IS THERE REAL LUXURY? OR IS IT JUST A BIG CON?

In this morning’s Financial Times, Aswath Damodaran, the NYU business school professorwho moonlights as the guy who teaches Goldman Sachs trainees about how to value companies, said he defined luxury as an industry that has figured out how to leave people feeling good about being suckered. He also said you can’t value luxury; it’s in the… [Read More]

TRIBECA'S NEWEST PARK OPENS AT PIER 25.

Great news for Tribeca, and another reason why the West side of Tribeca will increase in desirability and value: Construction at Pier 25 wrapped up right on time for Thursday’s grand opening of what becomes the newest piece of the five-mile-long Hudson River Park, the largest open space to be built in Manhattan since Central… [Read More]

THE $ 210,000.00 PER MONTH RENTAL: THE PLATINUM AGE BEGINS.

Rumor has it that New York’s most expensive rental lease has been signed…..a massive pad in Midtown: And the monthly rental rate? A mere $ 210,000.00! That rent is TOO DAMN HIGH! With a massive shift in political power to the right, it is only fitting that the Wasserstein apartment at 927 Fifth Avenue is… [Read More]

AND NOW?

What will be the results of to-day’s election?  Chances are we will see a distinct shift to the right nationally, although locally the shift will be less pronounced we imagine. How will this all affect New York real estate?  Here are our predictions: 1)  GREEN BUILDING: This area will be less supported by the Federal… [Read More]

NOVEMBER LUXURYLETTER

Click on this link for this month’s LUXURYLETTER, New York’s only monthly report on the Manhattan real estate market downtown.

GROVE STREET VILLAGE TOWNHOUSE SELLS

A goregous townhouse on Grove Street in Greenwich Village has gone to contract close to its $ 15million+ asking price. Attached are some pictures of this beauty. The property was gut renovated by Triton Enterprises and never lived in, over 5,000sf in size. “The key to this story is,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential… [Read More]

REAL ESTATE BROKERAGE IS CHANGED FOREVER.

In this weekend’s New York Times, an interview with Frederick Peters, the head of Warburg Partnership, illustrates clearly how the world of real estate brokerage has changed forever. “I remember a time many years ago when I started doing e-mail blasts to the brokerage community, announcing new properties I was listing,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing… [Read More]

NEW YORK CITY: IT’S ONE OF THE ‘FABULOUS FOUR’…..

In CRAINS, a report shows how New York City is unlike the rest of the USA, and is truly an international city. These days, buyers of commercial property in New York can expect their investments to provide similar rates of return as they would in London, Paris and Washington D.C.—cities RCA calls the “Fabulous Four.”… [Read More]

IT MAY BE A VERRRRRY LONG HALLOWEEN….

With almost certainty we will see a major political shift after next week’s  elections. The presidency will be stuck in a potential gridlock where the only window of opportunity is 2011 says Nouriel Roubini in to-day’s Financial Times. The president deserves credit for setting up a bipartisan debt commission, which is most likely to propose a… [Read More]

200 ELEVENTH AVENUE COMES TO LIFE WITH ‘SNOB’.

Tonight, 200 Eleventh Avenue, the iconic new landmark in the West Chelsea Arts District designed by Annabelle Selldorf and built by Glauco Lolli-Ghetti of Urban Muse and Young Woo and Associates came to life with the launch of SNOB magazine, the Russian language magazine geared towards the growing Russian community in the USA. On one… [Read More]