Even after a summer of sluggish sales, the Hamptons market is getting pricier.
Homes under $1 million in the tony beach community now account for just under 50 percent of the market, the lowest point in four years, according to the latest quarterly report from Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel.
Homes over $5 million, meanwhile, now account for a larger piece of the pie at 44.4 percent, up nearly nine percent from last year.
But unlike last year’s frenzied summer sales season, buyers during this year’s third quarter didn’t rush to sign on the dotted line. Across the board, the number of sales during the third quarter plummeted 20 percent to just 507, according to the report, while inventory levels held steady compared to last year, with around 1,700 properties for sale.
Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel and author of the report, said there were fewer sales because the market was returning to normal after the frenzy in 2013 and 2014, which reflected pent-up demand from the financial crisis. “In 2013 and 2014, we had record sales,” he said. “We’re coming down off that sugar high.”
Despite the slow pace of sales, the median sales price jumped 9.8 percent to $950,000, and the average sales price remained relatively unchanged at $1.7 million, according to the report.
Miller said the lower end of the market drove the overall price growth, said Miller. The median price for home sales under $1 million rose 10.2 percent to $567,000. By contrast, the median price for homes between $1 million and $5 million only increased 1.3 percent to $1.9 million. “
During the third quarter, there were just 31 sales of homes $5 million and up, the lowest number in two years.
The entry threshold for the luxury market also dropped nearly 4 percent to $3.7 million. And the median sales price in the luxury market – defined as the top 10 percent of sales – plummeted 18 percent to $5.3 million, while the average sales price dropped 15 percent to $7.1 million.
With prices softening, inventory also piled up. There were 292 homes for sale during the third quarter, a nearly 34 percent jump from last year.
- See more at: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/10/23/hamptons-prices-on-the-rise-as-sales-drop/#sthash.uctAotBf.dpuf
There's something deeply satisfying about visiting a pumpkin patch come October, whatever your age. And just because you're without a car doesn't mean you can't plan this fall excursion. These are the six best pumpkin patches to visit throughout New York State—with a few right here in the city—that you can get to via public transportation.
↑ The easiest trip in search of pumpkins is the one to the Queens County Farm Museum, in Little Neck, Queens. This 47-acre farm—New York City's largest remaining tract of undisturbed farmland—is open weekends in October with a variety of fall activities. There is no admission fee to walk through the pumpkin patch (although the pumpkins will cost you), and you can also pick up Hudson Valley apples, fresh cider, and locally-made treats. Other autumnal activities include a three-acre corn maze, a haunted house, and a kiddie festival on Sunday, October 25.
How to get there: Take the E or F train to Kew Gardens/Union Turnpike Station, then transfer to Q46 Bus (running eastbound on Union Turnpike) to the Little Neck Parkway stop. Cross Union Turnpike and walk north on Little Neck Parkway three blocks to the museum entrance.
↑ Decker Farm is another pumpkin-picking spot that's NYC-based, albeit on Staten Island at Historic Richmond Town. The 1810-era farm, which includes 11 structures on 11 acres of land, hosts pumpkin pickers every weekend through November 1. On top of the pumpkin patch, you can join a hayride, tour the farmhouse, or navigate a corn maze.
How to get there: From the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in St. George, take the S74 bus to Richmond Road and St. Patrick's Place.
If you'd rather go pumpkin picking upstate, there are plenty of options. Both Outhouse Orchards and Harvest Moon Farm and Orchard (↑) in North Salem are accessible from the MetroNorth. Despite its less-than-pleasant name, Outhouse is a scenic family-owned and operated apple orchard that hosts pumpkin picking in the fall. There's also a corn maze, hay ride, and a farmstand selling apples, produce from the farm, local honey, and maple syrup.
Right across the street from Outhouse is Harvest Moon Farm, which hosts a fall festival every weekend through October. For a $5 admission, there's a pumpkin patch, live music, a kid's bounce house, hay rides, pony rides, face painting, and BBQ. For the adults, a hard cider tasting room also opens up on weekends.
