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Watch Treasures of New York: Building Stories on PBS. See more from THIRTEEN Specials.

If you missed this show on TV, it is now available in its entirety online. It’s an excellent collaboration between WNET/THIRTEEN and The Real Deal on the noted architect. I loved the way the assemblage of development air rights – basically a high stakes secret chess match – was presented.

Note to self: ask Amir Korangy, TRD’s publisher to do a doc on me someday – it would be brief, boring and attract little interest, but hey, who wouldn’t want their own doc?

• Treasures of New York: Building Stories reveals the private life and the creative process of Costas Kondylis [WNET/THIRTEEN]

Tags: The Real Deal, Costas Kondylis, PBS, Amir Korangy

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Tags: Amir Korangy

Comments Off on [Interview] Stuart Elliott, Editor-In-Chief, The Real Deal Magazine

I had the pleasure of interviewing Stuart Elliott, the Editor-In-Chief of The Real Deal Magazine. Together with Publisher Amir Korangy, The Real Deal pushes out a lot of content on the residential and commercial real estate markets in New York City and South Florida, making their publication a must-read.

Check out the podcast

The Housing Helix Podcast Interview List

You can subscribe on iTunes or simply listen to the podcast on my other blog The Housing Helix.

Tags: Amir Korangy

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Well, it’s still morning in LA.

Real Deal Magazine publisher Amir Korangy and Editor Stuart Elliott finally get their due with a page 1, column 1 story in the LA Times yesterday. It covers their history and what its like to cover the New York housing market.

There was a market related quote in the article from one of the top New York City commercial real estate brokers, Bob Knakal, of Massey Knakal in Manhattan that got my attention. Here’s how he described the current commercial real estate market.

“It’s as if you had both your arms hacked off and you were bleeding all over the place,” Knakal says. “But then the bleeding stopped and you feel a little better. You still have your arms hacked off, but everything is relative.”

That’s brutal honesty – literally.

Tags: Massey Knakal, Amir Korangy

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The 4th New Development Forum held by The Real Deal magazine, led by publisher Amir Korangy packed the house yet again, the second consecutive year the event was hosted at this venue.

Larry Silverstein, the storied developer and owner of the World Trade site, shared insight and his vision for the downtown market. After all, tomorrow is 9/11.

I was initially concerned because most of the panelists have commercial rather than residential real estate backgrounds. But they spoke in the context of both and it was very informative. I did miss Mark Zandi, founder of Economy.com whom I greatly admire for his analytical insights, who had to cancel at the last minute.

Stream of consciousness:

• Amir, you are unable to think small. Congratulations once again for pulling off another one.
• Stuart – I met your parents – don’t worry, I put in a good word.
• Lauren – keep the web site going, but still call.
• Brian – You’ve got the richest voice in business news television and can moderate with the best of them.
• Cathy – the plum color worked – thanks for keeping me in my place.
• Lock & Josh – Offering a great vehicle for listing advertising, better yet, Josh with a tie on (if Lock wore one = end of the world).
• 30 second advertisement onstage before the event showed Bruce at C&W and me 120 times (at last count) on the big screen.
• The best Real Deal bag yet – to replace last year’s model.
• Happy that the audience was very supportive of the opening sponsors.
• 3,000 attendees suggests real estate is not dead in New York, no?
• I ran into my attorney at the show.
• Larry taught us all the importance of cycles and taking the long view – and we knew he was right.
• Larry thinks that luxury development prices, on an average sales price basis, will be higher next year than this year.
• Bob emphasized segmentation and shared a 1% cap rate story. He knows his craft.
• Steven was particularly articulate, being the first to be open about looming problems and answering my question about the new development pipeline.
• Charles recently learned how to calculated IRR but probably has a higher IRR than hedge funds that live and die by formulas like cap rates.
• Barbara continues to radiate – her marketing contrarianism can intrigue.
• Don is looking at a $13M penthouse and was by far the most bullish on Manhattan – it’ll be back in a year?
• Michael Shvo was at the event – he was the main draw card at the 2nd forum held at Cooper Square two years ago. That one sold out too.
• Ran into a former dotcom era real estate development guy who lost millions (of other peoples money) but is doing very well now.
• Paul, with beard, is itching to be a major player again in the brokerage business.
• After asking my question to the panel, 2 people in line behind me told me I asked their question.
• It is apparent that the audience has come to terms with the new market reality.
• Don’t hold your breath, real estate is still first in the New York conversation.

