Pillow Fights at the Four Seasons
The owners of Four Seasons hotels want to cut back in bad times, but the company is resisting, to protect the brand. This might surprise even its longtime guests, but Four Seasons —doesn’t own hotels. It operates them on behalf of real estate owners and developers. Four Seasons participates in the design of the property and runs it, with nearly total control over every aspect of the operation, from the number of bell staff to the thread count of the sheets.
Payrolls Fall Least in Eight Months
Bad news sometimes looks like good, in this economy. Payrolls fell by 345,000, the least in eight months, after a revised 504,000 loss in April, the Labor Department said. The jobless rate increased to 9.4 percent, the highest since 1983. The dollar rallied and Treasuries fell as optimism grew that the economy’s slump will soon end. Still, figures showing a drop in hours worked and slowdown in earnings indicate any recovery will be muted.
Nearly 25% of homes are offered for sale at a reduced price
Nearly one in four U.S. homes for sale on June 1 had their prices sliced at least once since landing on the market, data compiled by real estate website Trulia.com showed. A total of 23.6 percent of houses have seen their price cut. The average reduction was 10.6 percent of the original price.
Bargain House Hunters Better Take Action
Mortgage rates are now at their highest level this year hitting 5.29 percent in the last week. While that's historically low, people looking to refinance or buy a home were thrown for a loop by the sudden spike in rates. So if you've been sitting on the sidelines waiting for rates to fall lower, PBS' Scott Gurvey reports it may be time to get off the couch.
CBHK bids its agents farewell
The owners of soon-to-be shuttered brokerage Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy bid a tear-soaked farewell to agents and well-wishers during a goodbye party at the company's headquarters on the 12th floor of 555 Madison Avenue.
Why Home Prices May Keep Falling
Yale economist Robert Schiller pens an opinion piece where he try's his hand at moving from economic analysis to psychoanalysis: "...long, steady housing price declines seem to defy both common sense and the traditional laws of economics, which assume that people act rationally and that markets are efficient."
Is the real estate panic over?
The panic in the Manhattan real estate market of the winter of 2009 lifted in the last few weeks, brokers say, as more and more buyers and sellers have found the courage and the comfort level to sign on the dotted line. A bidding war has even occasionally broken out.
End of the economic panic?
Despite the jump in the unemployment rate, today’s jobs report qualifies as very good news. The economy lost 345,000 jobs in May, the smallest loss since October and a significantly smaller one than economists were expecting. The monthly job loss has now declined for four straight months, after a peak decline of 741,000 jobs in January.
Foreclosures - No End in Sight -
A continuing steep drop in home prices combined with rising unemployment is powering a new wave of foreclosures. Unfortunately, there’s little evidence, so far, that the Obama administration’s anti-foreclosure plan will be able to stop it.
$10 Million Gift for High Line Project
The media mogul Barry Diller and the fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg have made a $10 million challenge grant to the High Line, the former elevated railway along the Hudson River that is being converted into a landscaped walkway... The gift, which was to be announced at an event on the High Line on Monday night, brings the fundraising to $34 million in a $50 million capital campaign. It will be allotted in $2 million annual increments over five years with Friends of the High Line, a nonprofit group that manages the project, required to match each installment.
London Luxury Homes Fall 20%, Smallest Drop This Year
London luxury-home prices fell about 20 percent in May from a year ago and probably won’t return to their 2008 highs for another five years.
Reagan Did It
Paul Krugman writes, "the more one looks into the origins of the current disaster, the clearer it becomes that the key wrong turn... took place in the early 1980s, during the Reagan years."
I've just brought this special one bedroom apartment back on the market, with it's price improved to $625,000— an excellent value for a location and building of this quality. It is very sunny and quiet, in one of noted architect Emery Roth's buildings for Bing & Bing in Sutton. Well proportioned, with a powder room, and white glove, doorman service; this is an understated and elegant, Upper East Side, co-op home.