How to get there: Take the Metro North from Grand Central to the Croton Falls station. On weekends, cabs are usually waiting to take patrons three miles to either farm.
↑ From the Long Island Railroad, Dee's Nursery is the most accessible fall destination from any train stop. This family-owned nursery and garden center hosts a festival every weekend in October with a pumpkin patch, petting zoo, and kid's crafts. The only caveat: you won't get the farm backdrop.
How to get there: Take the Long Island Railroad toward Long Beach and exit at theEast Rockaway stop. From there, it's about a 15 minute walk east to the nursery.
[Masker Orchards by tciriello via Flickr Creative Commons]
↑ Masker Orchards, located upstate in Warwick, has been home to apple orchards in the Hudson Valley for more than 100 years. It's open five days a week with a pick-your-own pumpkin patch, an Apple Maze, and a haunted house through Halloween. Other events, offered on weekends, include face painting, pony rides and live music. Be sure to stop by the county store to pick up apple butter, fresh jam, or honey before you leave.
How to get there: Take the New Jersey Transit bus #196 or #197 from Port Authority to the Willowbrook Station in Warwick. Masker Orchard is a half mile walk from the station.
3 Starter Apartments Priced Under $700k to See This Weekend
MANHATTAN — On the lookout for a starter apartment in Manhattan? These three one-bedroom co-ops are all priced reasonably and have open houses this weekend.
320 East 42nd St., #2009, Midtown East
One bedroom/One bath
Approximately 650 square feet
Co-op
$645,000
Maintenance: $1,423 a month
Open House: Sunday, Oct. 18, 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Lowdown: Although this apartment is legally a one bedroom, a renovation left it feeling more like a loft.
“The owner gut renovated the entire apartment,” said Douglas Elliman broker Dylan Hildreth-Hoffman. “It feels like a SoHo loft instead of a stuffy one bedroom.”
It is, admittedly, a “SoHo loft in small form,” said Hildreth-Hoffman. But without the bedroom wall, there is still a larger, more open living space in this apartment compared with other apartments in the building. The current owner built out a Murphy bed, which is separated from the living room by a curtain.
The renovation, which happened about six years ago, also included a new kitchen and bathroom.
The apartment is distinguished by its large lattice windows, which are part of the building's landmarked facade. The co-op plans to upgrade and soundproof the windows within the next 12 months, according to Hildreth-Hoffman.
Other perks include a walk-in closet and impressive views.
“You're on the 20th floor of the building, so you get a birds-eye view of 42nd Street,” said Hildreth-Hoffman. “It feels like the Chrysler Building is in your living room.”
Location: 320 East 42nd Street — also known as the Woodstock Tower — is the tallest building within the Tudor City complex. Located about a block from the East River, Tudor City is known for its co-op buildings with modest apartments at reasonable prices. Given that the complex is near the United Nations, Hildreth-Hoffman thought this may be the ideal apartment “for an oversees visitor.” The building allows residents to rent out their apartments if they're not staying full-time. For train access, it is about three long blocks from the Grand Central transportation hub.
Why put it on your open house calendar? “It's one-of-a-kind,” said Hildreth-Hoffman. “You've got light, the views, and an impeccable renovation.”
420 East 51st Street, #4H, Midtown East
One bedroom/one bath
Approximately 900 square feet
Co-op
$395,000
Maintenance: $2,646.88 a month
Open House: Sunday, Oct. 18, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Lowdown: Although this apartment is located in a post-war co-op building, the seller renovated it and added some pre-war-inspired details.
The oak floors were stained and moldings were added, according to Halstead broker Eva Gellin. The kitchen and bathroom were gut renovated, with a new shower and marble details in the bathroom and new granite counters and cabinets in the kitchen.
“The kitchen is unique because it's wide, with two huge windows,” said Gellin. The windows look north, offering views of neighboring townhouses.
An L-shaped dining room is adjacent to the kitchen, and opens up into a living room space. From the living room, a small foyer leads to the bedroom.
“It's a very spacious bedroom, with views of the treetops outside,” said Gellin.
