Matrix Blog

One of the great ironies of modern residential real estate has been the expansion in transparency of information, along with greater secrecy of ownership. I think the latter coincides with the much greater wealth that is being put into hard assets like real estate. Privacy and security are indeed very important to many, including the wealthy and especially those near the top of the financial pyramid. There is nothing sinister or unseemly about the desire for privacy. The use of limited liability corporations (LLCs) has been a legal vehicle (and a gift) from lawmakers who created it that allows people to keep certain transactions hidden from view. However the LLC also provides an opportunity for bad actors to shelter their often ill-gotten assets too.

Louise Story and Stephanie Saul of The New York Times have explored this in “Towers of Secrecy: Stream of Foreign Wealth Flows to Elite New York Real Estate,” an epic data visualization along the lines of “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek” This article is a must read covering the hypersensitive subject of high end real estate and privacy.

The ongoing debate about the dying middle class versus the booming fortunes of the wealthy, the lack of affordable housing versus the super-luxury residential tower boom and municipal governments grappling to keep construction and development moving forward to keep tax revenue flows coming in, have made this effort long overdue.

“Towers of Secrecy” is careful not to stereotype users of LLCs in high end real estate transactions as exclusively foreign buyers. Within the Manhattan market, foreign buyers are not the majority of overall high-end real estate purchasers. However they tend to be concentrated around the Midtown central business district (aka ‘Billionaires’ Row’) whereas domestic purchasers tend to favor markets found to the north and south of Midtown.

UPDATE There’s a great recap over on Curbed NY too:
Scandal-Plagued Foreigners Park Millions in Midtown Condos

Here are a few screenshots of the embedded videos within the “Towers of Secrecy” piece.

Tags: foreign buyers, Limited Liability Corporation, LLC, pied-a-terre, Louise Story, Stephanie Saul, Snow Fall, Towers of Secrecy, privacy, shell companies

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Here’s a companion table to my Bloomberg View column published today: Living the High Life. The volume of tall buildings recently completed or under development is staggering. Within the list are generally mixed use but have some element of residential included (i.e. rentals or condos) The data was tabulated in stunning detail at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s. Skyscraper Center.

Tags: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, The Skyscraper Center, Tall Tower, Lists

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Since it’s the end of the year, I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite events 2014. This past November, I was invited to keynote and moderate the main panel at the Urban Land Institute’s, Southeast FL/Caribbean District Council’s Miami Condo Market Symposium.

My panel included the heavy hitters of condo development and brokerage in South Florida – who spoke candidly in front of a sold out venue at the Epic Residences & Hotel:

– Ugo Colombo, Founder, CMC Group Inc.
– Eduardo Costantini, Chairman, Consultatio Real Estate Inc.
– Richard LeFrak, Chairman & CEO, LeFrak Organization
– Howard Lorber, CEO, Vector Group Ltd. & Chairman, Douglas Elliman
– Jorge Perez, Chairman, CEO & Founder, The Related Group

A recap of my panel and the other speakers and panels…

Photos…

Tags: Ugo Colombo, CMC Group Inc., Eduardo Costantini, Richard LeFrak, Howard Lorber, Jorge Perez, The Related Group, Vanessa Grout, Jay Parker

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It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements.

Check out my 3CW column on @CurbedNY:

As 2014 winds down I thought I’d break down the year’s condo market by splitting up resales and new development closings using median sales price. Since early 2012, the new development and resale price trends have parted ways. That’s when the stalled shadow inventory that resulted from the Lehman collapse—a.ka. condos that weren’t formally offered yet and went unsold, because first batches of units didn’t sell in the midst of the financial downturn—was finally bought up or otherwise absorbed…

[click to expand chart]

My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Three Cents Worth: Why New Developments Are So Darn Pricey [Curbed]

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed NY
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed DC
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Miami
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Hamptons

Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, 3CW

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It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements.

