nyc housing | Kevin Brunnock | NYC Real Estate Professional

Tag: nyc housing

December 8, 2020

Tips for New York Home Appraisal

If you are looking to buy a new home or just refinance your current mortgage, your lender will want to schedule an appraisal. This objective assessment helps to determine what your home is worth. Something that ranks high to all lenders is the consideration of collateral on their loan. Whether you are buying or selling, it will help you get a feel for how appraisals work. Here’s how you can prepare for your NYC home appraisal.

What’s Involved?

So what should you expect if you have someone come to your home to appraise it? An appraiser’s job is very similar to a home inspector’s position, with some tiny differences. Items that range from big to small will be taken into account by your appraiser, so that geometric mural that you did during the lockdown may need to go.

Things That Go Into a Home Appraisal

While your potential buyer may love your place and decide that they are ok with your asking price, all lenders will require you to have your home appraised to determine its value. To help them arrive at an estimate, they will look at the following:

Your home’s exterior: The appraiser will look at just about every part of the construction of your home. From the roof to the foundation, walls, and flooring, these will all be the potential cause for the house’s value to decrease if the appraiser finds something wrong.
Size: A big part of determining the home’s value is the slot’s size and square foot of the lot. The more rooms and bathrooms that a house has can help to raise the value of the home. Knowing the floor area or FAR of the property will tell you if space has room for extensions, which can be another factor in the value.
Condition: Just like your exterior, the appraiser will go over the inside of your home with a fine-tooth comb. The flooring, kitchen, plumbing, electrical, and lighting are all components that your appraiser will be assessing.
Improvements: Your appraiser can also help you determine what might need to be updated to increase your home’s value. Renovating a bathroom or adding an HVAC system can add years of life to the property, which helps increase the value.

Who Receives the Appraisal Information?

The final verdict will be gathered by your appraiser and at the disposal of who ordered it; this is usually the lender. It is then up to them how the information is distributed, regardless of who paid for it. If the buyer asks for an appraisal, the lender is obligated by law to release that information. Your appraisal is valid for six months, but market prices can change quickly. Many lenders will only consider an appraisal to be valid for about three months. Any changes to the market or the property can drastically alter the value price.

April 10, 2018

5 Essential Books for Commercial Real Estate Professionals

The best real estate professionals are always looking to learn. Whether it’s making the most of new technology or being as productive as possible, there’s always room for improvement. The problem is, there are hundreds of books, podcasts, and seminars to choose from. In this post, real estate professionals will discover the 5 most important books to advance their career.

1) The Millionaire Real Estate Agent

This book, written by Gary Keller, is widely considered the best book for real estate professionals in existence.

Real estate professionals will be given clear, actionable steps they can use to improve right away.

The book is most helpful for brokers, but it doesn’t focus on just one specialization – so almost anyone involved in real estate can benefit from it.

2) Real Estate Finance and Investments

It’s rare that a book can help both the beginner and the experienced professional – but William Brueggeman and Jeffrey Fisher accomplished just that when they put together this text.

This book not only teaches readers how to invest in real estate, but it also has a lot of complex strategies and formulas. This makes it an excellent reference guide to always have handy.

3) Raving Fans!

This book is all about providing the best customer service in order to close deals as a real estate agent.

Readers will discover how to clarify their vision so that customers want to do business with them. Then, the book goes a step further and shows the reader how to make those new customers lifelong fans.

4) The 4-Hour Work Week

If someone is looking to improve their productivity as a real estate professional, this book should be at the top of their list.

They’ll learn every possible way to get the most out of their time, whether it’s outsourcing administrative tasks or attracting new customers.

5) Principles of Commercial Real Estate Underwriting

This classic text is an excellent reference material for someone who needs a refresher on certain aspects of real estate.

With this book handy, the reader can underwrite commercial real estate assets with ease.