The apartment is located on the fourth floor of the 13-story building. Because it is a land lease building, in which shareholders pay rent for the land the building occupies, maintenance is high.
“The high maintenance can be difficult for young buyers,” Gellin said. “That's why the price is so low.”
Location: This co-op building is located on the very eastern edge of Midtown, between First Avenue and FDR Drive. Although the area is quiet, there are a number of bars and restaurants nearby along Second and Third avenues. The Lexington Avenue 6 train and the E and M trains at Lexington Avenue and 53rd Street are three long avenue blocks away.
Why put it on your open house calendar? “The space and the condition of the apartment,” said Gellin, who thought the size of the bedroom, living room and kitchen was “wonderful for a one bedroom."
179 East 79th Street, #2D, Upper East Side
One bedroom/One bath
Co-op
Approximately 800 square feet
$669,000
Maintenance: $1,763 a month
Open House: Sunday, Oct. 18, 2:30 to 4:00 p.m.
Lowdown: Stribling broker Julie Perlin called this a “special starter apartment” due to its location in the Upper East Side.
“There are lots of bedrooms to buy under $700K east of Third Avenue,” she said. “But there are not many west of Third Avenue to Park, where this is located.”
179 East 79th St. is a pre-war co-op building with 16 stories and four apartments per floor. There's a full-time doorman, live-in super and private garden for residents. This unit is located on the second floor in the back of the building, “so it's quiet,” said Perlin.
It has “charming pre-war details,” she noted, including arched entryways and moldings. The living room is large enough for both a seating and dining area.
The seller, who is a long-term resident of the co-op, updated both the kitchen and the bathroom. The apartment has a galley kitchen and the seller had enough room to build out an office nook at the end of it, according to Perlin.
“It's a spacious kitchen,” she said. “There's also a window near the office nook to bring in light.”
Location: This building is located between Third Avenue to the east and Lexington Avenue to the west. It's only about three blocks away from Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When it comes to transportation, you could take the 77th Street 6 train, two blocks away, or the 4 or 5 trains at 86th Street, six blocks away.
Why put it on your open house calendar? “It's the best value for a pre-war one bedroom in the neighborhood, west of Third Avenue,” said Perlin.
Two years since its groundbreaking, Zeckendorf Development’s tower o’ opulence at 520 Park Avenue has finally emerged from its cavernous trench. Set for completion in 2018, the Billionaires’ Row building will climb 54 floors and 780 feet into the Manhattan skyline, becoming the tallest and likely the most prestigious building on the Upper East Side.
Envisioned by William Lie and Arthur Zeckendorf, 520 Park Avenue inherits the classically-inspired taste of the real estate dynasty’s prior projects. In the ’80s, their father William Zeckendorf Jr. erected some of the city’s largest post-modern apartment complexes such as Worldwide Plaza, Zeckendorf Towers, and the Park Belvedere. Here, the developers commissioned the esteemed architect/historian and dean of the Yale School of Architecture Robert A.M. Stern as the designer and SLCEas the architects of record. This team also collaborated together on 18 Gramercy Park South and 15 Central Park West, which shattered apartment records when opened in 2008. Intent on replicating its west side counterpart’s success, the Zeckendorfs again gathered the now-not-so-secret ingredients: a powerful address, palatial apartments, and most importantly, the coveted Central Park view, all of which will culminate in a jaw-dropping $130 million penthouse.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the slenderest of them all? The project site is only 60 feet wide, making 520 Park among the most slender skyscrapers in the city. Despite its Park Avenue address, the building is actually tucked midblock along 60th Street behind Christ Church, to which the project owes its address and air rights. To garner more floor area, the building will cantilever over much of the adjacent Grolier Club, capturing an additional 30 feet of width.
The tower will rise in relative isolation, roughly to the same height as the Woolworth Building downtown. Nearly all of the building’s 33 full-floor residences will posses views of Central Park since the site lies just outside of Midtown’s canyons and overlooks the protected Upper East Side Historic District. The tower’s cladding of warm Indiana Limestone is designed to soak up natural light and be evocative of the great New York apartment buildings of the 1920s and ’30s. At its pinnacle is a $130 million, three-level, 12,400-square-foot shrine of wealth. Its crown of four corner chimneys strung together by sets of pilasters, will join the fairytale tops of the Pierre and the Sherry-Netherland nearby.
