Apartment hunting in New York City just got easier. The New York Times just launched a free iPhone app called New York Times Real Estate. You can search for listings, view property details and even see photos, floorplans, maps and directions. What about figuring out your prospective mortgage payments? Yes, that too.

Right now it integrates the NYTimes’ real estate news articles and listings with sharing capabilities, and provides listings for “New York City, across the country and throughout the world.”

Business Insider lists the key features:

• Browse fully illustrated listings (complete with photos and floor plans) in New York City, across the country and throughout the world
• Read the most current New York Times Real Estate news and share articles with friends
• Search for properties by keyword location, ZIP code, WebID or use the “Nearby” GPS feature to surface listings and open houses near you
• Refine listings by price reductions, for sale by owner, recently posted and more
• Calculate your potential monthly mortgage payment on the fly
• Research New York City sales activity and view nearby school information
• View property listings on a map and get directions
• Upload private photos and notes to any property listing
• View and manage your saved listings, searches, photos and notes on your iPhone or on the Web
• Sign up for e-mail alerts when new listings are posted and when your favorite listings have new open house times and/or price changes
• E-mail your favorite listings to a friend
• Contact real estate agents quickly and easily via one-touch dialing/e-mailing

Image Credit: App Store

According to the New York Post, Nightingale is claiming two elderly women in those neighboring rent-controlled apartments are stalling their expansion plans. Nightingale-Bamford is looking to boot two of the oldest generation out on their granny fannies. Sarah Faunce, 80, and Bertha Fabrizio, 78 have been residents for close to 40 years.

Photo Credit: Angel Chevrestt via New York Post

Sarah Faunce is one of several residents being forced out of their apartments by a Nightingale School expansion

“They are harassing two elderly women and trying to drive them out of their homes. I really believe they’re heartless. They knew these elderly people lived there when they bought the building. I think it’s terrible,” says lawyer David Rozenholc.

Currently, Faunce pays $1,043 a month for a one-bedroom apartment and Fabrizio pays $574 for a studio. In their defense, the school says it has done everything legally and should be allowed to take over the building to make room for their planned $5.3 million renovation that includes new classrooms, science labs, and counseling space.

“The applications for eviction of the two tenants are being processed in the normal course of events to ensure that all statutory and regulatory requirements are met,” said Division of Housing and Community Renewal spokesman James Plastiras.

The school has already been pushing residents out. Marina Kimble, 87, moved out after living there for 36 years. She was initially offered $1,700 and little help to find a new home. Once she hired a lawyer she was fairly compensated for her new neighborhood studio.

“I loved the place. I wasn’t about to move. They sent me to such horrible places,” said Kimble.

The school says a state agency has been allowing Faunce and Fabrizio to file multiple inquiries about the school’s plans which the school claims have been “merely for the purposes of delay.” The school is asking a judge to force a rule and provide a definitive date for their application to take over the apartment building.

Two Manhattan chefs are looking to stir up their real estate recipe: According to The Real Deal, there is “a bunch of evidence” that a 610 Park Avenue condo on the market for $6.5 million belongs to French restauranteur Daniel Boulud, and the New York Post is reporting several courses of problems for David Bouley (below).

Boulud's condo has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.

Manhattan Real Estate: Daniel Boulud

It’s 2,500-square-foot with three bedrooms, three bathrooms and 120 square foot kitchen(!). Boulud wanted to expand the kitchen onto the terrace but the board put that plan in the compost bin. Is the move prompted by problems with his restaurant or is it just time to serve up another place to call home? Hanging in the balance as well is clarity around the apartment’s annual common charges of $4,712 that cover catering service from Daniel, Boulud’s downstairs restaurant. Will it be Daniel’s for dinner much longer or time for take-out?

Manhattan Real Estate: David Bouley

Dessert has not tasted so sweet for celebrity chef David Bouley. The New York Post reports that the former toast of the town is being served a plate full of bad financial news, including possible foreclosure on his TriBeCa condo ($2.5 million) and over $80,000 in debt on his restaurant in the ground floor of the same building. In addition, Bouley owes $105,004 on a federal tax lien and around $18,000 in back state taxes.

