Latest news with #UrbanDigs
New York Post
21-06-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Rents jump shocking 15% after NYC ditches broker fees
The city ditched broker fees last week in a supposed win for tenants, but landlords had the last laugh — wasting little time sending rents skyrocketing in an effort to recoup their anticipated losses. Rents shot up a shocking 15% in the week since the controversial FARE Act took effect, with the average rental in the Big Apple jumping from $4,750 to $5,500, according to an analysis by real estate analytics firm UrbanDigs. 6 New Yorkers have been sharing conversations with brokers like this one since the FARE Act was enacted on June 11. Reddit Advertisement 'The Manhattan rental market has seen a sharp reaction,' said John Walkup, UrbanDigs' co-founder. The FARE Act, which prohibits agents representing property owners from charging renters a 'broker fee,' also requires that all fees a tenant owes be included in rental agreements and real estate listings. But the rising rents 'suggests that landlords may be attempting to incorporate broker fees into the rent, which would transfer the cost to renters in a less direct, but very real way,' added Walkup. Advertisement 6 Walkup said the market reacted 'sharply' to the FARE Act. UrbanDigs The law change has created what insiders tell The Post is a 'shadow market' — apartments that aren't listed so landlords can still get tenants to cover the fee. 'We're going to be looking for apartments again like it's 1999 … where you have to know who to call and when to call,' said Jason Haber, co-founder of the American Real Estate Association and a broker at Compass. 'It's going to be an odyssey.' Advertisement 6 Ricciotti said tenants have been asking if they can just pay the broker fee instead of the higher rent, which works out to more money over the long-term. BOND New York Real Estate And listings dried up overnight with an estimated 2,000 vanishing from website StreetEasy on June 11 — the day the FARE Act took effect — while UrbanDigs found available apartments dropped by an eye popping 30%. 6 A renter posted this screenshot of the two different asking prices. Reddit Renters meanwhile have been sharing horror stories online, with receipts — like screenshots of conversations with brokers flat out telling them they get one price if they pay the broker fee and another, much higher rate, if they don't. Advertisement One New Yorker, for instance, was told by an agent the rent was going up $700. 6 Kebenae Tadesse said agents have still been trying to get tenants to pay the fee. Helayne Seidman Another said a landlord was asking $6,800 for a 3-bedroom with a broker fee — or $8,000 with no fee, which is illegal to advertise under the new law. 'We've been inundated with prospective tenants who have asked our agents for the option to pay our brokerage commission, directly and maintain the benefit of the lower pre-Fare Act rental terms, which unfortunately, we have to tell them is now illegal,' said Bruno Ricciotti, principal at Bond New York. 'It's so frustrating,' said Kebenae Tadesse, who had been trying to find a Brooklyn studio. 'Brokers have repeatedly said, 'Well, if I don't charge you this fee, the landlord is just going to put it into your rent,' she told The Post. 'It's discouraging.' 6 Rents went up by 15% on average since the FARE act went into effect. goodmanphoto – Advertisement When Tadesse called out a broker for trying to pass on the fee to her, the agent took down the listing, marking it as 'temporarily off market' on StreetEasy since June 11.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tariff-spooked home buyers are already backing out of deals
The Agency's Michael Biryla thought he and his seller were in the clear. The potential buyer had already completed an inspection and hammered out negotiations on the contract for the $3 million Upper East Side listing. Then came the call from the buyer agent: the deal was off. 'Last night, I got a call from the broker, and they were like, 'Yeah, we aren't comfortable moving forward anymore,'' Biryla said. 'Their [client's] portfolio is down like 30 percent, they said, so they're just terrified to pull that money now because they're just going to take a huge loss.' Multiple agents, lawyers and mortgage brokers in New York say buyers are getting cold feet during one of the worst market downturns in recent history. President Trump's tariff announcement, which included taxes exceeding 50 percent for some countries like China, triggered a market sell-off that ran from Thursday through Monday. The S&P 500 fell nearly 10 percent that period— a steeper decline than any three-day period during the early days of Covid, nearly outpacing the largest three-day drop during the financial crisis in 2008. The fall in prices wiped out over $6.6 trillion in market value, according to the Wall Street Journal. The hit to asset values, as well as the cloud of uncertainty hanging over the market, have spooked buyers to the point that some are backing out of both accepted offers and signed contracts. Data from UrbanDigs shows that the percentage of canceled New York contracts spiked to over 1 percent last week, compared to an average of .5 percent over the last three years. Compared to total contract volume, the numbers are still relatively small but speak to broader market concerns, co-founder John Walkup said. 'There's a base level that you can just attribute to — there's something wrong with the property or the financing or whatever it is that sort of flows through the background,' he said. 