News
Borough by Borough
January 20, 2011
 |
| “There’s a much better vibe in the marketplace,” said Massey Knakal’s Bob Knakal yesterday during a media breakfast at the firm’s Madison Ave offices. And the firm just formed Massey Knakal Retail Leasing Services to rep landlords and help them identify andcapitalize on retail strategies that can most effectively enhance property value. Above, Bob (second from right, but you knew that) joins Ken Krasnow, Paul Massey, and new hire Benjamin Fox, who just joined the firm from Winick Realty Group as partner to build the new division with Ken. Paul hints that further expansion is on the way, including new hires. |
 |
| Onto the investment market overview: in NYC, the ’10 dollar volume was triple that of ’09, if you count note sales. Manhattan (south of 110th St) improved the most last year, with 473 properties sold, a 47% increase year-over-year, we learned from market experts John Ciraulo, James Nelson, and Rob Shapiro. There was a 187% jump in activity by dollar volume—if you remove Google’s $1.8B sale of111 Eighth, it was still 144%. All property types, with the exception of walk-up apartment buildings (which only saw a 1% decline), experienced considerable upticks in sales volume. Northern Manhattan and the Bronx saw 127 properties sold, a 43% increase year-over-year, with 88% of all sales occurring from elevator andwalk-up apartment buildings. |
 |
| Queens and Brooklyn were a different story, we learned from outerborough gurus Ken, Tom Donovan, and Brendan Maddigan. Queens saw a decrease in activity, but is stabilizing, with a strong Q4 and pipeline. The borough only saw 307 buildings sold, down 11% year-over-year, and a 6% decrease in aggregate sales volume. There was strength in multifamily and mixed-use but weakness in industrial, retail, and development sites. Brooklyn is choppy but improving, with 569 properties sold, a 19% jump from the previous year. We’re beginning to see larger transactions in some of the key markets, like Downtown Brooklyn. Mixed-use and retail have stabilized, but development is still a drag, Ken notes. |
