New Real Estate Application for iPhone Featuring New York Times Real Estate Content and Search on the Go

NEW YORK, Mar 23, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — NYTimes.com announced today the launch of its redesigned Real Estate section(www.nytimes.com/realestate) with enhanced search functionality and more comprehensive market data. The new search bar now offers filters for Price Reductions, New (Last 7 Days) and For Sale By Owner.

To complement the redesigned site, The Times has launched a new Real Estate application for iPhone, integrating key information and features of the Web site while giving users the ability to seamlessly view saved listings and searches while on the go. iPhone app users can locate properties nearby using the GPS function; view search results on a map and get directions; and personalize listings directly from the app by uploading private notes and photos.

“These search enhancements and data will provide prospective buyers with the tools they need to make sense of a complicated market and get the best property for their money,” said Denise Warren, senior vice president and chief advertising officer, The New York Times Media Group and general manager, NYTimes.com. “By combining our search technology with our deep and timely listings, we are creating a better experience for our users and advertisers online and on our mobile products.”

The launch of the Real Estate iPhone app is sponsored by Sotheby’s International Realty Affiliates LLC; Rose Associates, Inc; TF Cornerstone; Brown Harris Stevens; and Halstead Property, LLC.

Online, The Times now offers data for New York City recorded sales and current New York City market snapshot indicators such as total inventory, median price and more – each of which can be sorted by bedroom count and neighborhood.

New personalization features have been added to the My Real Estate section including the ability to save favorite properties, add private notes and photos, and manage e-mail alerts to track open houses and price changes.

The New York Times Real Estate iPhone app is available for download free from iTunes athttp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nytimesrealestate/id337316535?mt=8.

Learn more about all of the new and innovative Real Estate features at http://www.nytimes.com/REFeatures.

NYTimes.com continues to reach a large, educated and affluent audience. It is the most visited newspaper site in the U.S. with an audience of 20 million unique users (February 2010 – Nielsen Online). The Times had 85 million mobile page views in February 2010 (according to internal data).

The New York Times Company, a leading media company with 2009 revenues of $2.4 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, 15 other daily newspapers and more than 50 Web sites, including NYTimes.com,Boston.com and About.com. The Company’s core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.

This press release can be downloaded from

SOURCE: The New York Times Company

The New York Times Company
Stacy Green, 212-556-7078
green@nytimes.com
or
Kristin Mason, 212-556-4059
masonkm@nytimes.com

Editor’s note: This article is reposted with permission by The Real Deal. Click here to view the original article.

By CANDACE TAYLOR

NEW YORK CITY — During the boom, New Yorkers increasingly relied on price-per-square-foot as a way to compare rapidly rising apartment values.

The metric is even more popular in the downturn, as discount-crazed buyers look for good deals.

But price-per-square-foot isn’t as reliable a measure as they think. Unbeknownst to many shoppers, it’s extremely difficult to determine the true square footage of a Manhattan property, experts say.

“When it comes to square footage in New York City, it’s the Wild West,” said Bill Staniford, the CEO of real estate data Web site PropertyShark. “It’s measured in so many different ways.”

And in the current downturn, the difficulty of determining square footage is contributing to a number of other problems, from low appraisals to ruined deals.

Staniford, who constantly fields questions from brokers about inaccurate square footage data on file with the city, said using price-per-square-foot as a measure of value is “totally pointless.”

That puts “every single broker in a very difficult situation, unless they want to break out the measuring tape,” he said. Even then, they might still be wrong.

It’s fairly easy to determine the square footage of a suburban single-family home: measure the footprint of the house, factor in the number of stories, and you’re done.

Manhattan apartments are a different story.

The square footage of an apartment is determined by measuring the space between the interior walls, including bathrooms, closets and foyers, explained appraiser Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

But Manhattan apartments, especially prewar co-ops, often have hard-to-measure elements like turrets, winding hallways and oddly shaped rooms. Miller said buildings like 455 Central Park West, with its its large, circular turret units, are especially difficult to measure, along with notoriously elaborate buildings like the Dakota and the Osborne.

In many apartments, “you could have different people measure and they’d get five different numbers,” said Douglas Heddings, founder of the Heddings Property Group at Charles Rutenberg Realty in New York City, who has written about square footage challenges on his blog, TrueGotham.com.