'But this extra level, it would be sort of difficult to say it has nothing to do with the macro environment backdrop.' Peter Zinkovetsky, managing attorney at Avenue Law Firm, said he's received two requests from buyers in the past 48 hours to pull out of contracts. One asked for the 10 percent wire deposit to be returned while they tried to negotiate a new price with the seller. 'A lot of clients whose closings are coming up just lost like 20 to 25 percent of their liquidity on paper from the time that they've applied for a mortgage,' he said. 'There are definitely going to be deals which will have to get canceled or buyers that will go into default if they don't have a mortgage contingency, because they won't be able to get a mortgage.' Buyers hunting for homes are also telling agents they now need to pause their search. Coldwell Banker Warburg's Rashi Malhotra had a buyer that was planning to liquidate their company stocks in April but now can't because of the losses they would incur. Instead, they're continuing to rent after a six-month search. 'It's really unfortunate,' Malhotra said. The luxury market, perhaps thanks to its wealthy cash buyers, appears to have avoided some of the chaos. Shaun Pappas, a partner at law firm Starr Associates, said the dozens of luxury deals his group does every week have yet to be affected. In fact, buyers with cash to spare or who are tired of the marketing volatility might see real estate as a welcome port in the storm, said Douglas Elliman's Fran Katzen. 'When you have volatility, people want to dump their equity into a much more consistent, slow-performing asset — real estate,' she said. Katzen had a buyer cash out on $2.8 million in cryptocurrency on Friday and Monday to fund an upcoming deal, despite crypto markets also suffering in recent days. Boston-based luxury developer Gaetano Morello is putting the finishing touches on a brownstone reconstruction that he expects to price around $15 million. He said he's not concerned about the buyer pool flinching at the price, even if it needs to increase from tariffs hitting some of the European stone tile or French ranges. 'The ultra-high-end real estate market is relatively inelastic, given the amount of wealth that exists out there,' he said. Still, some luxury buyers are starting to reconsider. Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis, had a client postpone closing on an all-cash deal for a multi-million dollar Hamptons home. She said he's waiting to see if the value of Hamptons real estate is going to drop significantly more than his 10 percent deposit. For agents like Biryla, who are already getting burned by market-sensitive buyers, it's back to the drawing board. The two other offers, both lower than the accepted bid, had already moved on to different properties, he said. The plan going forward: 'Reset the marketing plan, blast out to every person that hasn't seen it, try to reach out to other brokers, try to reposition the property, maybe do a slight price adjustment.' Resi stocks continue to tumble as recession fears loom REITs crushed as market plummets, stoking fears of recession How Trump's tariffs are reshaping real estate's future This article originally appeared on The Real Deal. Click here to read the full story.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Look inside Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost's $13 million penthouse
Actress Scarlett Johansson and comedian Colin Jost scored a massive bargain when buying a Park Avenue penthouse, the Wall Street Journal reported. Johansson, 40, and Jost, 42, paid $13 million for the six-bedroom, 6,000-square-foot Carnegie Hill co-op, which was first built in the 1930s. The previous owners, Craig and Deborah Cogut, bought the property for $13 million in 2006 and originally listed it for $27.5 million in 2018. The steep discount is in keeping with recent high-end Manhattan real estate trends: young, affluent buyers are increasingly disinterested in classic pre-war co-ops. Industry experts say wealthy buyers are prioritizing more youthful neighborhoods and condos with less stringent rules. 'It's no longer, 'I have to be on Sutton Place in a pre-war co-op and belong to the Met Opera,'' UrbanDigs co-founder, John Walkup, told the Wall Street Journal. 'It's, 'I live in this 32nd-floor Tribeca penthouse with a sweeping view of the harbor.'' While other New York neighborhoods might be cooler, it's hard to match the elegance of Jost and Johansson's new two-floor, 14-room apartment. 'The residence boasts grand proportions, beautiful outdoor spaces off all main rooms, including five terraces and eight balconies, six wood-burning fireplaces, and exceptional light from 65 windows across all four exposures,' the real estate listing reads. 'A private elevator landing opens to an elegant center gallery with lacquered walls and open south city views through floor-to-ceiling French doors.' The penthouse's amenities also include an oak-paneled library, a chef's kitchen, a media room, and soaking tubs. The apartment is 2.5 miles away from 30 Rockefeller Plaza (CMCSA), where Jost works as a writer and cast member on 'Saturday Night Live.' Johansson, a frequent guest on the sketch comedy show, met Jost on its set. The pair married in 2020 and have one child together;Johanasson has another child from a previous marriage. Click through to see Johansson and Jost's new Manhattan penthouse. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
