Real Estate Journal Online

If you are thinking that email negotiations on real estate deals do not count until you put pen to paper, then think again. Last week a New York state court ruled that “handwriting and email should now basically be considered one and the same”[1]. The ruling comes from the Appellate Division, First Department of State Supreme Court in Manhattan and has been appealed to New York’s Court of Appeals.

The Naldi v. Grunberg case is based around a commercial real estate transaction, but the court ruling also applies to residential transactions. The court considered emails proof of a deal just like any other hard-copy contract because “an e-mail is retrievable from computer storage.” Only if the email contains adequate disclaimers can it be excluded from proof of negotiations, explains Mario J. Suarez, a lawyer in New York. The disclaimer should specifically state that anything in the communications “shall not be deemed an offer, as no documents are binding unless and until executed,” he said. However, you should definitely check your own disclaimer with your own lawyer before relying on it to protect you, and always be careful how you phrase things in email.

Do you think that this ruling is fair? Is it reasonable to make email as binding as any other type of written word?

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Let us know what you think of email content being potentially binding in a contract below. Are you concerned about your own past emails?

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[1] http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/115112/20110222/watch-before-you-email-court-says.htm

Rent-control has a long history, especially in New York. These days, though, rent-controlled apartment units are slowly becoming history. And, increasingly, the elderly is left clinging to these rent-controlled apartments that are cramped and rotting.

Though supposedly cheap, rent-controlled apartments in New York City have turned out to be more expensive. Complains some of tenants in rent-controlled units, landlords may have been keeping rents low but landlords are also leaving the units in decrepit conditions.

Let us take the case of 97-year old Magnus Saethre and his live-in caregiver Devron King. They live in a 75-square foot, one bedroom apartment on the fourth floor walk-up in Fourth Avenue, Sunset Park and pay only $63 per month. To date, though, Saethre has already spent $25,000 in legal fees.

Read the rest of this entry »

President Barack Obama hit many hearts when he said, “I thought it must seem some days the world has moved on to other things. I say to you today, that your loved ones endure in the heart of our nation now and forever.” September 11 will never be forgotten by Americans, and even the president commemorated it with a wreath and a speech at the Pentagon.

President Obama laid a wreath on Pentagon Memorial – which he dubbed as a “hallowed ground” – for the 184 of those who died when some Islamic men hijacked a commercial flight and slammed into the Defense Department headquarters. Later on, he made a speech that emphasized on how 9/11 does not equate to a war in Islam.

“They may seek to spark conflict between different faiths, but as Americans we are not and never will be at with Islam. It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was Al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion,” says the president.

Though the president did not mention the issues on the Islamic center near the 9/11 area and Quran burning plans directly, he definitely hinted at it with the above remark. He remarked that Americans have always been about religious freedom and that the tragic event should not change that.

President Obama also touched on the subject of terrorism. He said America remains relentless in its fight against terrorism.

September 11^th should also be a day of service, says Obama. To demonstrate how this can be done, he went to a Washington school after the Pentagon Memorial and helped paint wreaths. He also touch based with volunteers making quilts for deployed service members’ children.

At 8:46 am (same time when the first plane hit New York’s World Trade Center) on Saturday, the president observed a moment of silence.

While the proposed Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan has sparked raging debates on whether the initiative is appropriate or even moral especially when alluding to the 9/11 Al Qaeda attack, Abdelhamid Shaari could only hope that his aspiration of building a mosque for his congregants in Milan, Italy would at least inspire some form of conversation.

At best, Shaari’s campaign for a place for prayer for his fellow Italian Muslims is currently confined in a concert stadium following decades of lobbying and dealing with extreme opposition for his religious plea, which once elicited a violent reaction from an anti-immigrant group that an almost shoo-in proposal for a mosque structure was eventually shelved.

For the rest of Europe, the Park51 controversy is simply regarded as a real estate issue entangled in a cultural conflict, eliciting less attention as compared to the facial veils issue in France and minarets in Switzerland.

Outside of America, the issue simply reaffirmed mixed feelings about the county as one Iraqi resident immediately concluded that the furor over the mosque’s location was simply reflective of America’s rejection of Islam.

