Spring sales: there's just something in the air (orchidgalore/Flickr)

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).

"One thing I can say absolutely is that condos are outselling co-ops two to one and downtown is as popular as uptown," said Donna Olshan, author of the eponymous report and a brokerage firm bearing her name.

And it's not only new developments. Downtown townhouses are also selling well, with 17 sales in 2012 (compared with 9 on the townhouse obsessed Upper East Side).

And what makes downtown condos and townhouses so popular? Well, no one is particularly fond of the co-op approval process, and it's even less popular among one of the largest pied-a-terre seeking crowds—foreigner buyers. Ms. Olshan noted that Jonathan Miller had recently estimated that foreign sales were responsible for as many as a third of condo and townhouse sales, up from roughly one-in-five.

The average asking price for condos $4 million and above was $2,530 per square foot, Ms. Olshan said, with the average size being 2,991-square-feet. Ms. Olshan said that the second week of February also saw a lot of action—with 21 contracts signed, but "this is the spring market," (20 contracts were signed last week).

During the same week last year, there were 16 homes in contract in the $4 million and above price range.

"Last summer we hit that terrible August with the meltdown in Greece and Congress not being able to pass the budget. The theory is that a lot of people who were interested in buying hit the pause button," said Ms. Olshan. "Now, the spring is playing catch-up and we're seeing demand from tons of people."

kvelsey@observer.com

She can't settle down (Chesi - Photos CC, flickr)

Sometimes you have to say goodbye— relationships fail, love fades, and it comes time to leave the pair of West Village condos that you thought you'd be with forever.

Our favorite Friend Jennifer Aniston has sold her pair of apartments at 299 W. 12th Street for $6.5 million, the New York Post reports. And apparently she was somewhat desperate to be rid of them, letting them go at a $500,000 loss.

Ms. Aniston bought the condos—a one-bedroom on the 17th floor and a one-bedroom penthouse—less than a year ago, under the name of her now-dead dog Norman. Construction plans were reportedly in the works for combining the terrace-laden penthouse with the unit below, but it was not to be.

The penthouse has “one of the most beautiful terraces in the city, with unobstructed forever views,” Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Bruce Ehrmann told the Post.

It wasn't the condos fault, it was just that Ms. Aniston, who is now dating Justin Theroux, wanted/needed? something different, something the condos couldn't give her.

Could the condo sale signal her engagement to Mr. Theroux? A pregnancy? A futile attempt to stem the tide of despair over Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's impending nuptials?

We doubt it. Ms. Aniston has a history of New York apartment flings, looking everywhere from the Financial District to Union Square in her search for the one. And there were signs of trouble early on. In November, Ms. Aniston was spotted leaving an $8.5 million apartment at 50 Gramercy Park North.

Ms. Aniston will now presumably seek comfort in the arms of the $21 million Beverly Hills mansion that she purchased in January.

kvelsey@observer.com

Get out the bleach? (carlpenergy, flickr)

Many a New York basement and unventilated bathroom is thick with the stuff; the city's courts may be next.

A few weeks ago, Manhattan's appellate court overturned an earlier decision blocking damage claims for health problems resulting from living in moldy buildings, The Journal reports—a decision that could result in a wave of personal injury lawsuits.

The court decided that scientific evidence now indicates a causal relationship between mold and health problems, opening a legal door that has been closed since 2008, when a judge found insufficient evidence that mold or a damp indoor environment causes illness.

The change has left building owners, co-op and condo lawyers worrying about the musty recesses of their buildings, and whether a damp basement could be grounds for a lawsuit, according to the Journal.

And worry they should. Last year, housing inspectors issued 15,942 violations for mold-related conditions, which could equal an awful lot of lawsuits.

Dwellers of dank apartments experiencing headaches, nausea and respiratory distress can thank Hell's Kitchen tenant Brenda Cornell for bringing mold back to the court's attention.

Cornell, who lived above a Hell's Kitchen basement that was "damp, musty, and harboring bugs and mice," is seeking $11.8 million in damages, according to the lawsuit.

