Real Estate News

Existing home sales rise nationwide

Existing home sales rose in 48 states and the District of Columbia during the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a National Association of Realtors survey released today, with 32 states seeing increases in the double digits from the third quarter. Forty-nine states and D.C. saw sales rise year-over-year from their levels in the fourth quarter of 2009. Nationwide, total sales rose to a seasonally adjusted rate of 6.03 million single-family and condo units, thirty-two percent of which were distressed property units. The median single-family price was $172,900, a 4.1 percent drop from the fourth quarter of 2008. The nationwide number represents a 13.9 percent increase from the third-quarter 2009 figure of 5.29 million and a 27.2 percent rise from the 4.74 million sales registered for the year-ago period. “The surge in home sales was driven by buyers responding strongly to the tax credit combined with record low mortgage interest rates,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, in a statement. TRD

Private Sheepshead Bay home may become shelter, CitiMortgage to launch foreclosure alternative pilot program ... and more

1. New York State Senate GOP pushing for more transparency in Aqueduct decision, while federal investigators issue official subpoena [Crain’s] and [Gothamist]
2. Explosion hits Chelsea-area Radio Shack [Talking Points Memo]
3. Downtown Brooklyn sees massive population boom [Post]
4. A look inside the Crown Heights real estate zeitgeist [Nostrand Park]
5. Trial closures of Broadway for pedestrian mall in Times Square to become permanent [NYT]
6. Bloomberg administration member who reportedly claimed two homes as permanent addresses, resulting in tax gaffe, now required to pay $2,800 [Post]
7. GOP argues HUD adding to heavy deficit [Washington Times]
8. Park Slope plagued by air traffic noise, residents say [Brooklyn Paper]
9. Downtown Manhattan losing its luster, some say [Post]
10. Private Sheepshead Bay home may become homeless shelter or halfway house facility [Sheepshead Bites]
11. Designer Jamie Drake sells Hamptons home [Curbed]
12. CitiMortgage to launch foreclosure alternative pilot program tomorrow [CNNMoney]

Salsa singer Blades in contract in Chelsea

The brownstone at 407 West 21st Street and salsa legend Rubén Blades

Salsa singer, actor and politician Rubén Blades signed a contract to buy a five-story Chelsea townhouse for $3.95 million from the Archdiocese of New York, court papers show. Blades inked the agreement Nov. 30 to purchase the 1842 Italianate brownstone at 407 West 21st Street that was owned by the Roman Catholic Church of the Guardian Angel, a petition filed Feb. 8 in New York State Supreme Court indicates. The church filed the petition as part of the process for a non-profit to sell significant assets. Blades, 61, sold his Los Angeles home last year for $2.4 million, about $1 million above the purchase price in 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported in December. A publicist for Blades' tour of the United States and Latin America said he was traveling, and was not immediately available for comment.

Foreclosures drop 10 percent in January, but surge expected in next few months

Foreclosure activity in the U.S. declined 10 percent in January from a month earlier, according to real estate data tracking company RealtyTrac. Despite the positive news, one in every 409 homes received a foreclosure notice last month, a rate that put January 2010 15 percent higher than the same month a year earlier. James Saccacio, CEO of RealtyTrac, said that the decline in January from December is in line with foreclosure patterns seen during the same time period in previous years. “January foreclosure numbers are exhibiting a pattern very similar to a year ago: a double-digit percentage jump in December foreclosure activity followed by a 10 percent drop in January,” Saccacio said. “If history repeats itself, we will see a surge in the numbers over the next few months as lenders foreclose on delinquent loans where neither the existing loan modification programs or the new short sale and deed-in-lieu of foreclosure alternatives works.” Perhaps most startlingly, six states, including Florida, comprised about 60 percent of the overall foreclosures seen across the country, according to the report. New York, however, showed lower levels of foreclosure in the first month of 2010, ranking 41st in the total number of properties with foreclosure filings in January 2010, RealtyTrac determined. TRD

Park Slope Historic District could grow

The red lines denote the current Park Slope Historic District boundaries, while the black lines show the boundaries under the proposed expansion plan

The Park Slope Historic District could broaden to include thousands more buildings, pending a preliminary hearing between the Landmarks Preservation Commission and neighborhood expansion advocates Feb. 23. The broadening of the district would be implemented incrementally, eventually encompassing structures in the area bounded by Flatbush Avenue, Prospect Park West, 15th Street and Fifth Avenue, according to the New York Post. Elizabeth de Bourbon, a spokesperson for the commission, said that the agency is suggesting an incremental approach because the proposed plan involves the inclusion of 4,000 new buildings, a vast undertaking that would otherwise tap all of the commission’s resources. “The reason we’re looking at an extension in phases… is that we’ll be able to move forward with districts elsewhere in the city,” de Bourbon said. “Otherwise, we’d have to devote almost all of our resources to this neighborhood. We have to weigh this extension against all of our other priorities.”