By Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke 2/04 5:09pm

Brooklyn Housing

Screen Shot 2013-02-04 at 5.05.46 PM

Song-A-Day Man Needs a Roommate (Video)

Fresh from his well-documented break-up, Jonathan Mann aka the Song-A-Day Man, is looking for a roommate. And how else would he publicize his search than through song?

Mr. Mann, who has been writing and performing a song a day for the past 1,492 days, had a viral hit last December when he and his now-ex-girlfriend announced via song that they were breaking up (he wanted kids, she didn’t). And now, Mr. Mann is looking for a for someone to share his Williamsburg (of course) apartment.  Read More

By Rachel R. White 5/09/12 10:55am

Arrangements

(Getty Images)

Home Invasion! How Old Is Too Old for Roommates?

When Michelle, a writer working on a first novel, tells people her husband, Daniel, is a hedge fund manager, they often remark, “Oh, honey, you did well.” And she did. The recently married pair live in a large dazzling loft in Dumbo. They currently rent, though they’ve started looking at places to buy and are Read More

By Michael Ewing 2/23/12 11:15am

The Mysteries of Brooklyn

Babies on board in Brooklyn... (New York Shitty

Strollers Clogging Brooklyn Apartments, Mass Hysteria Seizes Market

Williamsburg daddies are having a hard time finding space for both their fedora collections and their toddlers. The market, that once blossomed as a studio, one- and two-bedroom artist haven, is struggling to adjust to new family-orientated demands, the Journal notes.

Only 13 percent of the apartments on the market in Williamsburg are above 1500 square feet. The rate is even worse in Fort Greene, at 7 percent. Across the river and through the forest of Central Park, a staggering 65% of apartments are larger than 1500 square feet on the Upper West Side. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 10/04/11 12:15pm

Troubling Developments

The Pavillion, 500 East 77th Street

People Who Live in Waterproof White Brick Boxes…

If you’re considering moving into a white brick building, perhaps to compliment your Mad Men craze for skinny ties and dry martinis, don’t. The bleached blocks, heavily used in the postwar building boom, have fallen distinctly out of style, both aesthetically and materially, according to The New York Times. Once championed as an easy solution to the wear and tear weather wreaks on traditional building materials, as well as a symbol of clean city living, highrises with white brick facades are crumbling around the city. Read More

By Rex Reed 7:27pm

movies

Speedman, Hampshire and Baruchel.

When Good Neighbors Hop the Fence

In dramatic Contrast to the usual vapid monotony that permeates most Canadian  films, Good Neighbors is a toxic thriller with unbearable intensity about an odd group of tenants in a small Montreal apartment house in the dead of a Quebec winter. Shades of Roman Polanski’s The Tenant and Alfred  Hitchcock’s I Confess come to mind Read More

By Robert Knakal 7/14/11 12:09pm

concrete thoughts

Blitt - Bob Knakal

Rent Regulations: the Good, the Bad and the Endlessly Ugly

While the recent extension of New York’s rent-regulation system came as no surprise to the vast majority of participants in our multifamily market, the results were still disappointing and have left many owners concerned that if this is the result obtained with a Republican-controlled Senate, what would occur with Democrats in power? Yes, the renewal terms could have been much worse, but that doesn’t diminish the negative implications this has on our housing market.

Let’s take a look at the terms of Chapter 97 of the Laws of 2011 and their potential impact. Read More

By Pamela Engel 7/08/11 11:19am

apartments

They all look the same, really.

We All Pay the Same Manhattan Rents Now

As it turns out, we’re all screwed (except uptown)—the latest second-quarter data from Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel shows there isn’t much discrepancy between rents on the East Side, West Side and downtown in Manhattan. And the net rates just keep on rising. Read More