ago, my wife and I went for a drive in the next town over from where we live in Connecticut and stumbled across a slew of houses being modified to the FEMA Base Flood Elevation (BFE). It...
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Bloomberg View Column: The Myth of Real Estate Stigma
I gave some thought to what the long term impact of a nationally-covered local tumultuous event on a local housing market might be… The Aug. 9th shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown...
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Bloomberg View Column: Housing Market Blows Hot and Cold
Read my latest Bloomberg View column Housing Market Blows Hot and Cold. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt… The northern third of the U.S. is locked in a...
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New Yorkers Are Busy During Week So Big Snowstorms Need to Occur On Weekends
Source: Jackson Fine Art Even though housing market talking heads are known for dramatizing the long term economic impact of a big snow storm, it’s basically a “snow ball’s chance in hell” that it has...
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Flattening The Curve And Seeing The Shift From Greed To Fear
[NPR] Well, it has been an odd couple of weeks brought to you by the global pandemic known as COVID-19 or the Coronavirus. We've been self-quarantined in our house for 1.5 weeks with many more weeks...
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Real estate appraisers are an essential business and here to protect the...
I hope all my readers (and everyone else) are staying safe and healthy during this crisis - now let's get to business. With New York State on lockdown, real estate brokers/agents can't sell real estate...
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Staying Put Locally = Saving Lives Globally
Visual Capitalist created a terrific infographic of 41 cities around the globe comparing the outbreak trend against the commuter activity trend. Incredible The post Staying Put Locally = Saving Lives...
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Do We Hope This Listing Goes Viral?...No We Don't.
I am reading a lot more about everything right now, including real estate. Yesterday's Bloomberg article caught my eye: Greenwich Homeowner Bets on Virus Getaway Pitch to Win a Sale. Desperation to...
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Establishing the COVID-19 Demarcation Line: From 'Hanks To Banks'
This topic was explored in last Friday's Housing Notes. In order to understand what is happening now, we need to ween ourselves off of what happened before this crisis and focus on finding data...
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ABC World News Report 5-2-20 'Urban to Suburban'
If you can indulge me, I was included in the ABC World News Tonight broadcast on Saturday night to talk about the potential urban to suburban housing shift, particularly in NYC. It was cool to be...
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Manhattan Crisis: What Does Our Housing Past Tell Us About Our Housing Future?
In this Sunday's New York Times Real Estate Section (online now), the Calculator column featured some data trends I've gathered during two significant prior housing market events: What Can 9/11 and the...
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The Overstated COVID-19 Blame on Urban Density in Favor of Suburban Living
[NYC.gov] One of the pieces of conventional wisdom we have picked up during the COVID-19 crisis is that high-density residential living will be less favored. The city to suburban migration pattern is...
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