Blogs

Influencers rule the roost online. With a quick post, video, or photo caption, they can send thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of buyers to purchase a product or visit a business. Brands have understood this for over a decade and have been happy to offer lucrative sponsorships to online infl...

About one in 10 rent-stabilized apartments in New York City are currently sitting empty, and it's not for lack of demand. Interestingly, the actual number of empty rent-stabilized units – 88,830 – is significantly higher than the number of empty units landlords reported to the state – 61,000. Th...

Remember early in the pandemic when grocery stores ran out of toilet paper and other items? Retailers quickly adjusted to those low inventory situations, stocking up on items expected to be in high demand. Retailers responded by switching from a “just in time” strategy that kept on hand only wha...

Now that major cities have opened back up and workers are returning to their offices, real estate markets across the United States that boomed during the pandemic are finding that demand is now dwindling. Mile High Prices Dropping According to data released by Redfin, 21% of home sellers droppe...

Can Adam Neumann do for residential real estate what he did for office space with WeWork? That's the question investors and real estate professionals have been asking after the announcement of Neumann's new company, called Flow, dropped in August. Deep Pocketed Investors Flow, scheduled to laun...

New York housing has seen its lows and highs in rapid succession since COVID-19 swept through the state. In early 2020 and 2021, it was a buyer's market. It took months to rent apartments and commercial real estate because so many people had left the city and were wary of returning. Jump to 2022,...

With all the predictions for the coming year, here's one most New Yorkers will be thrilled to hear: New York City rent prices are expected to drop in 2023. All that remains to be seen is when those price decreases occur and by how much. Last year the median rent in NYC skyrocketed to almost $1,0...

Four New York City landlords recently sued the city, saying they should be removed from a city program that forces them to prove that their tenants were not harassed. The landlords say the program, the Certificate of No Harassment Pilot Program Building List, is “mired in secrecy” and prevents t...

Just about everywhere you go, people are talking about a potential recession. Fortunately, few seem confident that a recession is coming, even though many worry about one. The last few years have been a crazy roller coaster for residential real estate, but what does a potential recession mean for...

We don't like to remember the recession and real estate crisis of 2008, but let's think back on it for a moment. From 2007-2009, the total transaction volume of commercial real estate dropped by nearly 87%. Why? A nearly completely frozen debt market. What is a Frozen Debt Market? Forget any im...

In late August 2022, lawmakers introduced two new bills to prevent landlords from asking prospective tenants for background checks, causing a massive outcry that the government was looking to overtake landlords and create socialized housing. The worry is that in this post-COVID-19 world, the rea...

While mortgage rates continue to rise, stock markets continue to decline. This weakness in the economy has affected Manhattan apartment sales, which have dropped 18% between July 1st and September 30th. This is the first drop since the end of 2020, when sales fell by 21%. Many brokers hope the dr...

The United States has seen the real estate market appreciate steadily and quickly in the last two years. But between July and August 2022, home prices had dropped by 1.1%, the biggest monthly drop since 2012 when the housing market crashed. Just like the 2012 crash, the current decline is a resul...

It's been a crazy few years in New York City's real estate industry. The pandemic set the market on a rollercoaster of whiplash changes. From the initial drop as people left the city for rural and suburban towns to the wild spike as nesting instincts kicked in and everyone wanted a cozy place to ...

Ikea knows New Yorkers want what they're selling, but they haven't quite landed on a concept for how to sell it to them. A Small-Format Store Ikea, known for stylish, inexpensive, put-it-together-yourself furniture, announced that it would be closing its small-format store in Queens less than t...

In New York City and big cities worldwide, commercial property owners are feeling the same pain: the rise in remote work has left their buildings empty. A Persistent Pandemic Problem During the pandemic, millions of workers and their employers learned that their jobs could be performed just as ...

In the first part of this series, we looked at how unleased office space due to the rise in remote work is hurting cities worldwide, especially New York City. In this installment, we'll look at some of the solutions being offered to fix this problem. A Win-Win Housing Solution? In some cities ...

You've heard of a bull market and a bear market, but a tornado market? That's the term real estate professionals are currently using to describe New York City's dramatic real estate climate changes. It means that the city's real estate market is completely unpredictable, and no one knows what it...

If you're in the market to buy a home, you're probably already aware that interest rates have risen considerably this year. At over 7% for a 30-year-fixed mortgage loan, interest rates have not been this high since April 2002. For buyers in New York City, already staring down some of the most ex...

Fifty years from now, people will talk about two time periods: before the pandemic and after the pandemic. Since early 2020, daily life has changed in more ways than we can count, and industrial real estate has changed alongside it. According to a recent Forbes article, e-commerce grew exponentia...

One particularly frigid niche of the commercial real estate sector is white hot with popularity. Cold storage is booming, and the Wall Street Journal reports that refrigerated storage space construction is on the rise. Even before tenants are lined up, developers are adding millions of square foo...

Any time the word “recession” is used, the U.S. economy goes into a tizzy, and commercial real estate investors need to make sure they are prepared for whatever happens next. To avoid losses during a recession, there are a few things you can do to ensure your bottom lines are protected. 1. Choos...

Artificial intelligence (AI) used to be something we only saw in movies and television, but with the invention of Siri and Alexa, most of us have more experience with AI than ever before. But the use of AI doesn't end at playing our favorite song or ordering our favorite pasta sauce. In fact, AI ...

From drones to blockchains, tech advancements are transforming the commercial real estate industry. Whether you're a landlord or an investor, here are three key tech developments you should know about. 1. Drone Technology Drones serve as digital eyes in the sky. As agile, unmanned systems, they...

Newsweek recently reported on massive crowds waiting to view vacant NYC apartments. Although the crowds shocked viewers, is the demand for properties in NY surprising to the experts? Not when we think about what's happening with NY's housing market right now. For one thing, average rental rates ...