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Luxury real estate booming on Upper East Side in NYC
The once sedate Upper East Side is suddenly sizzling as luxe home sales are surging after being cratered by the pandemic. More contracts for homes priced at $4 million and up were signed on the Upper East Side than in any other Manhattan neighborhood during the first week of November, according to a report compiled by Donna Olshan of Olshan Realty. Among the eye-popping deals were two penthouse units combined into one with an asking price of $66.5 million. The apartments are in The Bellemont, a condo building at 1165 Madison Ave. designed by famed architect Robert A.M. Stern. An undisclosed buyer snatched up what will become the 13,011-square-foot home…
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How the Real Estate Boom Left Black Neighborhoods Behind
As Martavius Jones, a Memphis city councilman, points out, construction outside the city limits was heavily subsidized by city-owned Memphis Light, Gas & Water, which provided new power and gas lines to areas that didn’t pay city taxes, generously underwriting the eastward march of wealthy whites fleeing integrated schools. “My maternal grandmother lived in a little old house on Josephine Street,” Jones says, referring to an Orange Mound address. “I think about all the little old ladies and little old men who constantly paid their taxes, and those taxes went to build up the infrastructure outside the city limits of Memphis.” Americans aren’t accustomed to thinking of utilities and other…
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$29M property offered exclusively in Bitcoin
Slowly but surely, Bitcoin (BTC-USD) is being used to purchase everyday items like coffee and cars — and now, real estate is also joining the party. The first commercial property in New York is being put on the market for digital coin. Magnum Real Estate Group is selling three retail condos complete with a fully rented-out retail bottom floor in Manhattan’s upper East side for $29 million — but will only accept Bitcoin. Located at 385 First Avenue in a new construction luxury residential building in Gramercy Park, the condos cover 9,000 square feet, and the bottom floor is fully leased by ProHealth, Mighty Pita and M&T Bank. “There’s a…
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Will Real Estate Ever Be Normal Again?
Then there was a 35-year-old tech worker in Long Beach, Calif., who bought a house in Round Rock for $300,000 last October. By January 2021, it was worth roughly $400,000; in February, he bought two more. His winning bids were two of dozens that his real estate agent, a former equities trader who now works primarily with individual investors, made sight unseen, all of them for at least $40,000 over the asking price. “I’m part of the problem,” the buyer acknowledged to me, though he was not your stereotypical speculator: Despite earning six figures, he drives a 2005 Honda Civic and, when I spoke to him, was renting a room…
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Zillow’s home-buying debacle shows how hard it is to use AI to value real estate
The move, touted by a company exec at the time as “an exciting advancement,” was intended to streamline the process for homeowners considering selling to Zillow as part of its home-flipping business. Zillow promoted this option as a way to make it convenient to sell a home while minimizing interactions with others during the pandemic. Just eight months later, however, the company is shutting down that business, Zillow Offers, entirely. The decision, announced last week, marks a stunning defeat for Zillow. The real estate listing company took a $304 million inventory write-down in the third quarter, which it blamed on having recently purchased homes for prices that are higher than…
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Real-estate brokers brace for ‘flood’ of wealthy buyers from overseas
Wealthy real-estate buyers from overseas are expected to descend on the nation’s luxury housing markets Monday, giving a second boost to demand for high-priced apartments and mansions. The U.S. will lift the travel ban on about 33 countries for vaccinated visitors, easing restrictions that prevented most foreign real-estate buyers from entering the country to view and buy properties. Buyers from Europe, China, Brazil, and India will now be able to enter the U.S. for the first time in 20 months. Brokers in cities popular with the overseas wealthy — New York, Miami, Los Angeles — say they have a long list of showings scheduled in the coming weeks from buyers…
