New condo sales were slow in Manhattan in March, according to a Marketproof report.

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This is reported by Marketproof.com.

Fewer condos sold in Manhattan last month than in February, despite an uptick in the luxury market, while buyers in Brooklyn signed contracts for five more units than last month.

“With [March] demand closely resembling that of the pre-pandemic period, we may see some normalization of the market as mortgage rates stabilize,” said Marketproof CEO Kael Goodman.

Citywide, deal volume rose by 7% month-over-month, continuing an upward trajectory for the fourth month

Total dollar volume rose 18% to $796M, the best month since June of 2023The luxury market saw a 26% increase in deal volume from last month and a 7% increase in dollar volume

While the March numbers are upbeat, they fall short of the March average during the pandemic recovery (2021-2023) and align more closely with pre-pandemic (2015-2019) numbers

The upward momentum continues for the fourth month, though at a more subdued pace. Deal volume rose 7% from 262 in February to 281 in March. Deal count in Manhattan and Brooklyn was essentially unchanged, but Queens saw an uptick of 57%. The surge in Queens is attributed to a batch of 23 contracts reported at 134-16 35th Avenue. Total dollar volume increased by 18% to $769M from $676M. The median price per square foot (PPSF) dipped slightly from $1,635 to $1,587, and the median price decreased by 7% from $1.62M to $1.5M. The drop in unit price and PPSF reflects a more significant share of the deal volume originating in Queens, a borough with more modestly priced units.

While March’s performance improved month over month, the deal volume represents a 56% decrease compared to the average of 439 deals per month during the pandemic recovery period from 2021 to 2023. The demand in March 2024 aligns more closely with the 289 average during the pre-pandemic period from 2015 to 2019.

Of the 281 deals citywide, 133 (-1%) were in Manhattan, 107 (+5%) were in Brooklyn, and 41 (+57%) were signed in Queens.

LUXURY

The luxury segment saw deal volume jump by 26% month over month, reaching a nine-month peak of 43 contracts. The total dollar volume grew by 42% from $300M to $427M. The median price rose 7% from $5.9M to $6.4M, and the median PPSF was unchanged at $2,631.

One High Line led in deal volume with six contracts over $4M. The West Chelsea complex found buyers for 95 of 235 residences since sales launched a little over a year ago. Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group handles sales and marketing.

125 Perry Street led in dollar volume with three contracts totaling $112M, or 26% of the luxury market. The West Village boutique has sold 3 of the 7 residences. Compass handles sales and marketing.

Of the 43 luxury deals this month, 40 were in Manhattan, and three were signed in Brooklyn.

Rare Earthquake Rocks NYC and Surrounding Suburbs

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From the NYPost:

A rare earthquake rocked the New York City area on Friday morning, swaying buildings and sending terrified residents into the streets — as the strongest tremblor to hit the Big Apple in 130 years.

City officials quickly warned people of the danger of potential aftershocks — which already began in the early afternoon in New Jersey, a report said.

The preliminary 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck near Lebanon, NJ, around 10:23 a.m., the first time a major temblor hit the city since 2011.according to the US Geological Survey.

“I was doing my morning reporting, and this safe in my office, that’s a ton, starts shaking. The whole room is shaking,” said Monique Horton, who works at the Balmain store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. “I was just freaked out. Scary, really scary. I’m a New Yorker, my whole life, 36 years, never seen anything like it.”

At the United Nations in Midtown Manhattan, a Security Council address on the Israel-Gaza conflict was interrupted as cameras began shuddering.  

The Federal Aviation Administration told airlines to expect flight delays in and out of the Big Apple because of the quake. Some flights bound for New York had already diverted to other airports, according to FlightAware.

The busy Holland Tunnel, too, was being temporarily shuttered for inspection, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said.

Tremors could be felt as far north as New Paltz, New York, and as far south as Delaware.

US Geological Survey figures indicate the quake might have been felt by a staggering 42 million people.