Even if some sectors deliberately bundled the whole argument of a simple zoning issue into a potentially volatile religious discussion, the expected reaction from countries such as Iran and Afghanistan were relatively muted while China and Russia opted to effectively abstain from embroiling themselves into the debate, owing maybe to their own respective Islamic tensions.

China even utilized the issue as an effective vessel for sailing forward its advocacy of a strong secular state while US emissaries didn’t waste any moment in asserting that the whole debate only transcends America’s championing of liberal discussions and religious tolerance.

Elsewhere, the real estate question led some analysts to deduce that America’s melting pot image could prove restive over the long haul and its democratic principles would hardly offer any viable protection from the creeping threats of extremism.

On the other hand, while Thailand voiced out its grave concerns that US policies on Islam matters could bring untold repercussions across the globe, the more common and surprising reactions from numerous religious leaders geared towards the dismissive attitude.

Despite clear attempts by extremists to use the issue against the United States, key Islamic leaders aired their reservations on the planned mosque structure, dismissing the idea as a crystal reminder of unpleasant memories and the worst part; Muslims were putting themselves on the receiving end by insisting on the project’s realization.

Still, the structure debate has managed to spawn some form of religious debate, focusing mostly on the question of tolerance, which some pundits declared were too advantageous for Muslims who, they said, could argue for a prayer spot in a Christian space while out-rightly opposed to the idea of religious co-existence in an Islamic nation.

Palestinian researcher Khaled al-Haroub effectively summed up the whole conflict when he commented that “we keep increasing our religious demands vis-à-vis the West, while refusing to meet even a few of the demands made by religious minorities living among us.”

On the other hand, Lebanese professor Mahmoud Haddad said that Muslims would gain much better moral and political foothold once they agree to move the structure even if they have the right to insist on building a mosque near ground zero, thereby showing more concerns for the general good of all Americans.

New York’s most prominent skyscraper is about to get competition and its owner is trying to protest the construction of it.

Manhattan skies are most defined by skyscrapers, but none is as arresting as the tallest of them – the Empire State Building. But a proposal by David Greenbaum, who is the president of Vornado Realty Trust in New York, will have a new office tower a few blocks away that will only be 34 feet (10 meters) lower than the 79-year old iconic building and will alter greatly the Manhattan skyline.

The 67-storey 15 Penn Plaza, which will be located in the current Hotel Pennsylvania on 7th Avenue (a few steps away from Madison Square Garden and Penn Station), is facing major objections from Empire State Building’s owner. Anthony Malkin, grandson of the Malkin Holdings’ founder, testified at a City Council hearing. He says that allowing the erection of 15 Penn Plaza is an “assault on New York City and its iconography”.

The City Council is set to vote this week whether or not to allow Greenbaum to push through with the construction. The Zoning and Franchises subcommittee plans to make their votes on Tuesday. If both gives the plan the green signal, then everything will be in the hands of the City Council – only Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with his veto power, can revert the decision made by the City Council.

Defending his plans, Greenbaum tells the committee that a new building in Manhattan is beneficial to the continually changing New York City skyline. Furthermore, 15 Penn Plaza will create 7,000 new jobs and improve transportation facilities. In his proposal, Greenbaum opts to widen the rail platforms at Penn Station and reopen an underground passage that will connect nearby subway lines and PATH commuter trains to New Jersey.

Malkin, who also owns shares in Vornado, offers some alternatives. To avoid drastically altering New York’s skyline, he proposes that the council’s subcommittee members only agree to two-thirds of the initial plan: an 825-feet (250 meters) building. He also suggests that the top of 15 Penn Plaza be streamlined so as not to block out the view from Empire State Building’s western side.

Tourists are still disappointed, though. As Malkin said, the Empire State Building is the most favorite building in the U.S., even more than the White House. It has been scaled by King Kong in the original 1933 movie and the subsequent remakes.

Major developments in commercial real estates actually occurred in July and chief of that is the collaboration of New York bond trader Cantor Fitzgerald with leading Los Angeles property fund manager CIM Group, a collusion that experts said would generate up to $5 billion of mortgage originations.

