Real Estate Marketing and Public Relations

Jeff from Miron Properties is quoted:

Rentals get their day
Unlike their condo counterparts, these new buildings are getting more upscale – not less
November 01, 2010 07:00AM

By Candace Taylor

From left: 80 DeKalb in Brooklyn and the Ashley at 400 West 63rd StreetAfter years in the shadow of the condo market, new development rentals are finally having their day.

While the new condo market has just begun a slow, painful recovery from the downturn, new development rentals have experienced a dramatic -- and surprisingly speedy -- rebound, experts say. In part, the turnaround has been spurred by wealthy New Yorkers choosing to rent rather than buy in a still-tenuous economy and tight mortgage market.

Whatever the reason, rents at high-end buildings -- which dipped during the downturn --have bounced back, and some projects are fetching higher rents than ever before.

"It was a very dramatic turnaround in the rental marketplace this year," said Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, noting that the firm rented over 200 apartments in new developments in only three weeks this summer. "If you polled most owners a year ago, they wouldn't have known that it would turn around as quickly as it did."

And while condo developers have revamped their layouts and pared back amenities to make them more recession-friendly, new rental buildings, like 2 Cooper Square and 8 Spruce Street (formerly known as Beekman Tower), are pricier and more luxurious than their predecessors.

"This is an extraordinary moment for the rental market," said MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president at Forest City Ratner Companies, the developer of the Frank Gehry-designed 8 Spruce Street, which is set to open in 2011. The 867-foot tower will be the city's tallest residential building and have 22,000 square feet of "super-luxury" amenity space, she said.

"The bar is going to be higher once this building opens," Gilmartin said.

According to a quarterly report from Prudential Douglas Elliman, the median rent for a Manhattan apartment in the third quarter of 2010 was $3,000. That was up from $2,950 in the same period last year, but still lower than $3,195 in the third quarter of 2008. In terms of activity, appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which prepares Elliman's reports, tracked 8,593 Manhattan apartment rental transactions in the third quarter, up dramatically from 6,208 in the third quarter of 2008.

Data about the new development rental market -- and the rental market in general -- is sparse, since rental contracts, unlike closed sales, are not publicly recorded. But while many new buildings are still offering incentives such as one or two months' free rent, tenants are currently paying surprisingly high rents at luxurious new buildings, experts say.

Even after rental incentives, "it still works out to a pretty hefty premium for the space, and the [owners are] getting it," said Jeffrey Schleider, a managing director at sales and rental brokerage Miron Properties.

Clifford Finn, managing director of new development marketing at Citi Habitats, said two three-bedroom apartments at Extell's the Ashley at 400 West 63rd Street recently rented for $13,500 per month. At Beatrice, a 301-unit glass rental tower on Sixth Avenue and 29th Street above Kimpton Hotel & Restaurants' new Eventi hotel, two-bedroom apartments have been rented for around $6,500, and studios have gone for $3,400, Finn said.

On average, units at the high end of the new development rental market are now leasing for $75 to $85 per square foot annually, up from the mid-$60s during the worst of the downturn, he said. Because the type of condo-like rental units on the market today were very rare in the past, he said, it's difficult to know what they would have gone for during the boom.

"Three to five years ago, it wasn't typical to have a washer-dryer and nine-foot ceilings in a rental," Finn said.

At 2 Cooper Square in Noho, units are renting at an average of more than $90 per square foot, said Peter Fine, the CEO of Atlantic Development, the project's developer. Several apartments have rented for over $100 per square foot, and one three-bedroom with a library was leased for a whopping $119 per square foot, said Fine. Unlike other new rental buildings, he added, 2 Cooper is not giving incentives to tenants, and even he was somewhat surprised by the building's strong showing.

"It's fair to say we're about 15 to 20 percent above where we thought we would be three years ago," Fine said, theorizing that the building has tapped into a vein of demand for luxury rental housing in the neighborhood. "It's going much better than we thought. We didn't realize how strong the market would be."

Schleider agreed that high prices at 2 Cooper do not seem to be slowing traffic to the building.