“This is one of the largest earthquakes on the East Coast in the last century,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.

The last time an earthquake with a magnitude close to, or above, 5 struck near New York City was back in 1884, the USGS said. That quake appeared to have been centered in Brooklyn.

A more minor quake was last felt in the city in 2011 and started in Virginia.

An aftershock Friday occurred in Bedminister, NJ, about two hours after the quake in Lebanon, according to the local Patch.

Both Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams said there were no initial reports of injuries or damage from Friday’s quake, but warned New Yorkers to be wary of possible aftershocks.

“We are always concerned about aftershocks after an earthquake but New Yorkers should go about their normal day,” Hizzoner said.

“Earthquakes don’t happen every day in New York so this can be extremely traumatic. I encourage New Yorkers to check on their loved ones to make sure that they are fine.”

City and state officials said there were no reported infrastructure issues as a result of the quake, noting that all major bridges and tunnels had been inspected.

“At this point… we’ve not identified any life-threatening situations, but we are certainly asking our local law enforcement and emergency services teams to be on guard for that as well,” Hochul said.

“But again, we are going to be reviewing all potentially vulnerable infrastructure sites throughout the state of New York that is critically important in the aftermath of an event like this.”

“It’s been a very unsettling day to say the least,” she said, adding she had been in communication with the White House. “Everyone should continue to take this seriously.”

Still, reports of the quake sparked a flurry of memes and jokes on social media, with the Empire State Building’s official X account jumping into the fray, quipping, “I AM FINE.”

“We survived the NYC earthquake. We will rebuild,” one user wrote alongside a photo of a fallen trash can.

“As New York was hit by an earthquake, I couldn’t help but wonder, were the tecnotic [sic] plates as unstable as my history with Big?” another wrote, riffing off Sex and The City’s Carrie Bradshaw.

“Did we shake or were we shook?” another user posted on X alongside footage of Oprah.

But residents all over the tri-state area — and beyond — were still rattled.

Kelly Shone, a mom of two who works nights in Newark, Del., said she felt a “slight rumbling” while in bed Friday morning.

“I thought it was my husband walking heavily downstairs at first,” Shone told The Post.

“Oh, my God! I jumped and started looking out my windows. That was scary!” said Traci Slade, a 50-year-old mom of two and software insurance employee who felt the quake at her home in Clifton, NJ.

Panicked workers evacuated some buildings in Queens in the aftermath, including paralegal Felicia Alfred, who said, “We thought the building was going to collapse on us.”

From NYPost.com

U.S. Economy Added 303,000 Jobs in March

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Story by Justin Lahart, Wall Street Journal

U.S. Economy Added 303,000 Jobs in March© Provided by The Wall Street Journal

U.S. job growth was strong last month, and the unemployment rate fell slightly. But wage growth remained contained, underscoring the growing belief among economists and policymakers that the country can keep adding jobs without fanning inflation.

U.S. employers added a seasonally adjusted 303,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department reported on Friday, significantly more than the 200,000 economists expected. The unemployment rate slipped to 3.8%, versus February’s 3.9%, in line with expectations.

Average hourly earnings in March rose 0.3% from the previous month. That put them up 4.1% from a year earlier, marking the smallest on-the-year gain since June 2021.

Stocks edged up following the report, and Treasury yields moved higher.

Investors have been on edge recently over economic data suggesting that Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts might not be imminent. A stronger-than-expected labor market could feed into those concerns—first because increased spending power for consumers could fuel inflation, and second because a strong labor market gives the central bank more leeway to wait before cutting rates.

The Fed is mandated to keep employment as strong as possible while keeping inflation under control. Balancing those objectives has put the central bank in a difficult position as it mulls cutting interest rates this year: Cut too soon, or by too much, and inflation could heat back up all over again. Wait too long, and the strain of high rates could damage the job market, pushing the economy into a recession.