Surprisingly though, this major shakeup and other key movements in the industry were being eclipsed by the nation’s continued fixation on the sluggish economic recovery, which further attracted sustained attention when the gross domestic product registered a paltry 2.4 percent increase in the second quarter of 2010.

Analysts said that the dismal GDP crawl has so far been the lowest since the third quarter last year, fueling further pessimism in the overall market outlook and undeservingly blighting investors’ sights on encouraging real estate news those otherwise offer promises of bursting opportunities.

All the gloomy perceptions of the economy in general, with further talks of probable double-dip recession, almost completely shrouded the biggest commercial mortgage default that has hit the commercial real estate industry so far.

Pershing Square Hedge Fund and Winthrop Realty Trust acquired a total of $300 million mezzanine loans in purchasing the New York residential landmark compound of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, shedding only $45 million or roughly 15 cents on the dollar.

The partnership then instantly sued for foreclosure proceeding on the apartment complex in order to seize immediate control of the prized property.

Then another industry development in New Jersey this time, where Meadowlands Xanadu developers Colony Capital and Dune Real Estate Partners accused their lender of blocking fresh loans to complete their construction activities and instead arm-twisted them into handing over the $2 billion worth of entertainment and retail project.

Part of the project is the new stadium that will house games of both the New York Giants and the New York Jets, with the possibility that the new facility would eventually host the 2014 Super Bowl, yet the prominence seem to have eluded investors’ keen attention just because the economy offers far more pressing concerns.

Analysts said that not only that the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, the monthly employment rates, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac restructuring talks and the Wall Streets reforms have been hogging the headlines lately but these concerns also blindsided many investors into disregarding any opportunities that the property industry could offer.

Amidst the ongoing distractions and with the eminent absence of traditional financial institutions in real estate financing schemes, the entry of opportunity investors seemed inevitable in which hedge funds and private equity funds were only too enthusiastic to exploit and control properties laced with so much opportunities.

Such were the cases when Pershing and Winthrop started muscling their way into grabbing the command of Stuyvesant and Peter Cooper apartment compound, with similar initiatives seen from the likes of Five Mile Capital Partners, Normandy Real Estate Partners, Lubert-Adler Real Estate and LEM Mezzanine, who all employed similar tactics in gaining control of distressed properties.

However, the strategy is not always successful and though investors flushed with cash normally gravitate into utilizing the risky option, there were instances that banks would opt to put down their feet on selling notes and offer instead extension for problematic loans, looking after, of course, for their own business interests.

In the end, the commercial real estate sector is generally upbeat and recovery has been encouraging at best but the prospect of the industry attracting more investors’ attention is quite a challenge at this time when investors are up on their toes and needlessly monitoring the country’s macroeconomic policies.

PropertyShark.com has posted a snapshot of the results of a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal. The survey compiles extreme low-end properties in the five New York boroughs. The cheapest New York property in listing is at $45,000.

The said property, found in Bronx’s Fordham Manor, is a 300 square foot co-op within a 6-story building. Though the kitchen needs improvement, the place is only 45minutes away from Midtown via the subway.

Other lows in New York property listings are a co-op in St. Albans, Queens, one-bedroom co-op near Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, and a 350-square-foot studio in St. George, Staten Island. They are tagged at $59,000; $54,900; and $82,500 respectively. The price tags on these properties are lower than when they reached their highs a year and a half ago.

If one is to dwell in the low-end market, then owning a home will definitely be cheaper than renting. Take for example the Queens co-op. One will only need to shell out a mere $300 per month if he is to get a 30-year fixed mortgage with a 4.5% interest rate.

But in a city like New York, where apartment prices have a median of $370,000, the word ‘cheap’ becomes relative. A low-end residence in the Bronx, Queens and Staten Island will still hit six figures (around $250,000). Brooklyn and Manhattan offer low-end sales prices at $400,000 and $600,000 respectively.

During the housing market boom in 2006 to 2008, NYC house pricing peaked 30% better than today’s market prices.

37% of the current New York listings are low-end units. These units have seen less price declines as compared to their high-end counterparts, thanks to a federal tax credit that amounted to as much as $8,000 for first-time home owners. This doesn’t mean, though, that low-end units are flying off the shelves: potential buyers are still having a hard time obtaining financing.