Matrix Blog

Posts Tagged ‘New York Magazine’

Flipping Out About East Brooklyn’s Gentrification

January 28, 2015 | 9:59 pm | | Charts |

1-2015nymagflipinfogrph
[click to expand]

This infographic was part of an epic must-read Andrew Rice piece for New York Magazine called: The Red Hot Rubble of East New York which explores the gentrification frontier where investors and New York City’s efforts to create affordable housing are running headlong into each other.

As much as 10% of the property sales are flips and prices are up 150% over the past 2 years.

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Repost: Measuring Manhattan Values By Floor Level

March 25, 2014 | 1:36 pm | | Favorites |

In the spring of 2012 my floor level valuation methodology was illustrated in a great piece in New York Magazine by Jhoanna Robledo called “What Price Height and Light?. The graphic and accompanying descriptions provide incredible clarity to a fairly convoluted subject.

In the flurry of transitioning content to our new site over the past few months, I remember the actual moment when I deleted the original post for this topic by mistake and thought, “wow this is annoying but I can always go the Wayback Machine.” However, today someone asked me about the graphic and I couldn’t find my prior post on the Wayback Machine (but I found a bunch of cool stuff) so I am reposting this piece. I really LOVE the graphic that New York Magazine came up with.

The graphic is fairly self-explanatory.

nymag4-2012301w57

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NY Mag: Suggestions For Splitting The Rent

February 25, 2013 | 12:47 pm | | Public |


[click to open story]

For Jhoanna Robledo’s story: “Splitting the Rent, Fair and Square: Appraiser Jonathan Miller calculates how to divvy up the bill based on a typical two-bedroom, $3,200-a-month apartment.” in this week’s real estate feature piece in New York Magazine The Art of Roommating, I attempt to give some logic on how to fairly allocate the rent to 2 people sharing a 2-bedroom, 2-bath Brooklyn apartment.

Gotta love the first comment made on the web site:

…or if you’re friends you could split it evenly. just saying.



Splitting the Rent, Fair and Square [New York Magazine]

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Valuing A Fireplace

February 3, 2013 | 10:00 am | |

A few weeks ago I provided some logic to Jhoanna Robledo at New York Magazine about valuing a fireplace. She’s just as interested in quantifying amenities as I am and has written some fun pieces on valuing various amenities using my logic. Floor level. Outdoor space. Light and Views.

She distilled down the ±90 minutes of discussion on the hot topic…and remember when it comes to valuation logic, one size doesn’t fit all. My approach came from 26 years of valuing thousands of co-ops, condos and townhouses in NYC but the same logic could very well apply to other markets.

In a study of Manhattan sales that appraiser Jonathan Miller made with researchers from NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, apartments with fireplaces cost an average of about 10 percent more than those without. (The difference was 11.4 percent in condos, 9.7 in co-ops.) But the fireplace is “part of a suite of amenities” not easily parsed from other prewar features like high ceilings. Miller estimates that the fireplace itself adds 2 to 5 percent to the price. That’s a fairly wide range, depending majorly on placement: A mantel in the center of the living room is worth a lot more than if it’s in a back bedroom. And if the fireplace doesn’t work, or the flue needs more than a cosmetic touch-up? That cuts the value by half.

Think yule log.

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Valuing the Light in Your Condo or Co-op

December 3, 2012 | 11:05 am | | Favorites |

Jhoanna Robledo over at New York Magazine squeezes light from my proverbial turnip and the result is a very cool graphic on one way to value light in an apartment in her piece “What’s the Price of Light?” The topic of view have been recently explored and floor level.

Light is perhaps the most subjective of the view-floor level-light trio but this is the logic our firm has used for years (based on the “paired sales” theory that isn’t very practical in an appraiser’s daily life) but I feel it’s a good starting point, and of course it depends on the nuances of each situation.

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Knight Frank Tall Towers Report Shows London With Similar Manhattan Height Premium

November 6, 2012 | 10:00 am | | Reports |

Knight Frank released their new report exploring the floor level premium in London’s high-rise residential developments with the coolest report name ever: Knight Frank Tall Towers Report 2012

While NYC has a taller residential housing stock than London but the premium per floor is similar. London shows a 1.5% increase in value per floor. My rule of thumb for Manhattan has been 1% to 1.5%, but closer to 1%. However we treat floor level as a different amenity than view and that’s probably the reason for the slightly larger adjustment in London. What’s particularly of interest is how much more the per floor cost of development is for higher floors:

Net to gross area ratios in tower schemes are lower, since the percentage of space taken up by the cores and service provision areas are comparatively high. This means that the effective revenue-generating 43% Uplift in construction costs per sq ft between the 10th and 50th floor.

I’ve explored the subject myself in New York Magazine and The Real Deal Magazine.



Tall Towers Report 2012 [Knight Frank]
Manhattan Values By Floor Level [Matrix/New York Magazine]
The cost of a view [The Real Deal]

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[Sandy] The SoPo New York Magazine Cover

November 4, 2012 | 6:47 pm | |

Since my company is located in neighborhood formerly known as “SoPo” (South of Power) I thought I’d post the amazing New York Magazine cover.

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Literally The Narrowest Housing Insight Ever Provided (Hint: Valuing Outdoor Space)

September 6, 2012 | 2:15 pm | | Infographics |

In this week’s issue of New York Magazine, Jhoanna Robledo goes all out on the topic of outdoor space in city residences in “1/100th of an Acre of Heaven“. She asked me how our appraisal firm approaches the valuation of outdoor space.

The outcome of our conversation was this cool tape measure-like graphic:


[click to expand to – huge – widen your browser window.]

Page layout:

[click to expand]

And it brings to mind one of the most read posts on Matrix: Understanding The Value of Manhattan Apartment Outdoor Space where I break down the background and logic for the valuation of outdoor space. I point real estate agents to this post nearly every day.

Hypothetical examples of our valuation logic is displayed in these 2 crude sketches [pdf] with hypothetical scenarios I submitted for this NY Mag piece that weren’t used (hey, I never took art in school, EVER). It’s part of my attempt to compartmentalize amenities of properties to derive a reasonable value relationship with the basic property.

First hypothetical scenario sketch – i.e. a Brownstone garden apartment.

Second hypothetical scenario sketch – i.e. a studio apartment with an oversized yard.



1/100th of an Acre of Heaven [New York Magazine]
Terra Logic: Understanding The Value of Manhattan Apartment Outdoor Space [Matrix]

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