The labor market has continued to add jobs over the past year despite high interest rates. At the same time, the unemployment rate has drifted up and wage gains have cooled. In March of last year, the unemployment rate was 3.5%.

Those dynamics have defied the conventional wisdom that, for inflation to cool, job creation would need to dramatically slow down.

Lately many economists and even Fed officials have come to believe that, in part as a result of immigration, the supply of available workers has increased. If that is right, the number of jobs can grow faster.

Supply alone isn’t enough to generate job gains, however; there has to be demand. At the moment, it still looks as if there is plenty of that. Layoff activity remains low, and the number of unfilled jobs is high, with the Labor Department reporting earlier this week that there were 8.8 million job openings as of the end of February. The job-opening rate, or openings as a share of filled and unfilled positions, was 5.3%. That has fallen over the past year, but in prepandemic 2019—a period of strength for the job market—that ratio averaged 4.5%.

But the share of people quitting their jobs each month has fallen to prepandemic levels, which indicates that the intensity with which businesses were hiring away workers from each other has subsided. Moreover, the private-sector job market has been drawing most of its strength from just two broad sectors—private education and healthcare, and leisure and hospitality.

Private education and healthcare added 88,000 jobs last month, while leisure and hospitality added 49,000. Combined, the two have accounted for 1.5 million of the 2.9 million jobs the U.S. has gained in the past year.

Economists at Bank of America call those sectors “high touch.” Much of the work must be done in person, and a lot of it—such as waiting tables or working in a hospice—entails face-to-face interactions.

High-touch employment fell sharply when the pandemic hit, and even now, four years later, appears low. Relative to the trend during the five years before the pandemic, there are some two million fewer jobs in those sectors than might have been expected.

This raises a question, points out Bank of America economist Michael Gapen. “Should we expect employment in those sectors to return to their prior trend line? Or are there structural reasons to think maybe the employment gap will not close and therefore this catch-up effect could finish sooner?” he said.

He thinks the answer might be mixed. Lately, employment growth in leisure and hospitality has moderated. One reason why is that for some of those employers, business is still down—think restaurants near offices where many people are still working from home a few days a week. Another is that some businesses adopted practices when labor became short that probably won’t get undone. Lots of restaurants, for example, introduced QR codes in place of paper menus, allowing customers to place orders with their phones rather than waitstaff.

But for private education and healthcare, the story could be different. The loss of jobs these areas experienced when the pandemic hit was truly exceptional: Other than in 2020, employment in the sector has experienced near constant growth over the 85 years of available data. Moreover, the healthcare needs of an aging U.S. population will probably only grow. The sector is still about a million jobs short of its old trend. If that gap continues to narrow, as Gapen expects it will, it could help bolster job growth into next year.

From the WSJ.com

Manhattan offices set new record high for emptiness

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By Hannah Frishberg, NYPost.com

Published April 2, 2024, 10:53 a.m. ET

Manhattan’s offices just hit a new record high for emptiness. VideoFlow – stock.adobe.com

Big Apple office buildings have never been so empty. 

While the peak era of remote work may feel long ago in the past, the number of vacant offices in Manhattan just hit a new record. 

The borough’s office availability rate -– or, how much of that market is currently unfilled — hit 18.1% in the first quarter of 2024, the highest rate ever recorded. That’s according to a recent report by investment management company Colliers, Crain’s first reported. 

In contrast, that number, which includes currently empty offices and those that will be empty in the very near future, was just 10% back in March 2020. The majority of the 8% vacancy increase that has occurred since then happened between 2020 and 2022. 

Still, the rate has gone up even in the past 12 months, when it was 17.1%, and even last quarter, when it was 17.9%. 

With the increase in availability, rent has also gone down slightly; 0.2% over the course of February. 

In terms of leasing, the return to office is not currently going very well, according to the numbers. Pavel – stock.adobe.com

“We are still waiting for demand to catch up and surpass supply,” Colliers Executive Managing Director Franklin Wallach told Crain’s. “It’s still the early innings of 2024, and there are both a fair number of large leases pending and a large number of tenants in the market. But we also anticipate some large blocks of space to be added.”