This represents an about-face from the last few years, when the outlook for the rental market looked bleak.

When Forest City Ratner's 80 DeKalb in Downtown Brooklyn started leasing in November 2008, "we were all quite concerned about whether we would make our numbers and have the kind of absorption that we projected," said Gilmartin. A year later, the building is 97 percent leased "at pro forma," she noted.

"What that building demonstrated for us was that the rental market is alive and well," Gilmartin added.

Flipping a switch

The current bevy of very high-end rental product on the market is something of an anomaly for New York City.

In the mid-2000s, condos made up the majority of new development in the city, largely because of the high cost of land and construction, and the extraordinary profits promised by condos.

"When the condo market was on fire, no one was building rental product," said Malin. "It didn't make sense for the vast majority of people to build it -- there was just so much more money in the condo world."

"It seemed like a switch was flipped from rental to condo," recalled Jonathan Miller, the president and CEO of Miller Samuel.

But that started to change around 2007. With the onset of the subprime mortgage crisis, lending for new condo projects dried up.

As financing for new condos grew scarce, New York rents were still climbing, which also made new rental buildings more attractive to developers than they'd been in the past. The average rent for a Manhattan one-bedroom apartment in 2002 was $2,047, according to a Citi Habitats semiannual report from that year; by 2008, that figure climbed to $2,608 (though the two reports measure slightly different seasonal periods).

"What you started to see toward the tail end of the condo boom was that the rental market had really grown tremendously in its pricing," Malin said. "Now, the economics that might not have made sense previously to build rentals made sense. [Developers] could provide information to banks that justified what they were doing."

With credit still tight, this trend will likely continue over the next few years, Miller said, adding that the few new development buildings coming online are likely to be rentals rather than condos. "New development is going to shift toward rentals, away from condos," he said.

In the past, rental developers didn't need to do anything special to attract tenants, experts explained, since Manhattan has always had a much lower vacancy rate than other cities.

If developers "built a nice lobby, with pretty forgettable units upstairs, they moved and you kept your costs low and you made money," said Gilmartin, noting that the philosophy of 8 Spruce Street is very different. "I think we were somewhat courageous in that we believed that if we did something really special, the market would reward [us]."

During the boom, Manhattan condo buyers developed a taste for top-notch design and stainless-steel appliances, which may have raised expectations for rentals as well, Finn said.

"People used to just accept that a rental wasn't permanent and it didn't have to be as special as a condo," Finn said. "But Manhattan is a city of renters. What's happened is that people want to live better when they rent."

Be that as it may, developers were still nervous when the first of these high-end rental buildings debuted in the midst of the downturn. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in 2009 was $2,406, down 8 percent from the previous year, according to Citi Habitats. Landlords all over the city, meanwhile, had begun paying broker fees and offering several months of free rent.

Then, in May 2009, Larry Silverstein's Silver Towers at 42nd Street and 11th Avenue began leasing, marketed by Citi Habitats. Touting condo-style appliances like Bosch washer/dryers, the building had studios starting at $2,300 per month, one-bedrooms at $3,200 and two-bedrooms at $4,300. When asked by the New York Times how he would lease out the building's 935 market-rate apartments, Silverstein said: "Beats the hell out of me. I've been asking myself that question for weeks."

But the project offered two months' free rent, and the lease-up went faster than expected, said Finn. He said it's approximately 90 percent leased.

J.D. Carlisle Development Corp.'s Beatrice -- where rents initially ranged from $2,700 to more than $20,000 per month -- leased more than 40 percent of its units in only seven weeks after starting rentals this summer, said company president Evan Stein, who added that rents have since been raised slightly. While rents are still lower than the original projections for the project, "it's performing better than we expected" when the leasing office opened, he said.

Staying liquid

While condo developers have had to alter their floor plans and retool their marketing campaigns to emphasize value over luxury, rentals haven't followed suit.

