Babs: 'Don't Ever Underestimate' New York
In her Daily News column on Friday, Barbara Corcoran busted out some major league cheerleading for the New York real estate market that was surprising even for her given the state of the economy and the downward momentum of apartment prices in the city: All the financial mess here in New York City is really…
In her Daily News column on Friday, Barbara Corcoran busted out some major league cheerleading for the New York real estate market that was surprising even for her given the state of the economy and the downward momentum of apartment prices in the city:
All the financial mess here in New York City is really just a speed bump on the way to future riches. I’ve lived through real-estate markets a lot more hopeless than this one, and every time the city turned around and bounced back, taking real-estate values up with it. In 1974, I listed a 14-room, park-view apartment in the famous Dakota on Central Park West. The price the seller set was absolutely nothing! Zero! The owner was willing to literally give it away if I could only find some sucker to take over his monthly maintenance. I couldn’t find the sucker. That same apartment was sold five years ago for $18 million. New York City is a boom-bust-boom town, especially when it comes to real estate. Don’t ever underestimate its power to bounce back with bigger and better values.
Go, go, go!
Ask Barbara [NY Daily News via Curbed]
What's Your Take? Leave a Comment
hannible – I too have a modest income but for a while now have been seeking to buy a home over $1mil – how? Previous RE transactions. Don’t assume all home buyers – pre or post crash – are foolish. I feel for wasder – we could have been in same boat, but for the luck of not having found anything we liked pre-crash. I did think the writing was on the wall for a long time that prices had to go down, but also was actively looking before the crash. It was only after this fall that I realized how lucky we were to have NOT bought pre-crash and now of course we’ve gotten much pickier about price (since we’re sure prices have further to fall). But you shouldn’t paint with such a broad brush. Wasder is a nice, responsible guy!
Then you have no bad karma to fear.
Similarly I have no crystal ball but as I said I made the best choice I could for myself and my family and that is about the most all of us can do.
Let me get the picture. You have a modest income and you bought a multifamily home? Please do tell me how you calculated the numbers? Did you think costs and expenses were going to stay the same? Do you think home interest rates are going to stay at 4.5 percent for the next 40 years? I don’t have a crystal ball but don’t be surprised if we see 10 percent inflation soon.
Dude, hannible, don’t know who you think you are talking to but I am nothing but a person trying to get by like anyone else in this crazy market. I bought a house on the very low end of the neighborhood where I wanted to live, I charge my tenants what is considered to be under market value rent, and I live in a way that is neighborly and community minded. I have never disparaged anyone for renting or called anyone stupid. I merely object to the attitude that you seem to agree with the unpleasant one about–that it is payback time and anyone who purchased a house in current market conditions is the devil himself. I am not a wall streeter, but a photographer. I have relatively modest income and I aspire to live in my house for many years, not turn it around for profit. So save your vitriol for someone more deserving please.
No wasder it is payback time for people like you who thought renters and people who did not want to buy two years ago were so stupid and scared. Then people like you started buying homes at overpriced values and started to raise rents until families and seniors got pushed out of their childhood neighborhoods. We have to drive miles for milk and bread because rents for stores has gone through the roof and stores need to make up costs. So you see your greed has affected people like me all over the city and we are bitter at people like you that don’t get it.
Well, in response to provocateur, I can certainly sympathize with folks who have felt left out or ridiculed by pointing out that housing prices were in an unsustainable realm. I don’t work in finance or have more than a rudimentary interest in or knowledge of markets. I understood last year that to buy a house in the current market I had to bite the bullet and pay more than I might have wanted to for a house. I didn’t create the rules of the market or cheerlead for them. I simply participated in the city and market in which I happen to live. I object to people (like the unpleasant gentleman above) who use their blogging voice to advocate for the collapse of housing prices without a thought to what that might mean for the actual conditions of living. I don’t have the time to cite every example of said unpleasant person’s antisocial positions but certainly crowing about crumbling financing for parks projects is a typical example, along with the macho, faux-hip hop tough guy posturing. You just made a similar point without resorting to such cheap tactics and it just boggles my mind why the unpleasant one can’t see that he would get more mileage out of his positions without such idiotic and hateful crap.
I don’t think that he’s a bad guy. He’s just tired of the bullish nonsense – and there had been a lot of it over the years. I’ve been a longtime lurker in this forum and a longtime bear, but people like me were laughed out of the room not so long ago. I’m not seeking to rub people’s faces in it. I don’t take pleasure in the misfortunes of others and I agree that a price collapse would be a pyrrhic victory in that the only place you’d want to be living (if even then) would be on some acreage somewhere with potable water. This is part of the reason that I think that prices will fall further than 50%. I gave a figure of 3 x income as a benchmark for prices. Income has been distorted in the boom and will fall, bringing prices even further down.
And also, in re price fixing, who is price fixing? I had to deal with the same market as you when trying to buy a house. Do you think I wouldn’t have rather spent less? Sure I would but I am not going to sit around pissing on everyone else when I have a family to raise and a life to live. I did the best I could in re finding something that fit spacially and price wise and I moved on with my life. Nobody on here, except maybe a lurking broker or two, has anything to do with price fixing.