By Robert Knakal 2/27 9:00am

concrete thoughts

Blitt-Bob-Knakal4

Fingerprinting and Real Estate Taxes: What’s the Common Denominator?

It is very obvious that we are approaching election season in New York, as the fundraisers and calls from local politicians are starting to come with greater frequency.

Given the budget deficits that New York is facing, both at the city and state level, one of the questions I always ask politicians looking for donations is what three specific line items in the city budget do they believe could withstand cutbacks.  I have never received a straightforward answer to this question and most of the time the default position from the politician is, “We must work hard to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.” Read More

By Robert Knakal 2/21 11:00am

concrete thoughts

Robert Knakal.

Multi-Family Properties Reign Supreme

As we have seen, year after year, in the New York City investment sales market, multi-family apartment buildings is the asset class that is always in the highest demand. The inherent upside potential within these properties, based on artificially low rents created by rent regulation, keeps investors flocking to this product type and makes regulated apartment buildings the easiest property type to finance. Read More

By Robert Knakal 1/31 3:06pm

concrete thoughts

Blitt - Bob Knakal

The Manhattan Review: A Closer Look at How the Submarkets Fared in 2011

As Manhattan always sets the pace for New York City, this week we will take a look at how its leading submarket performed last year.

In 2011, the dollar volume of sales in the Manhattan submarket (defined as south of 96th Street on the East Side and south on 110th Street on the West Side) showed dramatic improvement over 2010 levels. There was $21.7 billion in investment sale transactions last year, up from the $11.6 billion that occurred in 2010, an 87 percent increase. Read More

By Robert Knakal 1/03 1:30pm

concrete thoughts

Robert Knakal.

With Current Tax Rates Ending, Capital Gains Taxes Threaten to Move Markets

Recently, one of the questions I have been asked most frequently is what factor will have the most significant impact on the investment sales market in 2012. Interest rates could have the most profound impact on our market, particularly if they rise more quickly and to a greater degree than most people expect (which is not an outlandish assumption), but I believe taxes will have the biggest impact on market activity, especially the volume of sales. By taxes, I mean capital gains taxes or at least the anticipation of their rising. Read More

By Sam Chandan 12/08/11 1:00pm

the lead indicator

Sam Chandan

The Retail Recovery: A Work in Progress

Along the most coveted urban corridors and across core regional malls owned by the Real Estate Investment Trusts, retail property fundamentals improved in the third quarter.

Modest but observable gains in occupancy rates, rents and sales per square foot in these segments of the retail market contrast with broader metrics, however.

Measured across lifestyle and Read More

By Robert Knakal 12/08/11 12:41pm

concrete thoughts

Robert Knakal

As the U.S. Economy Goes, So Goes Retail

When we look at the performance of the retail sector of the building sales market, we generally look at how the retail rental market is doing to gain some insight into what can be expected on the sales side.

To a large degree, the health of this sector is dependent upon consumer sentiment and, subsequently, Read More

By Robert Knakal 11/08/11 9:19am

Robert Knakal

Outer Borough Investment Sales Mixed

For the past two weeks, the focus has been on the overall investment-sales activity for the third quarter of 2011 along with the market performance on a year-to-date basis. A healthy increase in the dollar volume of sales occurred with $19.2 billion thus far in 2011, up from the $14.2 billion in 2010 and significantly higher than the anemic $6.1 billion in 2009. For some perspective, the volume in 2007, at the peak of the market, was $62.2 billion.

In terms of the number of properties sold, there have been 1,548 traded thus far in 2011. Therefore, the market is on pace for over 2,000 sales this year, which would be up about 22 percent from the 1,690 sales last year and 46 percent ahead of the 1,410 sales that occurred in 2009. Once again, for perspective, there was 5,018 properties sold in 2007 at the peak. Read More

By Robert Knakal 7/28/11 9:12am

concrete thoughts

Blitt - Bob Knakal

Breaking It Down by Borough

In last week’s column, we took a look at the overall New York City building sales market and compared its recent performance with past periods. This week, we will take a similar look at the first half of 2011 (1H11) but will analyze the performance of each individual geographic submarket.

As I have written for some time, we fully expected the Manhattan market to lead the entire marketplace out of the downturn and are indeed seeing this happen. Sales volume picked up in Manhattan before it did in other submarkets, and we are starting to see value appreciation in Manhattan.

In the outer boroughs (including northern Manhattan), sales volume has been lagging and, in some cases, has only recently started to recover. Read More