By Pamela Engel 7/08/11 2:11pm

Building Expectations

41 Bond Street. Photo: The Wall Street Journal

So Very Pre-Lehman: At 41 Bond, $2,500 a Foot

Manhattan’s housing market hasn’t fully recovered just yet, but you wouldn’t know it if you checked out 41 Bond downtown.

The luxury condo building between Lafayette and Bowery streets nearly sold out in only about a month’s time, and units are priced north of $2,500 per square foot for just the lower-level apartments, according to The Wall Street Journal. Could it be those foreign buyers looking for pieds-a-terre near the financial district? 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 6/20/11 1:01pm

Manhattan Transfers

A beacon of normalcy. (City Realty)

Blue Light Special at One Beacon Court

“There was nothing very special about it,” Warburg broker Richard Steinberg said of his latest sale at One Beacon Court.

Even if this is a very special building. “I guess between 15 CPW and One Beacon, these are the hottest condos in the city,” Mr. Steinberg allowed when The Observer pressed him on the sale. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/14/11 8:35pm

Manhattan Transfers

Not so edgy, are we? (Curbed)

Williamsburg Loses Its Edge: Banker Buys Penthouse

If the construction of The Edge condominiums on the North Brooklyn waterfront, along with North Side Piers next door, did not seal the fate of Williamsburg As We Know It, then the latest sale in the building certainly has.

The two-towered condo project has been the best selling building in New York through the first half of the year, and helping propel it to that point is Jordan Milman, a former Deutsche Banker trader who left the firm last year to help found a hedge fund. According to The Journal, Mr. Milman and his pals at LibreMax weren’t down with the Volker Rule.

Could things get any less hip? Read More