Homes begin 170 feet up and cover a minimum of 4,600 square feet of. Amenities include a landscape courtyard, guest suites, private wine cellars, a bi-level health and fitness center, a swimming pool and spa, children’s playroom, and a screening area. Prices begin at $16 million and as 6sqft first reported last March, the developers are projecting a total sellout of $1.2 billion. The $130 million triplex penthouse was the most expensive apartment to hit the market. However, the three top floors of 220 Central Park South(another Billionaires’ Row tower designed by Robert A.M. Stern), is reported to be in contract for a whopping $200 million by billionaire hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin.
The construction site as of this week, via CityRealty
In a recent CNBC interview regarding the development, William L, Zeckendorf told media outlet that they’ve seen more Chinese buyers in the last 60 days than ever before. He also notes, “Probably more likely now than ever. We are seeing more and more interest in New York City from across the world, we’re also seeing record-breaking prices being paid by New Yorkers.”
Deborah Berke discusses her design philosophy behind the residences at 432 Park Avenue. The recently appointed Dean of the Yale School of Architecture explains her vision to balance the scale and beauty of the windows with a layout that flows naturally from grand spaces to intimate spaces.
Air rights have shaped how the city has been developed over the last 55 years
The Origins of Air Rights
Over the past 55 years, New York City has developed a system of transferring air rights in order to achieve both broad and specific urban planning goals. Broadly speaking, real estate developers are motivated to build tall because higher floor units command higher prices since buyers are willing to pay a premium for views and light.
But developers are not allowed to build as high as they’d like, unfettered by zoning regulations. If they did, quality of life would decline since the city would be a whole lot more dense, a whole lot darker and a whole lot more congested. To prevent the over saturation of the city with tall buildings sardined next to each other, the city rehauled its zoning regulations in 1961 and placed some restrictions on developers. These restrictions were intended to ensure that the new construction buildings would not denigrate quality of life while allowing for the development of new commercial, residential and public property.
Unused air rights from one property can be transferred to another neighboring construction site
Air rights generally refer to the empty space above a property. But what happens when a building is only six stories high when it could potentially be 32? This is referred to as a building’s “unused potential” and a nearby building or development could tap into that potential.
For example, if Building A is “underbuilt” according to the neighborhood’s zoning code, the developer of nearby Building B can acquire Building A’s unused air space and add it to his own site’s allotment to ultimately construct a taller building. The developer of Building B is acquiring and transferring the air space of Building A’s unused potential.
This transfer of air rights process ensures that the neighborhoods that are the sites of new development are also the neighborhoods that currently have underbuilt lots that can pass on their unused air rights to a new development. In the grand scheme of things, this helps ensure that the whole neighborhood doesn’t get overdeveloped and becomes too dense.
Floor-to-Area Ratio (aka FAR)
One of the most critical factors regulating the height of a new development is a building’s floor-to-area ratio (FAR). FAR is the maximum number of square feet that can be built on a site relative to the square footage of the lot. A building’s FAR, however, can vary depending on the location of the lot (i.e., its zoning district or whether it faces a wide street or narrow street), the use of the building (commercial, residential, community or manufacturing) and whether the building offers a benefit to the public (i.e., public outdoor space or affordable housing units).
In New York City, air is just as costly and dear as land
As anyone who’s ever walked through SoHo on a Saturday knows, New York City is one of the densest and most expensive cities in the world. It should come as no surprise then, that air can be just as coveted and costly as land. As a result, owning and selling air rights can be a hugely lucrative process. There are three primary ways this transfer process occurs.