These are the best books available for commercial real estate professionals. Whether a professional is looking to simply improve their productivity, have a go-to guide, or immerse themselves in the industry – it’s all possible with the books on this list.

January 14, 2017

Changes We Can Expect See In New York City’s Housing Market In 2017

New York City’s luxury real estate market cooled down in 2016. The number of high-end sales went down 18 percent, according to realtors Olshan Realty Inc. This general trend was predicted by a site called StreetEasy, which predicts New York City’s real estate market trends every year. If they were able to get that right, there’s a good chance we should be trusting their prediction for 2017. Here are a few things we can expect to see happen to the New York City housing market according to StreetEasy:

Manhattan’s Sales Market Will Experience Slow Growth

Out of the five boroughs, Manhattan is expected to have slowest sales market growth. Over the past few years, high demand and high-priced inventory lead to high resale prices in Manhattan. However, the market is now being dragged down by these luxuries. In November 2015, Manhattan’s luxury tier became the first segment of the market to see price declines and the trend has continued since. This trend will most likely spread to all segments of the market. 2017 is expected to be one of the slowest years for price growth for Manhattan sales in years.

2) Neighborhoods Will Change Due To Transportation Changes

The real estate conversation in 2017 will be largely affected by public transportation. There will be a number of major public transportation changes in New York City in the near future, including the opening of the Second Avenue Subway, the L-train shutdown, the M-train repairs and the 7-train extension to Hudson Yards. According to research, rent and sales prices increase when a home is close to convenient transportation.

3) People Will Turn To Homeownership

In 2017, we can expect rent to increase across all five boroughs. Rent is likely to far outpace income growth. This past November, Queens rents increased 4.1 percent year-over-year, outpacing both Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over the next year, Queens rents are expected to continue increasing by 2.4 percent, while Manhattan rents are expected to increase by 2 percent and Brooklyn rents by 1 percent. As sales price growth slows and rents increase, many renters who have saved for down payments will become homeowners in 2017. If we look at the tipping point, or the point in time at which the costs of buying will be less than renting, we see evidence of the shift to home buying occurring in the near future. According to StreetEasy, more than 80 percent of all New York City neighborhoods that have recorded tipping points, have tipping points of less than five years as of November 2016.

4) Hottest Neighborhood Will Be Kingsbridge; The Rest Will Be In Brooklyn

Each year, StreetEasy comes out with a list of the city’s hottest neighborhoods, showing where New York apartment shoppers are expected to look in the coming year. At the top of the 2017 list is Kingsbridge in the Bronx. Six of the ten spots are occupied by Brooklyn neighborhoods. How present were Manhattan and Queens? The only two neighborhoods from these boroughs that make the cut for 2017 are Yorkville in Manhattan, and Astoria and Bayside in Queens.

Overall, we can expect a lot of changes in New York City’s real estate market in 2017. It will be exciting to see whether these predictions come true.

May 11, 2016

Large-Scale Real Estate Projects Underway in New York City

New York City has a number of large-scale real estate projects in the works, headed by numerous Manhattan developers, including Joseph Chetrit’s Chetrit Group, L+M Development, Sumaida + Khurana, and Kenneth Horn’s Alchemy Properties.

Half of permits filed during the month of April were for projects greater than 100,000 square feet, according to PropertyShark. The other half consisted of filings for residential projects, as well as a Brooklyn office, school expansions, and hotels. These projects,whether launched by larger or smaller firms, are important constructional developments, offering New Yorkers housing and schooling options, as well as a closer proximity to retail outlets.

One of New York City’s more prolific affordable developers L+M Development Partners filed a permit application for a 59-story, 266,000-square-foot residential tower, which will be located in the Financial District (23 Park Row). Joe and Rachelle Friedman, the founders of J&R Music and Computer World, partnered with L+M Development Partners to construct the apartment complex, which will hold 108 apartments. Also, COOKFOX Architects have been slated to design the property.