And that’s the real deal.

Tags: Michael Shvo, Amir Korangy

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The Real Deal magazine’s New Development Forum at Lincoln Center was sold out at the 3,000 capacity venue last year. For lack of a better description, it was fun.

So this year, I was more than happy to help spread the word (all 3 seconds worth). The ad is running hourly on CNBC on Time Warner Cable and on NY1.

Since Publisher Amir Korangy knows how to pack content into his magazine, there’s no doubt he’ll pack ’em into Lincoln Center for another sell out. He lined up a group of interesting guests and with the housing and credit markets in turmoil, this event will prove especially informative.

To buy tickets

Tags: CNBC, Amir Korangy

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Besides having a lot of admiration for the never ending contrarian ideas of Stephen J. Dubner, a la Freakonomics, it provides a great excuse to use “Freakin'” in public and not get scolded or lose my temper.

He gathered 5 real estate veterans to get their take on the questions: Is it finally time to believe in the housing bubble? And how much should the average American care?

He solicited comments from:

Robert Shiller: author of Irrational Exuberance and one of my economics’ heroes, who seems to be more optomistic than his introductions before various interviews would seem to suggest:

It is not clear whether the boom has come to an end; there is still investor enthusiasm out there.

Lawrence Yun: the new chief economist for NAR, who has taken the torch from his predecessor by dissappointingly finding obscure positive elements to expound upon that conflict with each other.

All real estate is local, and there are many local variations…The national median price was 1.1% lower in the second quarter of 2007 than its comparable period the year before….If people want to call the 1% price decline a bubble collapse — well, everyone has an opinion

David Lereah: the former NAR chief economist who gave this job title a bad name. He missed the opportunity to make NAR a trusted resource during the housing boom and post-housing boom periods, re-inventing phrases like “housing expansion” and balloons. A number of my agent colleagues were embarrassed by the things that he said during his tenure.

Bubble is the wrong imagery for today’s housing markets. Bubbles inevitably “pop.” A more useful image for the housing markets is a balloon. Balloons expand and deflate.

Barbara Corcoran: the former head of one NYC’s largest brokerage firms that bears her name. She was a brilliant marketer who really needs to re-connect with the market today. I am thinking that what worked 10 years ago doesn’t work today because I doubt that people believe she is running around the country snapping up property like picking apples from trees. But then again, I don’t understand marketing.

I’m yahoo-ing, low-bidding, and snatching up deals wherever I can find them…I’m grabbing as many over-priced, over-stuffed, and over-rated homes as I can get my greedy little hands on.

Aviv Nevo: one of the authors of the controversial Madison FSBO article who raised a lot of eyebrows with the study for his sharp insight, but also its limited applicability to the national market (not his fault at all). BTW, have you been to Madison lately? and is Jocko’s Rocketship near the football stadium still there?

I don’t know if it is time to believe in a housing bubble, and, frankly, I am not sure the average American should care.

Amir Korangy: founder and publisher of The Real Deal, to whom I have a particular bias, being in their publication a number of times, but for good reason: its a go to resource that is growing fast and has seemingly bigger than a Manhattan White Pages (8 pages of Millers, last time I checked).

Real estate prices are a local phenomenon based on employment, industry, and other factors including climate, quality of education, cost of living, immigration, and crime. Therefore, if the concept of a national housing market is ultimately a false construct, there simply cannot be a national housing bubble.

So why am I rambling about all these commentators in one column by a really smart contrarian economist? Because it speaks volumes about the residential housing market and how we see (or don’t see) it. The commentary represents a world filled with mixed signals, spin (cherry picking), more spin, limited applicability, out in left field silliness and rational thought, which leaves us freakin’ hungry to read more.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t think there was a quorum on the state of housing here.

Tags: Robert Shiller, Lawrence Yun, David Lereah, Amir Korangy, Barbara Corcoran, Corcoran

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The Real Deal – The Real Deal Weekly Interview

I suggested to Amir Korangy of the Real Deal that he begin Podcasting since his publication would be a perfect candidate for it. The Real Deal has access to many interesting people and their content is always changing.