Cornell said she experienced dizziness, chest tightness, congestion, shortness of breath, a rash, swollen eyes and a metallic taste in her mouth after workers started construction on a basement. The problems abated after Cornell fled the apartment, the lawsuit claims.

"It is going to result in a heck of a lot more lawsuits being filed by people who have mold- and moisture-related conditions and suffer from health effects," Bill Sothern, a certified industrial hygienist told the The Journal.

He may be right. In Texas, where mold-afflicted residents have been long been able to sue, the number of mold-related claims shot up sharply in the early 2000s, costing Texas insurance companies approximately $4 billion.

kvelsey@observer.com

She's living out front, with one of those cabanas to call her own.

When Nina Lorez Collins and her husband moved into 212 Columbia Heights in 2005, The Times declared that "the Manhattanization of Brooklyn took a great leap past the point of no return." One violent divorce later, Ms. Collins, a once celebrated literary agent, put the house on the market last fall. The listing bragged of "harbor views from every floor," which helped it fetch a record $11 million, the most ever paid for a home in Brooklyn Heights.

So would Ms. Collins be returning to Manhattan after her journey in the wilderness? It turns out she could not even abandon those harbor views, as she has moved down the hill to One Brooklyn Bridge Park, the hulking Jehovah's Witnesses printing plant turned condo complex.

A spacious square. (Streeteasy)

Two days after the sale of her townhouse closed, Ms. Collin's paid $3.51 million for a four bedroom condo at the development on January 19, according to a freshly filed deed. That is more than the $3.08 million asking price from the summer of 2010, though the premium not only reflects a stronger real estate market but also the inclusion of a terrace unit, one of those clever carve-outs so popular during the real estate boom—might I interest you in your own private cabana?

The unit is one of the townhouse-style homes facing the harbor, with its own private entrance and a pocket terrace. Built as a duplex, the living area and one bedroom are located on the upper floor with two more bedrooms and the master suite on the lower level spread across an ample 3,482 square feet—not quite the 7,000 footer Ms. Collins once called home, but still none too shabby. Plus, Brooklyn Bridge Park is right out front her door, no need to cross the BQE anymore to get there.

"One Brooklyn Bridge Park is a monumental building, grand in scope, scale, and style," MNS broker Rachel Poggi writers in her listing. Kind of like Ms. Collins, who has become HuffPo's own Carrie Bradshaw, writing about the travails of her friend's marriages and her own. After spending two decades in the publishing industry, Ms. Collins is now at work on a memoir of her own.

But with only four bedrooms, where will Ms. Collins' four children, whom she often writes about, stay? Perhaps the naughtiest child can take up residence in the cabana.

Want to see the place for yourself? Someone posted an incredibly thorough (and rambling) tour on YouTube.

And the cabana.

This guy is good.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

Give us your tired, your weary, your wealthy.

Wonder why luxury real estate is so expensive and hard to find these days? Blame the foreigners!

A report from Stribling released Friday gives some hard numbers to something New Yorkers have been complaining for years: foreigners are buying up all the best apartments. According to Crain's, the brokerage claims that about 33 percent of all condo purchasers and 15 percent of all buyers in New York City are from other countries. When the housing market was stronger, foreigners comprised up to 30 percent of all property buyers in the city.

But why do foreigners have such a propensity to snatch up prime real estate in New York? Aside from the obvious reasons (New York is, of course, the capital the world), apparently out-of-towners tend to have lots of cold, hard cash, something absolutely irresistible to Big Apple brokers.

On the bright side, foreigners are largely credited with keeping the city's housing market afloat. On the downside, they drive up prices for the rest of us.

Other revelations? Foreigners like both modern and pre-war buildings and come from all corners of the globe.

New York City property has long attracted foreign buyers, a trend that took off in 1976 when the Olympic Tower opened on Fifth Avenue and East 51st Street, according to Stribling. It noted that foreign buyers are attracted to new modern, glassy towers as well as pre-war properties that have been converted into luxury condos. The brokerage also noted that biggest overseas buyers today are those in Russia, China, Brazil and Argentina. Back in the early years of the new millennium it was Europeans, led by the Irish who led the charge in New York.

