I'd be more worried about the RAGING FOXY BROWNS

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 16, 2007 10:40 AM in response to A Special Kind of Blackout Courtesy of Con Ed

Fascinating. But, and please don't take me for a housing perma-bull (I'm set to close on a place soon and I'm bricking it), doesn't the real estate market in NY now depend on the expense and difficulty of adding to the city's housing stock, a situation that did not exist during the city's sprawl into Brooklyn and uptown Manhattan?

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 10:38 AM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

11.21, Mr Lockwood was looking at what the 19th century building boom in Brooklyn might teach us now. The comparison is thus to an era considerably earlier than 40 years ago. One can get a taste of the pace of the 19th century building boom from a cursory walk through the northwestern part of the Borough. I don't know whether the early and middle part of the last century continued in this vein, and whether improvements in mass transit and the development in the city's industry allowed locations further out to exhibit the same characteristics. I eagerly anticipate a further post from Mr. Lockwood on the subject.

But you're right, I will have to see how my purchase pans out. My horizons, fortunately, are a little different - I'm paying a decent chunk of cash, intend to hold until I sire an adequate brood and usher them through 321, and am buying now because I can't be arsed to deal with a landlord any more.

Your unwillingness to allow for the considerable distortions of the city's housing market is a little disappointing, though.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 11:59 AM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

So 2.35, we're comparing a market that can reach a demand supply equilibrium (1800s real estate), which suffered a crash every ten years, to one where supply is constrained, and which therefore may not be able to reach equilibrium. The key here is "may". The collapse in credit markets may lead to thousands of structured finance bankers being thrown into the gutters. Or they may move into commodities. Decreased availability of jumbo loans may affect the market for condos, or it may not (parents co-signing, alternative mortgage products). To stress, I'm not a housing bull, I'd just love to know whether the supply of new condos etc in recent years is roughly equivalent to the supply during the brownstone boom of the nineteenth century, and whether earlier crashes on Wall Street will accurately prefigure what might happen this time round. Two things that are different that I immediately notice - New York has a MUCH smaller manufacturing base (maybe a larger base of employment in newer industries like media), and back then there was not as much as an influx of wealth from older citizens, which has been a major force in propping up valuations, and might not be as vulnerable to a downturn. Still, I'm speculating wildly here.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 20, 2007 3:59 PM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

Yeah, 10.38, I' not sure I accept your paraphrasing. I was always looking at whether Mr. Lockwood's description of C19 offered any guide to what would happen now, and merely observed that one fundamental - the supply of new housing, or at least land - is not replicated here. I don't think New York is immune, though it offers very different conditions to, say, the Inland Empire. Some of the points you lay out very lucidly will cancel out some of the points laid out less lucidly by the renter massive, but to what extent we know not. The fact is, we still have mostly anecdotal evidence for what types of money have been fueling the NYC/Brooklyn real estate boom.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 21, 2007 1:21 PM in response to The Lockwood Files: Not New York’s First Housing Bubble

11.44, the short answer is Fourth Ave condo owners, provided they materialize in the current market. As for Trader Joes, the two (TJ and WF) coexist quite merrily in Union Square, and the two Brooklyn outposts are much farther apart. WF's management is probably a little distracted by the Wild Oats merger - how hard they push for the Gowanus project to go forward probably depends on how well the LES branch (a new condo-driven play) is doing - word is it's a little, um, quiet.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 22, 2007 11:56 AM in response to Rumblings at Gowanus Whole Foods Site

Oi Jim Cramer at 1.31, you forgot to mention "Bloodbath on Wall Street! Bonuses slashed! Shaya Boymelgreen commits seppuku!"

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 22, 2007 2:09 PM in response to House of the Day: 165 6th Avenue

I remember the folks in the 2BR duplex next door having a nightmare selling their place, although that was more because the unit was very thin than the Scararmageddon next door.

Probably the best nearby comparisons are the Vermeil, which has been awfully quiet of late, or 145 Park Place (ditto). The condo coversions of brownstone or limestone buildings in the area have gone like hot cakes (I should know, I missed a couple), but the apartment buildings don't seem to do it.

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 12:11 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place

The FINANCIAL MELTDOWN guy is the new ATLANTIC YARDS EFFECT guy

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 12:58 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place

I think it's for the kitchens of Pepperoncino, the Italian restaurant on the corner of 5th and St Marks

Posted by: Gringcorp at August 28, 2007 2:14 PM in response to On Sale Soon: 134-136 St. Marks Place