Related, for example, is putting a pet spa -- an amenity often associated with the over-the-top excesses of the boom -- into its new condo-rental hybrid building under construction at 450 West 42nd Street (see "Hybrids, this time with rentals"). The company has a smaller pet spa at another one of its buildings, the Caledonia, but "we wanted to expand upon that," said Daria Salusbury, senior vice president of Related Rentals. "This is much more comprehensive."

Fine said the design of 2 Cooper was actually changed a year and a half ago to make it more luxurious.

"We realized about six months into construction that we didn't design a building with high-end-enough finishes and appliances," he said.

The firm decided to change 2 Cooper's design, amenity package and some of the layouts, adding a pool, rooftop barbecues, and a cinema room for private screenings. The building also has solid oak hardwood floors, stainless steel Liebherr refrigerators, and Bertazzoni gas ranges -- all amenities more typically found in condos.

One reason for the demand for such high-end rentals is, ironically, the continuing credit crunch and shaky economy, experts say.

"It's a function of the mortgage market drying up," said Pamela Samuels, the principal of Trio Partners, a new development venture that is looking to build rental projects as well as condos.

Because it's time-consuming and difficult to get a mortgage, well-off New Yorkers are choosing to rent instead of buy, she said.

Others simply feel more comfortable renting in a still-uncertain climate.

"People are unsure about the economy, and they want to stay liquid," Samuels said, noting that monthly carrying costs on a very high-end rental in Manhattan are still much less than the monthly mortgage on a pricey apartment with similar amenities.

Many of these renters have owned homes in the past, and they don't want to compromise their standard of living. "We may be in a recession, but the types of people that are renting these still have money," Finn said. "They don't want to feel that their lifestyle is less because they chose not to buy."

These factors, combined with a recent uptick in corporate relocations, account for the unusually strong demand for high-end rentals, Finn said.

While the new development rental market is performing better than expected, most projects are nonetheless yielding lower rents than their developers and lenders expected.

"Our ultimate rents were lower than what we had originally pro forma'd back in 2007, but I think that would be the case for any rental project in the city," said Steven Charno, the president of Douglaston Development, which unveiled the new rental building Ohm at 312 11th Avenue in February. Since it opened, the project has offered renters two months of free rent and paid their broker's fees. Whether projects that offered those types of concessions can keep their original renters remains to be seen (see "Fleeing new(ish) buildings").

But luckily, Charno said, the company was conservative in its original projections and was able to save money as construction costs came down.

"It's figuring out ways to be creative and to allow yourself to take a short-term hit on revenue and still have a successful project," he said.

Rental developers are often more conservative than condo builders, since rental projects must have a much lower cost basis in order to pencil out in the first place, said Jon McMillan, director of planning at developer TF Cornerstone.

"Rental developers are kind of a different breed from condo developers," McMillan said. "The condo developers are the ones who are really taking a lot of risk."

At a rental project, by contrast, "if you rent at less than what you wanted for a couple of years, it's too bad, but you can always raise the rent later on," he said. "You can recoup your losses later. You can't do that in a condo -- you have one opportunity to sell and if you sell at a number that's too low, then you've lost, period."

Welcoming back grads -- at least some
Post-college renters are back in the city, but activity not as strong as some expected
June 02, 2010 07:00AM

By Candace Taylor

In New York, springtime usually means a flood of fresh-faced college graduates ready to start their first job and live together in their first rental apartment.

Last year, much to the dismay of many brokers, that flood was more like a trickle, thanks to the recession. Now, with the economy improving, agents and landlords are expecting the much-hyped return of renters to the market.

"In 2009, there was an eerie lack of the annual stream of recent grads moving to the city for their first job," said Jeff Schleider, founder of Manhattan-based brokerage Miron Properties. "It's reassuring to see that these grads are back."

Buoyed by good news about the real estate market and the economy, landlords and agents gleefully primed themselves for the return of these newly minted renters. Over the last several months, as The Real Deal has reported, many landlords raised their rents and scaled back concessions, such as a month's free rent. For example, Glenwood -- one of the city's major landlords -- spread the word that beginning June 1, it would no longer offer a month of free rent at any of its buildings. (The company will continue to pay brokers' fees, for the time being at least.)

