Posted by Leonard Steinberg on May 3rd, 2013 The one thing that almost guarantees that real estate will continue its upward pricing trend is the fact that big city inflation is quite different from the rest of the country’s (I believe artificially deflated) inflation figures. Did cab fares go down during the recession? Food prices?… [Read More]
LUKOIL SITE ON TENTH AVENUE SELLS
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on May 1st, 2013 The illustrious LUKOIL site at 239 Tenth Avenue at the corner of 24th Street in the heart of the West Chelsea Arts District has supposedly gone to contract after multiple bids…..and it appears the price was several million dollars over the asking of $ 18,95million. The site… [Read More]
HERMES POSTS STRONG SALES GAINS, YET GROWTH COOLS AS DOLLAR STRENGTHENS
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 22nd, 2013 Uber-luxury goods conglomerate Hermes posted its slowest pace of quarterly growth since 2009 as currency headwinds weighed on revenues, reporting a 10% rise in sales to 856.8 million euros. Last year, growth for a number of high-end names cooled as shoppers, notably in China, moved away from more mass… [Read More]
IS THE $ 100 MILLION NEW YORK APARTMENT THE INTERNET STOCK OF 2000?
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 20th, 2013 Has a new pricing insanity set into the New York uber-luxury market with 33 official listings (with many more un-official ones!)above $ 30 million and three over $ 100 million: Is $ 100 million the new $ 50 million just within a matter of months? It appears… [Read More]
COULD APPLE'S i-TV SAVE THE DAILY ANNOYANCES OF THE TELEVISION ROOM?
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 19th, 2013 Last night was another one of those nights where trying to turn on the television was the usual annoyance. The salesperson at BOSE had told me the system was SUPER-SIMPLE……even an idiot could use it. Well, I must be a thorough idiot, because its still not easy…. [Read More]
WEAK JOB GROWTH……EXCEPT IN BIG CITIES.
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 18th, 2013 Corporate results are showing an eerily similar trend: profits are growing, but revenues are not. Is this mostly related to the fact that companies are not hiring while demand grows very slowly, thereby deriding profits mostly from reduced labor costs and low interest rates? Are existing workers… [Read More]
IS $ 2,500/sf THE NEW $ 2,000/sf?
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on April 16th, 2013 Is Manhattan luxury real estate experiencing hyper-inflation? It appears so. Whereas 4 months ago every developer (and their bankers) was talking about $ 2,000/sf for the entry level to the downtown luxury new development market, now it appears, just a few months later, that this figure has… [Read More]
THE DEATH OF THE AUDIO-VISUAL CLOSET "RACK"?
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on March 18th, 2013 SE2 LABS think that high-end custom Audio Visual installations are getting much too complicated: we agree! Who wants that huge ‘brain/rack’ of components in a closet when closet space is needed. If you go it alone you’ve got a bewildering array of choices when it comes to amplifiers, video processors,… [Read More]
150 CHARLES STREET: HALF A BILLION IN SALES IN 4 WEEKS
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on March 16th, 2013 The New York Times ran an article for this weekend’s REAL ESTATE section talking about the ‘Downtown Spring awakening’: 150 Charles Street, the Witkoff Group developed, CookFox-designed building in the West Village achieved over HALF A BILLION in sales in 4 weeks, certainly a record for New… [Read More]
NEW YORK SCAFFOLDING LAW AND THE INSURANCE RACKET
Posted by Leonard Steinberg on March 10th, 2013 Everyone is chattering at the rising costs of a New York apartment. What most don’t realize is the dramatically increased costs of land, and worse, the rising costs of insurance during construction. Its time to reform New York state’s infamous scaffolding law. The law, which dates back… [Read More]