Posted by Melvin Monachan | Oct 04, 2021 |
Back in June 2021, the Biden administration extended the foreclosure moratorium for renters until the end of July with the hopes of helping state officials better distribute $46 billion in federal aid. The foreclosure moratorium did not extend past July 31, 2021, as the United States Supreme Cour...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Sep 30, 2021 |
With more than 6 million renter households behind on rent, the Biden administration set into motion a slew of measures to prevent people from losing their homes. Originally, the Treasury Department allocated $46 billion in federal aid to protect struggling tenants from eviction, but the state and...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Sep 23, 2021 |
In part 1 of this series, we talked about COVID's impact on commercial tax assessments and New York City's tax revenues. In this post, we will examine how some property owners are thriving based on a pandemic windfall and the outlook for NYC's commercial real estate market going forward.
A Pande...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Sep 15, 2021 |
Just about every aspect of New York City's real estate market has been turned upside down by COVID-19. Commercial property values and tax revenues are down. Landlords are still reeling from the City's moratorium on new eviction and foreclosure actions, and everyone is watching to see what happens...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Sep 11, 2021 |
When the COVID-19 virus first took hold of New York City, the outlook was dire. The wealthy were fleeing New York, businesses were shutting down, and the restaurant market was essentially closed for business. Everything that made NYC special was snuffed out overnight. The fear that the wealthy, w...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Sep 07, 2021 |
Rental Rates During the Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in record price cuts and concessions across New York City's rental market. Concessions such as a month or more of free rent have become popular, along with landlords agreeing to cover broker fees. Broker fees in New York can add...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Aug 23, 2021 |
A widely-read report documents the recent wild ride in New York's housing market. Or, one might better say, the wild rides in the City's several housing sectors, each in a way its own market. For many homebuyers, home sellers, and City residents generally, the current question may be whether to g...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Aug 16, 2021 |
How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected New York City Real Estate
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about countless unprecedented events and is being described as the event of our lifetimes. One of the most significant outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic is the exacerbation of inequalities in social and ec...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Aug 04, 2021 |
Albany to the Rescue?
To address pandemic shocks to New York's real estate market, the state's legislature hopes to spend $100 million to turn vacant commercial real estate into affordable housing. Governor Cuomo has yet to sign the bill that both state houses passed. But the bill is similar to ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Aug 01, 2021 |
As vaccine rollouts find success across the country, NYC citizens are ready to get back to business as usual after more than a year of social distancing and COVID-19 shutdowns—mostly. While New Yorkers laud the reopening of restaurants and cheer reunions with family and friends, they are less mot...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jul 24, 2021 |
Around the country, housing inventory is soaring; sellers are easily getting more than the asking price because buyers are willing to duke it out over the property. But in Manhattan, more and more apartments are coming on the market, and buyers are not happy to pay more. In fact, they're looking ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jul 20, 2021 |
A Slow-Rising Tide
A reliable report states what is pretty obvious to anyone who frequents New York's commercial districts: storefront retailers still face severe pandemic aftershocks. Urban workers and commuters haven't yet returned to Manhattan and other commercial districts in pre-pandemic nu...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jul 15, 2021 |
The Current Eviction Moratorium
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us in almost every facet of our lives. The effects of the pandemic have kept people out of work and have disrupted many people's income and ability to earn a living. Due to these disruptions, many protections were put in p...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jul 07, 2021 |
In an effort to avert a possible deluge of foreclosures and evictions due to the ongoing pandemic emergency, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) has proposed a new rule that would halt all foreclosure proceedings against delinquent mortgage holders until January 2022. If made official, ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jun 29, 2021 |
Everyone enjoys a good home makeover. For the last year, many of us have been stuck in our homes, daydreaming about what changes we would make. Now with extra cash in our pockets, we're ready to make those renovations happen.
Except that now the global supply chain is causing delays. From lumber...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jun 28, 2021 |
Just as the Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 and the COVID-19 Emergency Protect Our Small Businesses Act of 2021 were set to expire, New York lawmakers agreed to extend these protections until the end of August. This news comes just weeks after Governor Cuomo signed the 2...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Jun 15, 2021 |
It might surprise you how long a resolute buyer of a New York residential property can remain in a home without paying the mortgage. Media report the remarkable story of one man's twenty-three-year battle with lenders and authorities, still ongoing, to remain in a home on which he has reportedly ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 24, 2021 |
New York City, with its bustling streets and central role in US economics, provided an eye into the breadth of the COVID-19 pandemic over the course of the past year. With drops in tourism (the hospitality industry previously generated $44 billion in annual spending), high unemployment rates, and...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 19, 2021 |
Where the Market's Just Been
The pandemic still casts a mighty big shadow over New York City's real estate market. You can't get a clear view of the up-to-the-minute market without at least a snapshot of where that market has recently been. No question remains that the pandemic spurred a massive...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 10, 2021 |
As they grappled with the frightening pandemic, millions of homeowners took due advantage of federal mortgage-forbearance legislation, relieving them of home mortgage payments for up to twelve months. With the pandemic's onset now more than twelve months ago, the Federal Housing Finance Agency re...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 06, 2021 |
It's no secret that the coronavirus pandemic has hit New York City's restaurants the hardest. At the beginning of the pandemic, when NYC was the epicenter, all restaurants were forced to close down. Some were able to keep their doors open with takeout, but the amount of spending New Yorkers were ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 05, 2021 |
Commercial real estate developers and landlords in New York City anticipated a downturn in the market when the coronavirus pandemic struck. They just didn't realize it would last this long and run this deep.
The NYC commercial real-estate market is in an all-out crisis right now, with thousands ...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | May 03, 2021 |
Short-term real estate loans can represent opportunity. In New York, in 2021, on the heels of the pandemic, that's all that many borrowers seek.
Over the course of 2020, many property owners had to shelve any commercial real estate projects they had planned. Their customers were staying at home....
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Apr 27, 2021 |
It's not how much money you have but how you manage it. That may be the big lesson to draw from a reported foreclosure auction coming up on former billionaire hedge-fund manager Phil Falcone's enormous East 67th Street townhouse and lavish Hamptons estate. Another media story puts the listing pri...
Posted by Melvin Monachan | Apr 19, 2021 |
While number-crunchers are pretty good at predicting market fluctuations, it's remarkable how a “black swan” event like a global pandemic can throw those predictions out the window. At a time when millions are actively fleeing cities and looking for more space to “quarantine at home,” housing inv...