Bouley’s purchases came during the height of the market, buying his condo in 2007 and two units on the ground floor where he moved his restaurant in 2008. The Post reports that Bouley’s controller, Mark Stiel, asserts that it’s all a bit misunderstanding. According to Stiel: Bouley is renegotiating his condo mortgage and was “blindsided” by the foreclosure, the retail unit debt is part of an ongoing dispute with the landlord over a certificate of occupancy, the federal tax lien is canceled out by an incoming tax credit, and any outstanding state taxes are from a paperwork error.

Image Credit: Paul Worthington

Midtown Manhattan saw the sharpest price decreases, the most price cuts and the most days on market in Q4 2009

The Real Deal quotes Sofia Song, VP of research at StreetEasy: [Around 42nd Street,] “there are large, monolithic new development buildings, with a lot of investors and pied-à-terre buyers who are now desperate to sell.”

Midtown Manhattan Real Estate

According to StreetEasy’s market report, the Q4 2009 median price of a Midtown apartment fell 24.6% compared to a 10% decrease in the market as a whole. Year over year median price drops in other neighborhoods were: 19.6% on the Upper East Side, 14% Downtown, and 4.6%in Upper Manhattan. The Upper West Side was actually up 4%.

Many new developments were built on the far West and East sides with great river views and proximity to shopping and the theatre which made them attractive to foreign investors and pied-à-terre buyers, but their distance from the subways, parks or schools makes them less attractive to New Yorkers. Many of the developments were one-bedroom or studio units for just this reason.

So many of the bubble-buyers, foreign and New Yorkers, were trying to flip properties, sending the prices higher and fueling the bubble. Buyers on the current market tend to be buying to own, and most are looking in residential neighborhoods, not Midtown.

Compare Midtown to the Financial District: Both saw significant development, but you see a distinct difference in the type of buyers. FiDi attracted families because of schools and other residential amenities, while Midtown lured investors and foreign buyers. And the value of those properties now reflects the change in demand: In Q4, median price in the Financial District was $800,000- Midtown West’s was $700,000. In Q3 2008 it was $840,000 for FiDi and $890,000 for Midtown West.

StreetEasy’s report found 504 listings cut their prices in Midtown East during Q4 2009, the highest of any Manhattan neighborhood, and units there spent an average of 134 days on the market.

While speculation pushed prices in Midtown Manhattan up during the middle of the early 2000’s, there’s no need to speculate on what’s pushing them back down: high inventory and decreasing demand.

Manhattan Real Estate: So many apartments, so many stories.

Manhattan Real Estate: Apartment Shopping

Apartment shopping is a wild card- sometimes everything is going well, everyone’s getting along, and the place looks nice when- Doh!- something unimaginable happens. Sometimes it’s trivial and hits a nerve for the shoppers, sometimes it’s so glaring it’s like showing up with a shiny zit on your nose.

NY Mag put together some stories that made me slap my forehead and cover my mouth gasping- laughing and thankful that they didn’t happen to me.

The stories note such deal-breakers as a wastebasket full of used feminine-hygiene products and wigs hanging on the bedposts. Another culprit? The walls- one wall full of Republican memorabilia kept interest at bay, and another apartment with nothing on the walls struck people as so curious and strange that they didn’t pay attention to the rest of the place. There are the classic variables- laundry, unwatered plants, messy beds or bathrooms… there was even a story of a showing going south because the apartment’s owner forgot about the showing and met them at the door, yawning, in pajamas. At 11 a.m.

Of course, I did have the time when a disgruntled neighbor unhappy we were repeatedly showing the patio his studio overlooked decided to set up a porn movie screening from his window. Then there was that time when I ventured to open a window next to the bed and found used condoms on the window ledge.  

The showing can be the wild card in an otherwise normal business interaction. It’s a first impression, a human connection, and, sometimes, a story not to be forgotten.

