Buying Only What they Build
During the building boom, condos were snatched up as soon as the offering plan went out, based on sleek Web sites, downloadable floor plans and hype. “Fueled by a sense of urgency and afraid to lose on the next Tribeca or Williamsburg, buyers were willing to purchase condos in unproven neighborhoods, nearly sight unseen,” writes…
During the building boom, condos were snatched up as soon as the offering plan went out, based on sleek Web sites, downloadable floor plans and hype. “Fueled by a sense of urgency and afraid to lose on the next Tribeca or Williamsburg, buyers were willing to purchase condos in unproven neighborhoods, nearly sight unseen,” writes New York magazine. Today, not so. Fearful that unbuilt buildings will remain that way, buyers are sticking to finished construction projects, not buying based on floor plans. At On Prospect Park, for instance, sales were “sluggish” when the doors opened to the unfinished project. Since they’ve leapt from the floor-plan phase, two apartments a week have gone into contract. You gotta love what you see, say developers, so you gotta, you know, be able to see something. Maybe this should sway developers and financers who are fearful of continuing projects in this market. If you wanna sell it, you have to actually build it.
They Might Come If You Build It [NY Mag]
Please someone buy at those high high prices. New York is in a deficet and you can only give out so much welfare with parking tickets. So people overpay overpay. The unemployment lines are getting longer.
Polemicist
I am almost tempted to agree with some of what you say – But I have to ask you which minority you speak of.
The fact is that the Rich have managed to buy off the poor which leaves everyone in the middle (the true minority) to pay for everything on both ends.
This is not to say that the poor (who happen to be the majority in this country) have it much better than the middle class, but that they have been paid off to believe that the likes of Mr. Bloomberg are looking out for their best interests. In return they allow for people like Mr. Bloomberg to dictate policy which results in the giving away of trillions of tax dollars (and who pays taxes – not the poor or the rich but the middle class) to billionaires who have run out of ways to steal from the rest of us so now they just tell the government to give them our money outright.
As for the Government services that you mention – Yes much of it is wasted but this is just another form of welfare designed to keep people stupid and appeased. The fact is that with regard to the building code and enforcement (specifically) the rich developers rely on the continued allowances by the DOD to violate the law for their continued Greed.
If the likes of Mr. Bloomberg really wanted to, they could (at any given time) tell the people running the DOB to enforce the law by it’s true intent. And if man power is lacking then they should not be giving out permits and C of O’s UNTIL the manpower can catch up with the work load.
It’s like giving out guns and licenses to your friends and then justifying it by saying that you didn’t have the time or man power to do the proper background checks first.
This lack of manpower and resources is nothing more than an excuse for the rich and our politicians to allow for the violations of the laws.
Why is it that there is no shortage of resources and manpower when it comes to giving out parking tickets and such?
But if a developer builds a building that is 5 stories to high – all of a sudden there isn’t enough manpower or resources. And lets not forget the amount of money (Tax Dollars – and again Who pays them) that the city spends to justify it’s illegal acts of complicity in many of these projects.
sowhat:
You’re really on a mission.
I do agree building standards must be very high, but the simple reality is the vast majority of the city government goes to house, cloth, and feed millions of citizens who do not work. A decline in necessary services is the inevitable result of such policies. There is simply not enough money to pay for the kinds of building enforcement personal you want.
If you want better policing, better schools, and better building enforcement, campaign for politicians who don’t pander to those on the public dime. Better yet, campaign to deny voting rights to those on public assistance.
We are reaching the breaking point in this country where the minority is now enslaved to care for the majority. That is incompatible with democracy and will never last.
The fact is that Developers (With the help of our DOB) have been taking advantage of a misinterpretation of the building code (Hello DOB) where-by many buildings were given temp C of O’s and then occupied without a C of O.
Thus putting the new owners in a quagmire. Then the Developers and there partners in crime (DOB) could use the excuse that to hold back on the C of O would only hurt the “Poor” new owners.
In reality the issuance of these C of O’s ends up hurting the new owners even more because then they are left to pick up the pieces from the garbage that the Developers (with the help of the DOB) have created.
Developers shouldn’t be allowed to sell and occupy buildings that do not have a C of O. The reality is that in order to continue the Ponzi scheme which they call the Real Estate Market , The DOB continues to screw the new owners.
Just ask some of the people who have bought Condo’s in the last 8 or so years and are now caught up in endless legal battles to try to keep from losing there life’s savings.
Case in point – 162 16th street.
In yesterday’s brownstoner:
http://bstoner.wpengine.com/brownstoner/archives/2008/12/watermarks_at_t.php#comments
Ah, I thought it might be Hoboken’s wishful thinking…(it was a little joke…ok, really little…)
Well you should ask the Cocorean group. They are pros at pumping up the value of real estate. Now they are busy pumping up Bushwick, Brownsville and Crown Heights only because they think people don’t kmow who they are. Alot of real estate agents can not show their faces around because they sold at higher prices and are now short selling. Talk about the hand that feeds you. The quicker these real estate agents get out of town the better. Greed has no shame.
Cobblehiller–Brownstoneshalfoff is DOW.
two contracts a week now at the Meier building? I doubt it’s true. Doesn’t look that way from streeteasy, anyway.
Wasder, is that Dow or Hoboken!?