Downtown is hurting the most, according to Colliers, with the Financial District the most forsaken of commercial markets. 

Midtown has fared better, but the biggest divide in which offices will find tenants and which will remain derelict isn’t based on neighborhood, but age and offerings. Newer, more amenity-filled Class A buildings, as they’re called, are getting leased at a significantly faster clip. 

For those banking on the death of remote work and the reclaiming of offices, there is one positive angle in Colliers’ findings, Crain’s notes: The rate at which offices are emptying out is, at least, not as fast as it was at the height of COVID-19.

Developer of Brooklyn’s tallest skyscraper defaults on $240M loan — 93-story building faces foreclosure

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By Hannah Frishberg, NYPost.com

Brooklyn’s tallest building is struggling to pay its skyscraping loans. 

Michael Stern, the developer of 9 DeKalb Avenue’s 93-story The Brooklyn Tower, has defaulted on a $240 million mezzanine loan and now faces foreclosure, the Real Deal has reported.

A UCC foreclosure auction has been scheduled for Jun. 10 by Silverstein Capital Partners, which issued the loan in 2019, according to marketing materials from real estate company JLL. 

The Brooklyn Tower, a 93-story structure located at 9 DeKalb Avenue, is the tallest building in the borough.

“9 DeKalb’s junior mezzanine, senior mezzanine and mortgage loans are in maturity default, and the junior mezzanine lender is enforcing its junior mezzanine loan remedies through a Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) sale process,” a Silverstein spokesperson confirmed to The Post.

“The junior mezzanine lender has engaged JLL to market the equity interests securing the junior mezzanine loan, and they will conduct a public auction after a marketing period.”

Stern’s JDS Development Group did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment. 

It’s unclear what will become of the tower, which only opened to tenants last year.

The news comes just days after a 440-square-foot studio in the skyscraper sold for $905,000, making it the most expensive studio in borough history, 6sqft reported. 

A video producer who lives across the street previously told The Post that the building looks like “the headquarters of an evil corporation in a superhero movie.”

The apartment, unit 72A, is more than 720 feet from the street below and features floor-to-ceiling windows, and in-unit Miele washer-dryer and European white oak flooring. 

“This is an incredible milestone for Downtown Brooklyn. Our newest residents will be living at the highest elevations ever available in the borough,” said Stern, who attempted to sell part of the 1,000-foot-tall Downtown Brooklyn behemoth’s rental portion in early 2023. 

At the time, he put its 398 rental apartments as well as the building’s amenities — including a pool, 50,000 square feet of retail and 77,000 square feet of workout facilities provided by the upscale chain LifeTime Fitness — on the market for an ambitious $500 million.

It’s unclear what will become of the tower, which only opened to tenants last year.

But a deal was never struck for the listing, which notably did not include the 93-story skyscraper’s 143 individual residential condominiums, and now the building’s fate is up in the air.

In addition to now having a reputation for financial trouble, the looming metallic supertall has also become known for its “evil vibes.”

A video producer who lives across the street previously told The Post that the building looks like “the headquarters of an evil corporation in a superhero movie.”

Sam Ash Closing Music Store on West 34th Street, Leaving Manhattan, Also Closing 18 Other Stores Included Forest Hills

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From AM New York:

By Emily Davenport

Sam Ash’s Midtown store is closing for good. Photo by Dean Moses

Sam Ash’s Midtown location is reportedly closing its doors for good. It was reported by w42st.com that the famed store, located at 333 W 34th St., would be closing down after a century of business in the neighborhood. Originally founded in 1924, the music chain originated in New York, with the first store opened by the Ash family in Brooklyn.

Photo by Dean Moses

The W 34th Street store is reportedly one of 18 stores that are closing across the country, which also reportedly includes Sam Ash’s Huntington Station location on Long Island and its Forest Hills location in Queens. 