Image Credit: New York Times

Predictions for 2010

So should you buy? According to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com, yes if you’re in love.

“I wouldn’t rush, but if I found a house I was excited about, I wouldn’t wait. You might not be buying at the very bottom, but you’ll still get a great rate, and if you stay for more than a few years, you’ll be rewarded.”

HIGHER RATES:

The two pieces of the puzzle that will push rates up are that the Federal Reserve plans to stop subsidizing the mortgage market in march and the economy. He says mortgage rates tend to move along with the long-term economic outlook, and as we seem to be in the beginning of a recovery, rates will go up as the economy improves.

Zandi and Jay Brinkmann, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association in Washington, are cited as predicting that rates will stay at 5.5% or under this year, and that if they do go above that rate the government will resume subsidizing. In addition Zandi predicts that the national housing market will drop another 8% in 2010. Unfortunately for my New York buyers the NYC market has continually bucked the national trends. We will see.

Photo Credit: RentedSpaces

A peek inside Bushwick's Brooklyn Nut park.

Is it more ironic that hipsters created a trailer park in New York City or that they did it on the first floor parking garage of the Brooklyn Nut Factory? Rented Spaces reported last year that the community plans to expand outdoors when the weather gets better: 25-30 campers. Thinking about making the move? Make sure you’re committed. According to Cummings, only “folks who believe in the vision and are excited to contribute ideas, share knowledge, help organize, decorate and bring in others to make this something extraordinary.”

As of this weekend, though, the Nut Factory trailer park may be destined to legend. According to their Daily Intel, the FDNY posted a “partial vacate order” effective February 12. For now the utopia will have to battle the winter weather along with construction and the fire department.

Photo Credit: dumbonyc

Dream, lust. Take the tour.

According to NY Mag, Jay-Z, Ralph Lauren, and Ron Burkle have all shown interest. And if you’ve got $25 million to spend you can show more than an interest, too. For the rest of us, this video tour scratches the itch with morsels of the views, the gigantic party-ready kitchen, the glass eleveator (!) and the shower… you have to watch, just to see what goes on in the shower. I’ll just say it involves the Statue of Liberty.

Interiors at the Dakota

The Upper West Side’s historically important and legendary Dakota is timeless, full of history.  But Curbed tells another sad west side story of dramatic  price drop on Apartment #54 since it went on the market last December. It is a 3 bedroom, 2 ½ bathroom that started, just 2 months ago, $7.5 million. Just 6 weeks later at the end of January it was $6.25 million…now it’s down to $5.999 million.

That’s a 20% drop in just two months.

Part of the allure of #54 is the story of the West Side Story. It was in this apartment, where Ruth Ford (girlfriend of William Faulkner) was living, that Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents first bumped into each other and began telling the tale of the Jets and the Sharks, eventually leading to their work with another Dakota resident: Leonard Bernstein.

So why isn’t the place selling? Curbed ventures a guess at the $5,088 monthly maintenance but if any of you want your own West Side Story give me a call!

“…for a small fee in Amer-I-ca…”

Photo Credit: Curbed

Floorplan

DJ AM's former condo

Manhattan Real Estate: DJ AM

For everyone who loves celeb real estate and scary stories, on a somber note, DJ AM’s (Adam Goldstein) former condo at One Kenmore Square is on the market. Its asking price is $1.795 million- Goldstein paid $1.995 million. In case you are curious, the 1,147 square-foot condo is located in an Andre Balazs property on the border of Soho/Nolita . While living there, Goldstein combined the two bedrooms (see floorplan) into a master-bedroom complete with sitting area and desk.

Goldstein died last August of an accidental drug overdose in his apartment. The only other owner of the apartment previous to Goldstein died in a motorcycle crash, also while living in the unit… Curbed is asking if there is a curse on the pad? If I was your broker, I wouldnt stick around long enough to find out. Too many issues for my clients!!!

Photo Credit: Curbed

Floorplan