Jared Wiener, the director of sales and leasing at Platinum Properties, estimated that rents are around 5 percent higher than last year at this time. "This season, the landlords are coming out with guns blazing," he said.

But they may be getting ahead of themselves. Some rental agents reported last month that despite the buzz, activity has actually been slower than expected so far this season.

"Rental transactions have been steady since April," said Takeshi "Takk" Yamaguchi, an agent at DJK Residential. "That being said, it's nowhere near as hectic as I thought it would be."

While "landlords are taking away incentives in certain neighborhoods and buildings," he said, "they should not get too carried away in areas like the Upper East Side and Midtown."

Wiener agreed. "May is slower than anticipated, which is surprising," he said. "Clearly the job market is not helping."

That, or renters are reluctant to sign on the dotted line because they're displeased with the deals they're finding. "It's tough when their friends were able to get a similar apartment six months ago for a lower price and a free month's rent," Miron's Schleider said.

Buyers are having a similar experience. Expecting to find a slow market where they'll have their pick of deeply discounted apartments, they're surprised to find intense competition instead.

"Buyers can't believe that there are multiple offers and bidding wars happening so regularly, until they experience it firsthand," said Ari LeFauve, a vice president and associate broker at the Real Estate Group New York.

The competition is being fueled by a continued shortage of well-priced inventory, brokers said, as well as a large number of bargain-hunting buyers all reentering the market at the same time.

"Buyers are coming out of the woodwork," said Ali Jafri, an agent at Prudential Douglas Elliman. "There is a release of pent-up demand."

As a result, "everyone is going after the same listings," said Rob Jackson, a salesperson at the Corcoran Group.

The competition also intensified this spring thanks to the end of the federal homebuyer tax credit program on April 30, and those buyers are now racing to make sure their deals close before the deadline of June 30.

"The government stimulus tax break definitely gave even more urgency for buyers," said Fumiyo Hayashi, a vice president at Barak Realty. "What's difficult right now is the pressure of making sure that things are moving so that the buyers can close by the end of June to capture the tax break."

In general, buyers who don't make offers quickly enough are finding that, often to their great displeasure, they are getting outbid on the properties they want -- sometimes multiple times.

Others can't find homes at all, which can be frustrating.

"In the large-apartment segment, meaning eight to 12 rooms, there is simply no inventory," said Deborah Komarow, an agent at Warburg Realty Partnership, noting that few of these large homes have come on the market recently because sellers want to avoid discounting them. "Now that the market has stabilized, the large-apartment buyer has come back into the market, and there is nothing to show them."

Some buyers simply aren't able to accept that the crisis may be over, said Judi Desiderio, the CEO of Hamptons-based Town & Country Real Estate.

"You have the half-empty/half-full mentalities," she said. "Some are playing it like Chicken Little, 'The sky is falling,' and expect a double-dip recession with housing taking another tumble. Others -- and this is the majority -- believe we have bottomed out and are ready to buy."

One lingering concern for many is the economic turmoil in Europe.

"The Euro zone crisis may still yet spill over into the global markets, which in turn will hit New York real estate values, and this is of serious concern," said Schleider.

Still, conditions are markedly improved for brokers.

As John Reinhardt, president and CEO of Fillmore Real Estate, said, "It's great to be busy again."

Press: Candid On Camera
Author: Jason Turcotttte, Brokers Weekly
Date: Friday, June 25
Jill Sloane came to New York with ambitions to star in a daytime television soap opera. As executive vice president at Halstead Property, she foregoes the drama but still relies on the camera for some of her successes.

Featured on Halstead’s “Home Sweet Home” television show and NBC’s “Open House,” in addition to news program appearances on CNN, NBC, PBS, NY1 and CH11, Sloane has leveraged her comfort with the camera to help bolster her reputation as a top New York broker.

And it’s something more brokers are looking to do, as they build their brand and build relationships long before clients come to the city.