Should you manage to sneak your way into a condo building, odds are at least one neighbor on either side of you will be a Russian oligarch or Saudi oil baron with a suitcase full of cash.

eknutsen@observer.com

We're missing our siblings. (Brownstoner)

Hudson Yards. Atlantic Yards. The Williamsburg waterfront. For the past decade, residential development has been defined by the creation and conversion of soaring condo towers across the city. From Extell’s Ariel twins on the Upper West Side to so many of the Financial District’s former office buildings, this was the way we built, the way we were to live. But the era of the condo project is over, according to The Journal.

Because banks will not lend, developers have lost their zest for large-scale projects. Small loans in the $25 million to $75 million range are becoming available, but with rare exceptions like the Rudins’ St. Vincent’s project, anything upwards of $500 million is nearly impossible to come by. This has left developers taking a different tack.

At least a dozen boutique projects in Manhattan and Brooklyn are now under construction or set to break ground in the coming months. At least six more are launching sales—from the Story House, an eight-unit condo in the Flatiron District, to 174 Jackson in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [snip]

For condo buyers that means a very different product. The brand-new 40th-floor bachelor pad with sweeping views of Central Park could become rare, as developers increasingly sell the pleasures of a project's intimacy or exclusivity.

"Buyers recognize the scarcity value of these projects," said Joe McMillan, chief executive of DDG Partners, which received a $26 million construction loan for a brand-new roughly 40-unit condo building at 345 W. 14th St. near the Meatpacking District.

But this also means a big problem for the city. There is still a housing crunch, and while luxury condos were not going to fix that, a shortage of new units of any type still creates problems. That is part of the reason it is no cheaper renting now than it was three or four years ago, even though we’re still in the midst of one of the worst recessions in decades.

Meanwhile, developers keep dreaming up their big plans. Oldies like the Edge and Northside Piers in Williamsburg are both short one additional tower, and with units still left in the buildings and financing far away, who knows when they will do anything more than serve flea market food. As for all those unfinished sites up an down the coast, their beginning is anyone’s guess. It also leaves the Rudins and Relateds and Ratners of the city battling for what financing is out there.

New York will build big again, we always do--don’t forget the booms of the ‘80s on the Upper East Side, or the ‘30s on the Upper East Side for that matter. Still, it might not be until the 2030s we start doing it again.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The Fresh Direct fridge goes here.

One winter evening in 2006, host Martin Bashir’s voice intoned over the opening of Nightline: “Meet the brash, young real estate assassin, selling lavish dream apartments to clients with money to burn.”

The TV screen bled to an earnest-looking Michael Shvo. “When you see a photo of the New York skyline,” the 32-year-old informed us, “these are buildings I made happen.”

And what made Mr. Shvo happen?

The New York condo boom, in no small part a product of 9/11. For several years during the last decade, he ran at the vanguard of a marketing movement for thousands of new condo units, one that emphasized Fresh Direct, spa treatments, 5 percent down for multi-million-dollar properties—and sex. Andre Balazs and partners pitched a steel-and-glass tent at a corner of the financial district, and called it William Beaver House; ostensibly after the corner’s cross-streets but the marketing was all about the middle word’s ribaldry.

Similarly lascivious condos popped up from Harlem to the Lower East Side to Long Island City, changing neighborhood demographics—everyone was to have the tastes of a 27-year-old VP at Goldman Sachs, it seemed—their scaffolding a ubiquitous symbol of the city’s slog back from the terrorist attacks.

Those attacks rendered an already recessionary economy supine. Most tellingly, companies fled, especially from downtown; and borrowing money became much easier for both home buyers and the people building the homes—the Fed, for instance kept the capo di tutti capi federal funds rate at 0 for nearly three years after the attacks.

“What happened was that it created this unnatural affordability for housing,” said Jonathan Miller, C.E.O. and president of New York appraisal firm Miller Samuel. “If we did not have 9/11, we would have probably gone into an expanding recession; and the Fed would have probably lowered rates to respond to the recession. But I think the symbolism of getting the economy back on its feet led them to keep rates at 0 for too long.”

