Why the Upper West Side may be your best investment

Study Finds Upper West Side Is A Magnet For Real Estate Investors

By: Jill Urban

 

More than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, the Upper West Side is attracting real estate investors at a breakneck pace, according to a new report by Eastern Consolidated.

 

More than any other neighborhood in Manhattan, the Upper West Side is attracting real estate investors at a breakneck pace, according to a new report by Eastern Consolidated. NY1's Real Estate reporter Jill Urban filed the following report.
There is little question that investors regard New York City as a safe place to put their money, but a new report by Barbara Byrne Denham, the chief economist of Eastern Consolidated, finds that one neighborhood in particular — the Upper West Side — is proving to be an investor magnet.

Read the full story here:

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/real_estate/179230/study-finds-upper-west-side-is-a-magnet-for-real-estate-investors

What you need to know about the appraisal process since “there is no category for superexcellent,”

Understanding the Home Appraisal Process

By JIM RENDON

Published: January 11, 2013   

BEFORE anyone can buy a house with a loan from a bank or refinance a mortgage, the lender needs an objective assessment of the property’s value — after all, the home is the bank’s collateral for the loan. Assessing the value is the job of the appraiser.

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Illustration by Phil Marden for The New York Times

Appraising a home, particularly in New York City, is not simple. Similar apartments just a few blocks from one another can have very different values. The floor that a home is on, the kind of view or light it gets — each factor contributes to its value. The best appraisers are intimately familiar with the neighborhoods they work in.

Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel, says that with a co-op, he begins by examining the building’s financials: if there is likely to be an increase in maintenance or a special assessment, it might lower the appraisal.

 

Read the full story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/realestate/getting-started-assessing-the-value-of-a-home.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=realestate

To sell an apt no detail is too small...



On a recent Thursday morning, Jamella Swift, a Citi Habitats broker, was trying to anticipate every detail that would prevent a potential buyer from purchasing the two-bedroom condo she was selling in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She put a full-size bed in the bedroom so buyers wouldn’t think the room was too small. She dragged in a Lucite coffee table to create the illusion of a larger living space and set up three floor lamps to supplement the recessed lighting. Ms. Swift hoped that the $5,000 she had spent would help her land $395,000 to $425,000 for the apartment.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/nyregion/22appraisal.html?_r=4&hp

The Appraisal - Working Around Distinctive Décor to Sell an Apartment - NYTimes.com

John Blesso feels as though he has made plenty of compromises to try to sell his Morningside Heights apartment. Before every open house over the past five months, he has hidden away his toaster, cocktail shaker, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, remote controls, shaving cream and loofah, and even taken his towel off the towel rack.

The Appraisal - Working Around Distinctive Décor to Sell an Apartment - NYTimes.com