To make matters worse, there is often little or inaccurate square footage data on file with the city. When buildings were converted to co-ops in the 1980s, they were not required to list the square footage in their units in the offering plan, Miller said.

Condo offering plans are required to list square footage, but each developer measures it differently, which is legal as long as they disclose their methods in the plan, Miller said.

“Many developers, in order to drive down the price per square foot, include portions of common hallways or elevators shafts,” he said. “Some include a percentage of outdoor space.”

Moreover, when units are combined or renovated, changes to the square footage are often not updated in the public record, he said.

As a result of all these factors, brokers in the past often avoided stating the square footage in their marketing materials. “Years ago, you really sold by the number of rooms,” said Diane Ramirez, president of Halstead Property.

In 1998, the buyers of a $2.5 million co-op at 983 Park Avenue backed out of their contract and filed suit against the seller and broker Stribling & Associates. The buyers claimed they were told the apartment was 3,300 square feet, but that it was actually closer to 2,800 square feet.

The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 2000, according to the New York Times.

After that, some firms explicitly forbade their brokers from telling buyers the square footage, for fear of litigation. “For years, we would not allow agents to put square footage [on their listings], because we knew it was fraught with danger,” Ramirez said.

But as more new condos sprang up during the boom, with their dimensions listed in the offering plan, buyers became more and more interested in square footage.

“They love hearing what the square footage is,” Ramirez said. “It became a number and an analysis that the consumer liked.” These days, price-per-square foot is a popular measure of value, even in co-ops, because it’s the best way of comparing apartments with the same number of rooms but vastly different dimensions.

“Price-per-square-foot is really what drives the understanding of value for consumers,” Miller said. “It’s really the language of the market.”

That’s forced many brokers to start using square footage data again, but nearly all real estate companies now have disclaimers stating that representations of square footage are just estimates, said Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group.

Brokers, perhaps emboldened by this disclaimer, often round up or simply exaggerate square footage in their listings, experts say. Miller said that when he appraises apartments, he usually finds that the apartment is 5 to 10 percent smaller than advertised.

Co-ops, in particular, often appear to get larger each time they are sold.

“If you look at any given co-op, you will often find that it has grown,” Heddings said. “A 650-square-foot one-bedroom in 1980 may now be 900 square feet.”

Recently, Richard Hamilton, a senior vice president at Halstead Property, was marketing unit 16B at 201 West 16th Street in Chelsea, a one-bedroom apartment that, according to his calculations, was just under 700 square feet. He was displeased to discover that an identical apartment on another floor — number 4B — was listed at 800 square feet.

Hamilton’s floor plan said that the living room was 20 feet by 13 feet, while the brokers for 4B, Adrian Castillo and Glenn Minnik of Prudential Douglas Elliman, used a floor plan that put the room at 20 feet by 15 feet.

Hamilton said he used the building’s original floor plan and double-checked to make sure it was accurate. “It’s quite obvious that it’s 13,” he said. “Anyone could have looked in that apartment and known it was not 15 feet wide.”

Minnick said he used the square footage information that had previously been in Elliman’s system.

“That was what was in our listing system,” he said. “We just add photos to it.”

He disagreed with Hamilton’s assessment, saying the apartment is “definitely larger than 700 square-feet.”

He emphasized that square footage estimates are “very subjective.”

Hamilton said brokers who strive for accuracy are often penalized, because buyers want the apartment they believe is larger. “I do my best to be as honest as I can,” he said. “But sometimes by telling the truth, you look bad, because they want to see the bigger apartment.”

To avoid that situation, he usually avoids listing the square footage, instead handing out tape measures at his open houses so buyers can measure for themselves.

Aside from potential litigation, differing interpretations of square footage have further ramifications in the current climate. If the bank’s appraiser or attorney finds that an apartment is smaller than advertised, it could torpedo the deal, said Melanie Lazenby, a senior vice president at Elliman.

“The last thing you want when you think you have a deal is a surprise,” said Lazenby, who relies on the figure in the offering plan or, for older apartments, hires a professional to draw up new floor plans. “You don’t want that call asking why there is a discrepancy. It could change the price of the apartment.”

Lack of accuracy in square footage is one reason so many deals are falling apart due to low appraisals, Miller said.