One of Sloane’s latest on-camera endeavors is her video biography, available online through Halstead ProperTV (a professionally produced video forum that showcases both properties and brokers). Halstead parent company Terra Holdings, which estimates more than 4.5 million viewers have tuned in since ProperTV’s inception less than one year ago, launched the forum to encourage more brokers to go on camera since it is estimated that 85% of home searches start online.

“It’s been great for me,” Sloane said. “For example: I did get an exclusive directly from it. Someone who was interviewing multiple brokers was able to show her husband my video.”

A foreign buyer whose husband was back in Korea met with Sloane — and other brokers under consideration for their business — and Sloane followed up by sending a package of information that included her video bio, which the client later showed to her husband to seal the deal.

With Central Park as her backdrop, the video was filmed as a way of separating herself from competing brokers. In this business, she believes that clients not only need to trust their broker, but they also want assurance that their personalities mesh.

“You need to be comfortable in your own skin — and comfortable in front of the camera,” said Sloane, who also has on-camera experience in commercial advertising.

Sloane’s keys to a successful video include a non-scripted and non-aggressive communicating style. She insists being yourself and revealing your personality can make the difference in the eyes of a prospective client. Without sounding contrived or rehearsed, the walk-and-talk in Central Park is scoring Sloane clients.
Miron Properties founder Jeffrey Schleider is another broker who’s roping in clients through video. But he’s taking a more animated approach to communicating with potential business — quite literally, in fact.
Schleider tapped friend and filmmaker Matt Landin to develop an animated video to explain some of the basics of New York real estate, since more than half of his business stems from relocations. After writing the text and spending a day filming with Landin, Schleider has the first of what he hopes will be many news-you-can-use videos (available on his firm’s website and YouTube) for prospective clients.

“After answering the same questions over and over again, I figured there were many people that could use a good how-to series that explained the different processes of New York City real estate in simple English,” Schleider said. “My thinking was that if people found value in the videos and they liked our straightforward approach, then a few of them would probably choose to work with us as their broker.”

Schleider has developed video tours before, but recognized the need for videos that were more market specific and included a more personal element. Launching Miron Properties less than two years ago, Schleider believes one of his company’s assets is the fact its brokers are young and fun. And he felt animation would best capture that.

“New York City real estate can be intimidating. We wanted [the video] to be informative but also interesting and fun to watch,” he said. “And I can safely say that people who were considering different brokerages chose us because of the video.”

The animation not only suits the tone of the firm, but Schleider believes the video embraces the multiple hats a broker must wear, including the role of tour guide. Giving outsiders a glimpse into the city that’s informative and amusing — rather than pushy or self-promoting — is the best way to attract new clients.
He also added that, with all the white noise on the Web, most online videos have a short shelf life. He believes a quirkier, animated video holds more longevity in today’s digital world.

“It engages people with sounds and sights that traditional information doesn’t,” Schleider said. “The Internet rewards those who give away useful information, and we’re in that school of thought.”

So is Gus Waite, a broker at The Real Estate Group of NY. He’s one of a few brokers who have launched their own YouTube channel (NYCapartmentTV) in order to reach out to those relocating to New York. In addition to featuring a plethora of rental buildings throughout the city, he also stars in several of the short films offering information that can set him apart from other brokers.

“If you’re moving from Indiana to New York, it’s almost like a welcome video,” said Waite. “I was hoping to avoid having the exact same conversation a million times a year.”

The crux of Waite’s YouTube channel is something he calls “complete disclosure” about all things real estate. In one video, he interviews Insurent COO Jeffrey Geller on the topic of how to qualify with a landlord if you’re retired, a foreigner or don’t have a guarantor. In another, he’s offering a short film contest with a $1,000 prize.

“For me, it was very comfortable, but I think the danger is, it can’t become a commercial,” said the former actor and stand-up comedian. “What I’m trying to do is be a portal of information.”

Waite believes a successful portal means no pitches; he keeps his videos short, educational and eccentric. He said authenticity and transparency are the keys to establishing trust and reaching out to those relocating to the city or those who are already New Yorkers but are high net-worth renters without the time for their apartment search.