Through this combination of cheap cash and vacant property, more than 6.5 million square feet of office space in lower Manhattan alone was converted to condos in the decade after the attacks, according to brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle—more than three Empire State Buildings’ worth. Much more commercial space would follow, perhaps most tellingly in the old warehouses of the Brooklyn waterfront.

Within a few years, condos were routinely outselling the co-ops that had dominated the city’s for-sale housing for as long as anyone could remember (today co-ops still outnumber condos 3 to 1). In 2006, 57 percent of all Manhattan apartment sales were just newly built condos, according to Miller Samuel. And they were going in Manhattan for well over $1,000 a square foot on average, more than co-ops. Buyers were often allowed to borrow up to 95 percent of the price (a mortgage share most co-ops would never permit). Everyone was winning.

And now? Condos still sell, though at a leaner pace—they accounted for 48 percent of Manhattan apartment trades in the second quarter of 2011. And development has slowed considerably amid a tighter lending climate since the late 2008 collapse of Lehman.

Manhattan condos, looking back, burned brightest between 2004 and 2008, in tandem with the rapid development, the loose money and the seminal marketing. All of that’s over now.

The 200-plus unsold condos at William Beaver House are rentals, acquired through a loan sale late last year by CIM, an L.A. outfit that loves distressed assets. And Mr. Shvo, the “real estate assassin?” Emails to an account that The Observer knows was once hopping were not returned. And a phone call to his offices was answered thusly: “At the subscriber’s request, this phone does not accept incoming calls.”

tacitelli@observer.com

So long, it's been good frustrating you. (MVVA)

If they can reach a compromise on Capital Hill, why not on the Brooklyn waterfront?

After years of bickering over Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Bloomberg administration has finally struck a deal with two local pols who opposed plans to erect condos along the park to help pay for its maintenance. Instead of the two new condo towers, along with the hulking One Brooklyn Bridge Park, they have settled on one shorter tower, though maybe still a second one, along with a handful of additional funding mechanisms to make up the difference.

Decades in the making, the park finally took off during the real estate boom, when the idea of condo towers sandwiched between the BQE and the derelict docks no longer seemed absurd. Instead of paying annual real estate taxes, that money would be diverted to maintenance for the park. Some people, who have the audacity to think the public sector and not the private should be responsible for building and maintaining parks, were appalled. The Brooklyn Paper began calling it Brooklyn Bridge "Park" for this very reason, while The Observer prefers the name libertarian parks. Then there were the Brooklyn Heights residents, who feared the views from their multimillion-dollar brownstones would be besmirched.

A committee set-up last year sought to find alternatives that could raise enough money to fund the park without having to build any condos, such as building a parking lot—which is so much better than condos. This proved untenable, at least on its own. As had been the previous hope, a rezoning and air rights sale of the Watchtower properties in Dumbo owned by the Jehovah's Witnesses will go forward, but it will only replace one of the condos, at Atlantic Avenue, and then only if there is enough interest in buying the development rights. The city explains the deal thusly:

Such a rezoning and sale to tax-paying entities would have to take place by December 31, 2013 to be counted as an offset. For each square foot of Watchtower property rezoned and sold, the Pier 6 development sites would then be reduced by 0.30 square feet. Total incremental revenues allocable to the park from these sites would be capped at $6.27 million per fiscal year, escalating at 3 percent per year (or the amount previously anticipated from the Pier 6 Development Site).

People had better hope the market picks up by then. Meanwhile, a tower at John Street remains, but it has been reduced to a height of 140 feet from 170, with 40,000 square feet less of development.

“By reducing or eliminating housing and requiring Watchtower and other alternatives to be used, we have dramatically changed the plan,” State Senator Daniel Squadron said in a release. “We found a path to complete Brooklyn Bridge Park and address long-standing community concerns about housing on the site.

Those other funding mechanisms include increased concessions and new parking fees, which will raise $750,000 per year. So if we won't commercialize the park one way, we will another. “Before investing further City capital to build out the park, it was critical that we come to an agreement on a long-term funding plan for its maintenance so the park would be self-sustaining," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

Bad as this may sound to some purists, considering parks are closing around the country, it may not be such a bad deal.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @MC_NYC

The Edge, a rendering.