To determine the value of an apartment, appraisers look at the prices of nearby apartments of a similar size. But if the square footage of those comparables have been exaggerated, that can hurt the value of the apartment in question.

“They may be comparing four 1,200-square-foot apartments, but only one is actually 1,200 square feet,” Heddings said.

Miller said most experienced local appraisers are aware of these discrepancies and use floor plans, not broker data, to compare sizes. But more and more out-of-town appraisers are now doing work in Manhattan thanks to recent guideline changes.

“When you see out-of-town appraisers, they’re just relying on the broker square footage because they don’t have the floor plans,” Miller said. “It unfairly penalizes the subject apartment.”

Against this backdrop, how should brokers proceed?

“The best thing to do is talk about it as, ‘this space costs x,’ and don’t worry about the square footage,” Staniford said.

After releasing the Manhattan Market Overview this week and talking about the “release of pent-up demand from below-trend sales activity in the first half of 2009 as the cause for the surge in sales in the second half of 2009,” I wanted to showhow much sales activity was skewed higher in the second half of 2009. As an aside, I wanted to look at whether the credit boom impacted Manhattan seasonal sales patterns (that’s a stretch, I admit).

1) Top chart: The red columns represent the 2009 market share as measured in the percent of annual sales. For example, the Q2 ‘09 sales represented a 20.6% share of all sales in all of 2009. The gray columns represent the 20-year (1989-2008) average market share for sales in each quarter of each year. Q2 (spring) and Q3 (summer) were peak quarters for sales activity over the past two decades. It’s pretty clear that in 2009, Q3 and Q4 saw a surge in sales activity well beyond seasonal patterns.

2) Bottom chart: This is a drill down of the 20-year averages in the top chart (gray columns). I split the 20-year window by decade (first decade light gray, second decade black) and zoomed in a bit on the scale to show the differences more clearly. At 26.6% (red text), Q2 showed higher market share in the more recent decade at the expense of the other the quarters as compared to the earlier decade.

Correlation here is sketchy but it’s interesting to think that the credit boom screwed around with Manhattan seasonality a bit, showing more disparity (or volatility) between quarters.

Average Price for 1bed – $600,000!

4 Newsworthy Stories about Manhattan Real Estate 2009.  From 4 different valuable sources.

NYTimes

Bloomberg

Wall Street Journal

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“IT’S A RECESSION WHEN YOUR NEIGHBOR LOSES HIS JOB; IT’S A DEPRESSION WHEN YOU LOSE YOURS.”– Harry S. Truman.

Very true words indeed – and last week brought some market action when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed the recession, commenting that our economic recovery still faces “formidable headwinds.” As you can see in the chart below, the current recession we have been in has been the longest in nearly half a century.

DO’S

1. Bring your copy of the board package with you.  Be familiar with it – especially your financials. Do not lie about anything – if you lie, you are doomed!
2. Get there early.  It will give you a chance to compose yourself. Do not be late; you will be off to a bad start.
3. Dress appropriately.  Men:  suit and tie.  Ladies:  business attire, no flashy jewelry.  Conservative dress is the key.
4. Be prepared to answer questions – that’s why you are there.  A frequently asked question is “Why did you decide to buy in this building?” Have an answer ready.
5. Keep your answers short.  Don’t ramble on.  Just answer what is asked.  Make eye contact.
6. Do decide who will handle what so you are not talking at the same time.  Do be nice to your partner, no matter how nervous you are; the board doesn’t want to see you argue.

DON’TS

1. Do not discuss anything personal while you are waiting.  Doormen hear and report back.
2. Do not ask the board questions unless they say “Do you have any questions?”  Try not to have any questions – ask your broker, he/she will get you the answers.  Do not ask if they plan to renovate the lobby, the halls.  You like their building just the way it is.
3. Do not discuss any major renovations you want to do.  However, if the board asks if you plan to do any, don’t lie.  Say you are considering some but understand that you will have to get board approval before proceeding. Don’t go into detail.
4. Don’t get defensive if their questions seem personal.  “Do you have many parties?”  “Does anyone besides your family live with you?”  “Do you smoke?” When you live in the building, you will understand why they asked, so for now, just be calm and polite.
5. Don’t surprise the board:  you have a cat, you have a dog, an extra family member who is going to move in.  All of that should have been settled before the board meeting.