By Kim Velsey 4/30 1:03pm

Market Madness

Spring sales: there's just something in the air (orchidgalore, flickr)

Fire Sale! Luxury Home Contracts Were Raging Last Week

Ah, spring! The season of warm breezes, blossoming trees and brisk home sales is upon us. And last week saw a flurry of activity, with 22 contracts signed for homes $4 million and above, according to the Olshan Luxury Market report.

The number was a luxury market record for 2012, with the biggest contract signed for the $22 million duplex co-op at 88 Central Park West (12 room duplex co-op, park views, 6,000-square feet). However, most of the action was happening downtown and most of it involved condos (10 of the 22 contracts signed were for downtown condos). Read More

By Matt Chaban 3/20 1:04pm

Manhattan Transfers

Courtside at Central Park. (Wikimedia Commons)

NBA Commissioner-to-Be Adam Silver Nets $6.75 M. Beresford Perch

Last month, David Stern declared that Adam Silver, his deputy, should succeed him as commissioner of the NBA.“If I had the decision, if I were doing it myself, he would be the commissioner,” Mr. Stern said at a press conference.

The trappings of such an office demand a certain class, a certain sophistication, so it should come as no surprise that Mr. Silver has just purchased a grand new home on the 14th floor of Central Park West’s beauteous Beresford. Read More

By Elise Knutsen 10/07/11 2:43pm

Manhattan Transfers

740 Park

Gamers Greg and Linda Fischbach Score Buyer at 740 Park

By now, word has traveled around New York’s society circles that video game magnate Gregory Fischbach and his wife Linda have put their home at 740 Park Avenue on the market.

In this market, however, it can take a while for these palatial grandaddy apartments to sell. Neighboring unit 4/5C, for example, has been on the market since August 2008. Initially priced at $35 million that unit has embarrassingly been chopped a full twelve million, remaining unsold at $23 million.

Apparently the Fischbach’s residence, on the 17th floor, will not suffer the same fate. It quietly came on the market earlier this year, and a source with close ties to the godly building has told The Observer that a prospective buyer has just passed the notoriously severe co-op board. A sale at 740, it would seem, is on the horizon. Read More

By Tom Acitelli 7/01/11 11:38am

The Lab

You, under this.

Co-ops vs. Condos: Co-ops Winning Again

Co-ops are the dominant form of for-sale housing on our fair isle, more difficult to get into (persnickety boards that have recently gotten that much more uppity) and generally more expensive to buy (bigger down payments and more stringent financial requirements). They account for roughly two-thirds of the Manhattan housing stock, with condos comprising much of the rest.

But, for a while there during the last decade, condos overtook co-ops as the preferred housing choice, maybe due to looser mortgages or just the simple ubiquity of all those gleaming, new towers. This reporter recalls offhand a study done by The Real Deal magazine that showed more than 9,000 condos proposed for Manhattan in 2005 alone—and most of them subsequently got built.

It appears, though, that the dowager has risen. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/01/11 12:39am

From the Paper

It’ll Be Huguette! Brokers Lick Their Chops Over City’s Biggest Listing—But Who Wants 42 Rooms?

“It hasn’t happened before,” A. Laurence Kaiser IV, the high-end broker of 44 years, said from the car on his way out to Long Island last Thursday. “Never before has there been an apartment of this scale under the same ownership forever. The size, the pedigree and the mystery–it’s an unparalleled combination.”

Forty-two rooms, 15,000 Read More