A 19-story,174,000-square-foot Downtown Brooklyn office building may be erected at 540 Fulton Street if the Dushey family’s Jenel Management has anything to say about it. The future office building will have three levels of retail space, and it will be replacing the two-story, 26,000-square-foot retail establishment that stood there one year ago prior to demolition.

The Tel Aviv, Israel-based property management firm Sumaida + Khurana and the Chelsea-based firm LENY are planning an 80-unit, 34-story, 123,000-square-foot condo tower in Hell’s Kitchen (609 West 56th Street). Also, on the base floor, there will be retail outlets available. In addition to the Hell’s Kitchen property, they 823 11th Avenue.

In partnership with Shifra Hager’s Cornell Realty Management, Joseph Chetrit’s Chetrit Group acquired a number of retail properties near Penn Station in a deal with investor Charles D. Cohen. After parting ways, the Chetrit Group filed a permit for a 122,000-square-foot hotel, which will have approximately 33 floors and 300 rooms. The proposed hotel is expected to be located at 249-263 West 34th Street.

Another hotel is planned for Long Island City, where investment firm Brooklyn North Capital filed a permit for a 198-key Red Lion Hotel. Expected to open in 2019, the building will stand 14 floors and will have 61,000 square feet of space. The investment firm purchased the site, located at 38-15 9th Street, for $4.7 million in March.

iStar, which is a real estate finance firm and developer, is planning to construct a 135-unit, 107,000-square-foot supportive housing project just minutes from Coney Island’s boardwalk. They leased the promising space from the city’s Economic Development Corporation last year. In months and years to come, iStar plans to build 1 million square feet of housing in the area.

The New York City School Construction Authority is planning a five-story, 96,000-square-foot expansion of P.S. 19 in North Corona, Queens (40-10 99th Street) and they’re planning to add a five-story, 67,000-square-foot building at P.S. 46 Edgar Allen Poe branch in Fordham, Bronx (2760 Briggs Avenue). These changes will bring forth more space for cafeterias, classrooms, auditoriums, offices, and an outdoor playground.

March 31, 2015

How Are Millennials Affecting the Housing Market?

That the odds stacked against Millennials isn’t necessarily secret. Those who are between the ages of eighteen and thirty-three have several factors set against them in the search for financial stability. Many struggle under crushing student loan debt; others can’t find a well-paying job to even begin paying off said loan debt. Between these and any number of other contributing factors, Millennials struggle to enter the housing market. As a result, several authorities in the real estate market were recently asked whether they thought Millennials were dragging down the housing market; their responses were collected for an article recently completed by U-T San Diego.

Nearly all those asked noted that several factors that are beyond the control of Millennials play a role in their difficulties to join the housing market and become homeowners. Several factors include difficulty paying off their very expensive college degree—specifically in finding an actual job that is capable of paying off student debt—tight lending standards, high housing prices, a delay in marrying and/or starting a family and hesitancy due to seeing friends and family suffer through debt of their own. As a result of all of these factors, Millennials are forced to live at home with parents for an extended period of time—longer than any other previous generation. Alternatively, even those who are able to find a job to help pay off their various debts, the job does not often pay enough to afford to become a homeowner in the slowly recovering economy; many are forced to settle as renters.

However, despite all of the struggles that exist against Millennials, many of the authorities asked believe that the desire to become homeowners is strong. Leslie Kilpatrick, president of the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors, cited a study recently conducted by the California Association of Realtors found that the majority of Millennials plan to buy a home in the next five years. Although all those asked agree that an economic turn around is needed for this statistic to become a reality, some are seeing the signs of the start of a turn around. Home prices have stabilized and interest rates remain at historic lows. Credit availability and lending guidelines have improved and finally fewer investors are in competition with first-time buyers. All of these factors combined may indicate a positive future for Millennials entering the housing market. All authorities asked on the issue believe that the group holds enough in number and in power to have a strong influence on the housing market, should they decide to pursue owning a home instead of renting.