Blogs

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 ...

From COVID-19 to rising inflation rates, there's no doubt that the commercial real estate sector is reeling from numerous shocks. And although the US is not technically in a recession, there's a risk we're heading that way. In these circumstances, you might wonder whether to hold, buy, or sell y...

In the last five years, the worldwide use of cryptocurrency to pay for real estate has increased to about $100 million. But, in the last year, this has decreased to nearly nothing because of a significant decline in the cryptocurrency market. For example, Bitcoin, the most widely used cryptocurre...

The housing market around the country has been booming for the last year, seemingly effortlessly. In New York, vacancy rates are the lowest they have been in 14 years – just 1.77%. There are costly bidding wars, unhappy tenants, and rent increases that top out at 70%. But what do landlords really...

Eyes bulged when a group of Upper East Side Manhattan residential buildings recently sold for $1.75 billion, the largest real estate transaction in the city since before the pandemic. A Jaw-Dropping Amount The six buildings were bought by Black Spruce Management Company and Orbach Affordable Ho...

For professional home flippers, there has never been a worse time to be in the business. Flippers, who buy homes with a plan of quickly updating and reselling them, are finding that the high demand for houses and the lack of housing inventory are impacting them as much, even more, as traditional ...

Whether you're hoping to rent or own, the housing market all over the U.S. is crazy right now, and it's even crazier in New York City. Realtors throughout the city say they're listing properties for prices far above market value, and they're still getting multiple offers and finding buyers willin...

After two years of home sellers enjoying prospective buyers lined up and eager to buy at nearly any price, home sales are finally cooling off. The reason? Rising interest rates have made owning a home less affordable, pushing some buyers out of the marketplace altogether. And it's all happening ...

And you thought your landlord was bad. Or maybe you are the landlord, and your unreasonable tenant makes you want to scream. In either case, it's unlikely that anything you're experiencing comes close to an average day in the life of the Koeppel family. The family, who own ten buildings in Manha...

Commercial real estate hasn't enjoyed the all-time-high demand seen in the residential real estate sector during the last few years. In fact, experts have been relatively subdued on the future of commercial real estate's prospects in NYC. Recently, however, CBS News reported that demand for CRE i...

The ecosystem of New York real estate is driven by key factors, including demand and costs. Demand for residential housing is at an all-time high nearly everywhere in the nation, especially in New York City. Although the demand is through the roof, costs are tempering the enthusiasm for new devel...