For anyone who resents the volume of construction in New York, it may be healthy to be reminded just how much money these transactions make for the New York tax coffers. With a slowed market, those transaction taxes have slipped almost 10% in the past 12 months.
City living
The debate between city living or living in the suburbs is an on-going one: ultimately its all about match-making. Some people living in the suburbs would never live in the city in a million years, and visa versa. Then there are those in-between. Most people I speak to love both. Here are the attributes of… [Read More]
THE SILVER SPOON GENERATION
Posted by Leonard Steinberg, President of COMPASS, on July 2nd, 2015 The Greatest Generation is in the midst of transferring massive amounts of wealth to their baby boomer kids (and grandkids), the largest generational transfer of wealth in history……to date. This is happening simultaneously to the beginnings of an even larger wealth transfer from Baby… [Read More]
RENT HIKE FREEZE, YET TAXES AND COSTS RISE
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on June 30th, 2015 The City Rent Guidelines Board ordered a freeze on rent hikes for rent stabilized apartments for the first time in history. It froze rents for 1-year leases and capped increases on 2-year leases at 2%. Real estate taxes are however rising around 13% and water-rates are rising… [Read More]
REAL TRENDS WALL STREET JOURNAL TOP 1000 AGENTS
Posted by Leonard Steinberg, president of COMPASS on June 28th, 2015 A huge CONGRATULATIONS to all my fellow colleagues who were listed on the Real Trends TOP 1000 Agents in the Wall Street Journal yesterday: everyone on these lists should be extremely proud of their achievements considering they are in the Top 0.00125% of all… [Read More]
Broker’s fiduciary duty means putting clients first.
Posted by Leonard Steinberg, President of Compass, on June 24th, 2015 This week COMPASS enacted a new policy that I think is truly historical: for the first time it gives real estate agents the respect I think they are entitled to. When a client hires an agent, most times they don’t realize that if that… [Read More]
THE RETURN OF BAD REAL ESTATE HABITS?
Posted by Leonard Steinberg, president of COMPASS, on June 20th, 2015 Two aspects of the last recession…..low down payments and speculators…..are back. Mortgages offered by lenders that have down payments of 10% or less are becoming more common: In the first quarter of 2015, 51% of home buyers with a non-jumbo mortgage (more than 136,000)… [Read More]
ANNABELLE SELLDORF: ARCHITECTURE AT ITS BEST
Posted on June 7th, 2015 I love this article about Anna belle Selldorf: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-06-05/annabelle-selldorf-the-darling-of-the-design-world She is truly a rare architect in a sea of architecture screaming for attention. Living in one of her designs has made me a fan for life.
SUBURBIFICATION AND THE CITY
Posted by Leonard Steinberg, President of COMPASS, on May 16th, 2015 Every morning, 365 days of the year, I post a daily contemplation to my fellow colleagues at COMPASS and today I wanted to share one: SUBURBIFICATION AND THE CITY I hate to admit this, but when I lived in Dallas many years ago, one… [Read More]
OUR MAYOR’S MANSION
Posted by Leonard Steinberg of COMPASS on May 8th, 2015 PLEASE: someone PLEASE tell me where you can buy a MANSION for $1,75million….or $ 3million….or even $5 million in Manhattan? Our brilliant local government has officially re-defined the meaning of the word MANSION: Yes, a mansion in New York City can be bought for $1.75… [Read More]