Check out my 3CW column on @CurbedNY:

This week I took a look at the volume of super high end sales that closed each quarter to show how out of whack current activity is when compared to longer term norms. From 2006 through 2013, the average was 21 apartments sales for $10M or higher per quarter. That’s seven per month or nearly two per week for eight years. That’s a lot of sales in this price segment…

[click to expand chart]

My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Three Cents Worth: Number of Manhattan Homes Selling for $10M+ Is Way Up [Curbed]

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed NY
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed DC
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Miami
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Hamptons

Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, 3CW

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Joined Deirdre Bolton to talk about the U.S. high end development residential market. We spoke about softness at the NYC high end and how the cooling of new development doesn’t speak for the entire high end market.

Tags: Fox Business, Risk & Reward, Deirdre Bolton

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column Buying Condos Based on a Drawing. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

Almost half of all contracts for Manhattan properties costing $4 million or more are being signed based on floor plans — an architectural drawing of an apartment that hasn’t been built yet…

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Tags: Floor Plan, credit crunch, Olshan Realty Luxury Report

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column Only Brooklyn Is Over the City’s Housing Bust. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

Housing prices in four of New York’s five boroughs still haven’t reached their pre-crash highs. The outlier? Brooklyn.

Housing prices in Brooklyn now are more than 8 percent above the peak reached in 2007. The other four boroughs, meanwhile, are all more than 10 percent below their highs, with the Bronx still down by almost a quarter….

[read more]

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Tags: median sales price, financial crisis

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column When $7 Million Is Average for Manhattan. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

It’s pretty much universal knowledge that Manhattan real estate is expensive. What isn’t so well known is what’s happening at the top of the market: Price increases have been crazy.

Ever since the financial crisis, housing prices for the most-expensive 10 percent of the Manhattan market have increased more than 15 percent. Compare that with the modest 2.5 percent gain for the remaining 90 percent of the market….

[read more]

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Tags: financial crisis

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column Giant Condo Tower Needs More Billionaires. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

In post-crash Manhattan’s high-end real estate, few projects loom larger or more visibly than the 1,004-foot-high One57, the tallest residential-hotel building in New York. This is a rarefied market, with two penthouse units selling for more than $90 million each, including one to hedge-fund baron Bill Ackman.

Amid all the hyperventilating about the tower, including complaints that it’s out of scale with the neighborhood, it’s poorly reviewed design and that it casts an afternoon shadow on Central Park in the winter, the little known fact is that the 92-unit building seems to be less of a hit with buyers than one might glean from the PR machine….

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Tags: One57, Contracts, Extell, Billionaires Row, alternative financing, construction financing

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Read my latest Bloomberg View column Housing’s New Wealth Effect. Please join the conversation over at Bloomberg View. Here’s an excerpt…

It was a busy week for housing market reports. The U.S. Census published its new home-sales results for August, showing an 18 percent gain from the prior month and a 33 percent increase from August 2013. News headlines relied on words such as “surged” and “soared” to describe the results.

Only a few days earlier, the National Association of Realtors released its existing home-sales report for August, which showed month-over-month sales falling for the first time in four months. The inventory of unsold properties was 4.5 percent higher than a year earlier. I recently addressed the market slowdown in “Understanding Housing’s Dog Days.”

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Tags: Existing Home Sales, Inventory, New Home Sales, Absorption, Wealth Effect, U.S. Census, NAR, National Association of Realtors

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Was asked to guest host this morning for the 7-8am hour on Bloomberg TV’s Surveillance. Tom Keene, Scarlet Fu and Adam Johnson team up for a must-watch show every morning.

In the first clip we talk Manhattan Luxury market problems and records. In the second clip we banter about the bendable iPhone Plus and housing as an investment. These two articles likely prompted my invite:

NYC Luxury-Condo Buyers Await New Towers as Sales Slow [Bloomberg News]
NYC’s Most Expensive Condo to Be Listed at $130 Million [Bloomberg News]

Tags: Tom Keene, Bloomberg TV, Scarlet Fu, Bloomberg Surveillance, Adam Johnson, iPhone, Apple, Stocks

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