Zoning lot mergers are the most common form of air rights transfer and primarily transpire in Manhattan south of Central Park. In a typical zoning lot merger, the owner of underbuilt property with unused development rights decides to link his property with the developer of an adjacent property or lot so that the developer can build a taller building than what would be otherwise allowed by his property’s FAR. The city does not have to approve this kind of transfer and the owner of the unused development rights stands a chance get a huge profit from the sale of the right. In terms of urban planning goals, zoning lot mergers help ensure that the neighborhoods receiving the most new development are also the neighborhoods that have historically been the most underbuilt.
Special purpose district transfers are another form of air rights transfers. These types of transfers occur in areas deemed by the city to be ‘special purpose districts’ and allow air rights to be exchanged between granting and receiving sites that are not contiguous. The city allows for these sorts of transfers in special cases when there is a particular zoning goal targeting the area. Examples of special purpose districts include the Special West Chelsea district near the High Line and Special Hudson Yards District, among others.
Landmark transfers are another form of exchanging air rights and involve properties and sites that have been deemed historically or culturally significant by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. In these types of transfers, New York City zoning code allows the exchange of air rights between an LPC-designated landmark and other properties wishing to develop land. The two properties do not necessarily have to be contiguous and in many cases are across the street from each other or even down the block from one another. The underlying principle behind landmark transfers is that new construction occurs in neighborhoods that are less dense due to the unused air rights of underbuilt landmarks. An additional advantage to these types of transfers is that destitute landmarks do not have to sell off property to generate revenue but rather can sell off unused air rights.
In NYC, air can be as expensive as land. Read StreetEasy Blog to learn more about the NYC zoning rules that regulate the transferring of air rights.
New Jersey can sometimes feel like it's a world away from New York City, but in reality, it's only a few miles from Jersey City to Manhattan—the Hudson River crossing itself is only about a mile. And one Jersey City resident wants to breach that divide in a unique way: with a pedestrian bridge. ( Jersey Digs) Kevin Shane, who came up with the idea, worked with Jersey-based Jeff Jordan Architects to conceptualize plans for a Hudson River crossing called the Liberty Bridge that would begin in JC, cross the Hudson River, and end in Battery Park City. His reasoning: "With the increase in commuter traffic from Jersey City and Hoboken and the unbearable, often delayed mass transit options that are getting worse over time, the bridge could provide a new access point to Manhattan for the hundreds of thousands that go into NYC each day." The renderings, which you can check out below, show a High Line-esque walkway (with various ADA-compliant access points) with benches, plants, and artwork. The bridge would also, according to the site, "provid[e] a 200+ foot view over the Hudson unlike any experience before." Of course, this is all just a proposal—Shane admits the challenges to getting it done are "monstrous"—but it's certainly interesting to consider.
Manhattan’s luxury residential market maintained its relatively tepid pace. A total of 13 contracts were signed this week at $4 million and above, only a slight improvement over last week’s paltry total of 10. The persistently low demand at the high end has also continued to depress prices, with the average unit this week going into contract for $6.3 million, down from $6.6 million last week. The median price, $5.3 million, was also down from last week’s figure of $5.9 million. The one clear positive sign was a strong fall in the average discount from the original asking price, which came in at 2 percent this week, down from a two-year-high of 12 percent last week. The week’s top contract was for the four-bedroom unit M10 at Witkoff Group’s 150 Charles Street in the West Village. The triplex 5,600-square-foot condo features 19-foot ceilings, a fireplace and a 458-square-foot garden. The unit was sold from floors in 2013 for $12.5 million. The developer allowed that buyer to reassign the contract for the unit. 150 Charles started closing over the summer. Construction there is nearly complete. The second most expensive unit of the week was a co-op, 11C at Halstead Property’s 1125 Park Avenue on the Upper West Side. The nine-room corner unit, which features a library, was asking $9 million. It was last purchased in 2005 for $5.3 million, and has since been renovated. [Olshan Realty] – Ariel Stulberg - See more at: http://therealdeal.com/blog/2015/10/05/luxury-sales-slow-with-13-contracts-at-4m-plus-olshan/#sthash.ngKhoDwh.dpuf
Source: Olshan Realty | 150 Charles Street | 1125 Park Avenue