Surprise, surprise—the new Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel report shows that North Brooklyn home sales have more than tripled during the past year, which is just further evidence of expansion in an area that's growing in popularity with the young people.

Sales in North Brooklyn, which includes Williamsburg and Greenpoint, went from 127 units at this time last year to 402 units in the second quarter of 2011, a significant increase that could partly be attributed to trendy new condo development The Edge. The complex has 565 units and, according to its website, is more than 50 percent sold.

Jonathan Miller, author of the report, agreed with us (that made us feel smart!) that The Edge could have a part in the major sales increase.

"Certainly, that's part of it; just in general across the board there's been a real uptick in new development sales," Mr. Miller said "One out of four sales in Brooklyn are new development sales."

And now is the time to buy, apparently: the median sales price in North Brooklyn is down 4.3 percent from this time last year, settling at $560,000. Mr. Miller does not think this is indicative of a trend, but says it might just depend on what type of properties are on the market (condos at The Edge range in price from $455,000 to $2.735 million).

"The pricing has been bouncing around over the last year, it's been fluctuating from a low of $492,000 to a high of $638,000, so we're right in the middle," he said. "It's been bouncing around and it's sort of subject to the shift in the mix of what's available. ... The credit condition and climate condition hasn't changed, this seems to be independent of that."

pengel@observer.com

Seal in '06. Those were the days.

Gregory Spock is used to performing librettos before rapt audiences in concert halls from Hartford to Florence. Recently, the 26-year-old has found more intimate venues within the exposed-brick walls of New York townhouses. A Roland keyboard or a baby grand to his right, a pink bow tie around his neck, a songbook in his hands—Verdi always wows `em—Mr. Spock delivers bursts of baroque beauty, all for salesmanship.

Mr. Spock joined Manhattan brokerage Rubicon Property four months ago, after receiving his broker’s license in the winter. He said his new boss liked him for his creativity, which means saving money on those showings.

“A lot of people have food or wine now, but the entertainment isn’t thought out.”

Because who isn’t lulled into signing a multi-million dollar contract by the plaintive moans of Aida?

During last decade’s real estate boom, the real estate party, usually in a newly built condo tower, was a staple of the industry. After the recession hit, nobody could much afford them. Now they seem to be hobbling back, along with the real estate market.

“In some ways, it’s just kind of a relief,” said the blogger-turned-flogger Joey Arak. Mr. Arak spent years penning “Hangover Reports” while he was senior editor of Curbed New York, and now he is helping to throw them. “During the downturn, there was a feeling that it was wrong to celebrate, wrong to spend money, wrong to buy real estate. Now it’s such a relief that we don’t have to worry about that anymore and can just enjoy ourselves.”

Mr. Arak said the turning point was a party last summer at Williamsburg development 58 Metropolitan, a hulking faux warehouse loft number near the waterfront. It was not very fancy, just fried chicken from Pies ‘n’ Thighs and a few kegs from Brooklyn Brewery. “But it was the first party anyone had invited us to in ages, and people were celebrating and enjoying themselves, and it was nice to know you could do that again.”

When people who know speak of real estate soirees, a blustery night on March 2, 2006 almost inevitably comes up. That was when developers Gary Barnett and Shaya Boymelgreen threw dueling parties at their respective projects—the Aldyn, then still a vacant lot on Riverside South, and 20 Pine: The Collection, one of so many odes to FiDi debauchery from that era. Uptown, Seal performed. Downtown, John Legend.

These days, revelers are more likely to find a decent cheese plate and some cocktails from hip speakeasy PDT or a food demonstration by one of Danny Meyer’s chefs and an assortment of quaffable wine. “If you’re lucky, there’s Champagne and it’s good,” said Leonard Steinberg, a top broker at Douglas Elliman. One of the big differences between the parties of today and those of yore is that in the past there were bachanals. Now we have box socials.

“I remember when the go-go dancers came out at the William Beaver House,” Mr. Steinberg said. The ugly yellow obelisk of condos was erected in the FiDi by Andre Balazs and Tamir Sapir. It fell into foreclosure last year and was converted into chintzy rentals. “When the go-go dancers come out, you know the party is over.”