Liquidation signs appeared in the windows of the Midtown store, signaling sales and the store’s impending closure.

“For the last 100 years, Sam Ash Music has successfully adapted to meet the challenge of changing business conditions. As we look towards the next 100 years, the company must continue to adapt to ensure its continued success,” Sam Ash told amNewYork Metro in a statement. “Sam Ash Music remains committed to keeping a strong physical store footprint in the future while we continue growing our successful online sales offerings. As part of this restructuring, the company is closing several stores nationwide. This restructuring is emotionally tough, but we are confident these moves will make Sam Ash Music stronger as we continue serving the music community into the future, as we have for the past 100 years.”

Manhattan Real Estate Tracker visited the store yesterday and most items are now 10% with no returns accepted.

Chrysler Building Signs First Tenant As Part Of Its Luxury Retail Repositioning

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From Bisnow

March 1, 2024 Sasha Jones, New York City 

Unsplash/Luca Bravo

The Chrysler Building is attempting to reposition itself by marketing to high-end retail tenants.

The iconic Chrysler Building has signed its first tenant following a retail makeover that aims to bring an air of modern luxury into the challenged art deco landmark. 

WatchHouse, a British coffee shop that recently opened its first U.S. store at 660 Fifth Ave., will open its second location at the base of the Chrysler Building. It signed a lease for 2K SF on 43rd Street, across from an entrance to Grand Central Terminal.  

Retail by Mona CEO Brandon Singer, who led broker teams that represented the tenant and landlord RFR, said the lease reflects the vision for the building’s retail. 

“It’s creating a destination for retail that is a little bit outside of the box, given the amazing asset,” Singer told Bisnow. “With all the dense office buildings in this area, this will help the people coming back to work. Give them an experience that they may not have had in the past.”

As tenants opt for amenity-rich, Class-A towers, owners of historic buildings like the Chrysler Building are attempting to find a role for their properties to play in a remote work world.

Singer’s team is marketing several spaces on the 1,046-foot-tower’s ground floor, in addition to storefronts on the arcade level, which totals 30K SF alone. RFR is also considering adding retail use to the second floor.

It is reinventing the Cloud Club lounge on the 61st and 62nd floors as part of a renovation that RFR co-founder Aby Rosen told Bloomberg in 2020 would cost at least $200M.

“We wanted to create something nice — food, wine, dry cleaning, shavers, hairdressers — so tenants have a reason to stay longer instead of running out,” Rosen told Bloomberg at the time.

Singer declined to provide further details on the building’s upgrades. RFR declined to comment.

The Chrysler Building previously housed retail tenants that served daily Midtown commuters, including a barbershop, a shoeshine, a dry cleaner, a locksmith and an optometrist — but all of them vacated in 2020. In its next chapter, the building will focus on higher-end tenants that could appeal to shoppers outside of the 9-to-5 work schedule, Singer said.

Most recently, the building, once the world’s tallest, has been caught in the collapse of Austrian property company Signa. The firm, founded by investor René Benko, filed for insolvency in November, and it is looking to unload its 50% stake in the skyscraper.

Rosen had been in talks to renegotiate the building’s long-term ground lease with The Cooper Union since he and Signa acquired the leasehold in 2019. Signa’s insolvency complicated those efforts, and RFR is on the hook for more than $31.5M in annual ground rent payments, the New York Post reported in November.

The Chrysler Building’s retail repositioning is similar to that of its rival Empire State Building. Empire State ownership added a three-story Starbucks Reserve store to its retail base in 2022. In 2019, it debuted a $165M redevelopment, which added a museum and made improvements to its observatory. 

Empire State Realty Trust, the owner of the Empire State Building, said in its annual report that the observatory generated $129.4M in revenue, a sixth of the REIT’s total from last year. The 91K SF of retail in that building was 76.4% leased at the end of 2023.

This article is from Bisnow.com.