A Couple of Cuts at Downtown's Bridgeview Tower

Went to visit BridgeView Tower today and was very impressed, but then again, I’m a young’n checking out places for potential purchase and not as crazed about “high end” materials and spectacular views, more interested in space for the price, functional space and light vs. “art” form in design/structure…

In fact, I’d love to talk to the guy who posted that he bought 3 units here- I’d love to rent one from him while I’m still looking to buy!

I have to agree with the person who posted above about shills. As I read all of the glowing stories about Bridgeview Tower, I felt the same way.

We went to see the model apartment last year, and it looked just ok but we felt that we were being misled. First they told us that they were going to convert a city park to their own use (impossible). Then they told us that they had bought the air rights to all of the buildings around their building, but this is also not true. In fact, there is a huge building that is being planned for 168 Nassau Street, right next door to Bridgeview Tower. Information on the building that is going to be built is also on this website (http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2007/09/nassau_tower.php). They told us a lot of other garbage that we now know is not true. Our feeling was that the Bridgeview Tower people are so desperate that they would tell us anything. The quality of the building and materials shows skimping. The floors are said to be hard wood, but they are very thin and glued down. The rooms are rather small and the terrace seemed to narrow. Apparently the developer has a reputation of having a hair pin temper. Who needs that?

All this is mute though, since we seem to be entering into a massive recession and I doubt that they will be able to sell many or any of the apartments. It will be very hard to rent them for a price that will equal the debt service. My suggestion, avoid it. You don’t want to own something that will be in a situation that is partial condo, partial rental, and mostly empty.

It has been three months since I have been to Bridgeview Tower. This past Saturday, I went to see how the building was doing, and to check on the unit that I had purchased. I was overwhelmed. When I walked into the lobby of the building, it seemed as if I was walking into a 5 star hotel. The developer of this project gives you more than what you pay for. Although, there are many projects going up in this area, none of them can compete with BVT. With the Fed lowering the interest rate, it is cheaper for me to buy a condo at BVT than to rent. The price per a square foot is very reasonable. I project that in five years, I will double my money.

I read a discussion regarding getting out of a condo contract, prior to closing, in light of the new realities in the real estate market. My opinion would be that the buyer may have some leverage with the developer of an unfinished building since the one thing that every developer wants to avoid is litigation prior to final approval by the attorney generals office and prior to selling all of the apartments. The reason for this is that all law suits must be disclosed to the AG and this must be included in offering. Depending upon the nature of the litigation, such a disclosure can have an immense effect in the time it takes the AG to approve the plan and even greater effect on the ability for the other buyers to get a mortgage.

The worse type of litigation that a developer can face is issues regarding disputes of property boundary. In such cases, banks are often forced to back off from providing mortgages to buyers, regardless of the banks relationship with the developer, since boundary litigation places an substantial level of obstacles to sell and package the mortgage on the open market. Some examples that come to mind include the cases where entire walls had to be removed because of minimal infractions and in cases where cornices or overhangs infringed on the adjacent property. My advice to any developer in such a case is to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate and at all costs, avoid litigation. In cases where a person wants to back out of the deal, I recommend to the developer to sweeten the deal and again, avoid any litigation for the reasons mentioned above. It is important to also consider what other potential buyers would think of litigation against a contracted buyer. One method might be to reduce the price, offer free maintenance for a period of time or perhaps exchange the contracted apartment for a “better” or larger apartment. Settle such disputes. A developer must handle disputes with “silk gloves” and swallow their pride, with the end objective of sales in mind

hello all you oro lovers, here is some inside news thats gonna make your holidays, there is a one story showroom building located on flatbush and tillary which supports a large sign for advertising(everyone sees this sign). this piece of property happens to be on the same block as oro, located 1000 feet to the north of oro. There was a for rent sign on the building and may still be, a friend called because he was intrested, the gentleman who answered the phone told him that it was no longer for rent but was now for sale because of the high volume of calls from developers. my prediction is that a developer will bye this property and build up as high as possible in efforts to gain a city view, in result oro will become a shadow and all the people who bought apartments with views will not be happy. hey i guess theres always the pool, i know i always loved swimming in a pool with complete strangers.