Not only did he look into this technology right away, but he asked me to be the guninea pig…errr…the first interviewee. 😉

From The Real Deal’s Web Site…

Jonathan Miller at The Real Deal Magazine’s first Podcast on July 15, 2005

In The Real Deal’s inaugural interview in its new weekly audiocast series, we sat down with appraiser Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and Consultants. Miller’s reports on the Manhattan apartment market are the most widely cited in the industry, and he has been featured in The New York Times, the New York Post and countless other publications including The Real Deal.

With reports showing apartment prices hitting new peaks each quarter but often differing significantly in their findings we asked Miller how he collects his data, and his thoughts on the existence of a real estate bubble. To listen to the entire interview, click one of the links below.

[MP3 Version](/wp-content/The_Real_Deal_Podcast_1.mp3)

[Podcast (RSS) Version](http://www.audibletreats.com/download/podcast/TRD.xml)

excerpt…

THE REAL DEAL: Is there a housing bubble in New York?

MILLER: It’s interesting about the whole bubble psychology the boom and bust orientation in the real estate discussions that have been going on for the last three or four months. Especially because Manhattan is closely tied with the financial markets.

A lot of us remember what happened in ’87 with the stock market crash and subsequent real estate correction that we saw from about the end of ’89 to early ’95. So it is something that is fresh in everybody’s minds, and everybody is trying to relate that to the current experience that we are having now.

When I look at what happened then versus now, it’s apples and oranges, a very different experience. Back then we had a tax incentive-based supply-creation syndrome I made that up, but the idea is that housing came on in large quantities in the mid ’80s because of tax incentives. The 421a abatements gave the incentives to developers to throw foundations in the ground without even plans for what they were going to build just to get the tax credits.

Then all of a sudden in ’86 we had the change in the federal tax laws that eliminated the whole incentive for investors to buy individual units that created a lot of supply. And then we had the co-op conversion frenzy, in which seemingly every rental building that could have been converted was converted. I think the conversion pace today not including 2005, but up through the end of 2004 is something like 10 percent of what it was back then, but that’s largely inclusive of, say, lofts being gut renovated to condo as opposed to existing rental buildings.

As far as today, the situation is we have record low mortgage rates, which are really fueling a lot of the demand and we have an improving but very tepid economy. And we now have supply that is gaining momentum. Your magazine did a great study on the condo inventory that is coming online [in July 2005 issue].

TRD: Thank you.

MILLER: And it’s gaining speed. But it’s still about 3,000 units, give or take, and we have a condo universe of somewhere in the neighborhood of 65,000 to 85,000, depending on who you talk to. So it’s still relatively small. In prior years we were talking about 1,500 units coming online. So the pace is increasing but it’s another 1,500 units a year.

I think the two variables on whether we are going to go into a bubble real estate environment is going to be supply or mortgage rates. There are a lot of other things to look at, but those are two main things. Mortgage rates have been forecasted to increase since the end of 2003, and, generally speaking, they’ve been falling. So, in the equation of supply and demand, it has become a constant.

TRD: Brooklyn has become such a great place for developers to go to because there are so many available lots.

MILLER: For those new developments to come in and be viable they are getting $700 a foot. In Manhattan now, the threshold seems to be you have to be at least at 1,000, and more likely on the new developments you’re talking $1,500.

TRD: If you saw a new development at $1,000 per square foot, would you jump on that and say, “Hey, that’s a bargain?”

MILLER: I guess it’s personal preference. You have to decide whether you like the neighborhood. I’ve always felt the reason why [a neighborhood is] cheaper than a Soho and Tribeca is because it’s not proven as yet for that price structure. So you are going to see more price volatility if you have some sort of market downturn meaning that there is a lot of upside and there’s potential downside.

However, the thing about housing which is very different than stocks, is that, for example, the FDIC defines a housing boom as three years and 30 percent appreciation, and a bust is five years and 15 percent depreciation.

TRD: And how does that compare to our market now?

MILLER: On the upside, we’re about double what their boom figure is. But it’s sort of that idea that on a down cycle, prices tend to be sticky on the downside, that it’s still an asset that’s useable. Real estate is a cyclical thing.

We’ve just seen a lot of the upside over the last five to seven years.

Tags: FDIC, Podcast, Amir Korangy

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