Now that market information is more readily available to clients, brokers need to establish themselves as experts. Waite believes there’s no better way to do that than on-camera marketing, especially considering there’s no shortage of professional film talent in New York.

He plans to produce videos daily and link them to a WordPress blog. The more visibility, in his eyes, the better his business. “People think, ‘that guy is everywhere, so he must be credible,’” Waite said.
And some of real estate’s most recognizable names can attest to the importance of an on-camera presence.

In an interview with Brokers Weekly earlier this year, Barbara Corcoran credited her on-camera spots with news outlets as a means of bolstering her brand and establishing herself as an authority on New York real estate. The Trumps, too, are no strangers to the television spotlight and the popularity of real estate-based reality programs — like A&E’s “Flip This House” and Bravo’s “Flipping Out” — continues to grow.
Indeed, the new HGTV series featuring agents from CORE and Gumley Haft Kleier is now that network’s second highest rated program.

CORE founder and CEO Shaun Osher and his agents helped usher “Selling New York,” which debuted on HGTV in March and now pulls in an estimated 200 million viewers.

“Initially, it was a very difficult decision, because I wasn’t sure about the quality of the show and the premise,” said Osher, who was approached by network execs about doing the series. “This certainly could’ve backfired if we came back looking like idiots, but instead it’s been an incredible success.”
According to Osher, CORE relinquished some control over who and what to feature and not retaining complete control of the company’s image was also an admitted risk.

However, he said he’s satisfied with the show’s depiction of how he and his agents sell New York property and he credits part of that to the unscripted nature of the show and the comfort level of his agents on camera, applauding the way they’ve handled the limelight with professionalism and integrity. What makes the relationship between CORE and HGTV so effective, believes Osher, is that the network’s high-end demographics are in tune to the type of clients his company attracts. And their phones have been buzzing with potential business since airing.

Author: Teri Karush Rogers, Brick Underground
Date: Tuesday, June 22

A good rental is hard to find, and some New York City renters apparently stop at little once they find one, including offering swag to brokers in exchange for being bumped to the top of the list.

“I’ve been offered cases of wine by people who work for liquor companies, VIP access to clubs, free drinks forever by bar owners, free meals at a restaurant,” says Jeffrey Schleider, the founder of Noho-based Miron Properties. "Yesterday someone offered me a pair of designer shoes."

Miron does a lot of business in the East Village and has represented several new rental buildings there.
“The East Village draws a really cool crowd of entertainment and hospitality industry people,” says Schleider. “The most desirable units go pretty quickly, and sometimes people try to convince us to take their application over someone else’s.”

Gus Waite, vice president of rentals at The Real Estate Group of New York, says he's encountered similar overtures.

“You have an open house for a really beautiful loft on Spring Street at a good price and six or seven tenants are looking at it—they know there are going to be multiple applications,” says Waite. “So a prospective tenant might take the broker aside and say, hey, I heard you talking about the Yankees-- my brother’s a bartender at Yankee Stadium and I could get you tickets if you move me to the front of the line.”

So...does it work? We're not sure.

Waite and Miron maintain that they personally never accept swag because their fiduciary duty is to the landlord.

“It comes down to qualifications,” says Waite. “While it might be nice to go to dinner at the hot new Italian restaurant, if you’re making $120,000 and another potential tenant is making $5 million, you won’t be getting the apartment.”

He warns that such offers can backfire.

“It should never come across as quid pro quo. If we’re having a friendly conversation and it turns out we’re both really into Italian food, and whether it works out or not you’d like to take me out to the hot Italian restaurant, that’s one thing,” says Waite.

On the other hand, says Waite, “it’s really bad if it’s sleazy or if it comes off as arrogant—like basically you’re telling me, ‘You’re a servant, you have a price, and I’m going to pay you off so that you do what I want you to do.’ I will tell the landlord that you’re sleazy.”

Schleider recommends leaving the designer shoes in the bag and trying these tactics instead:

1. Offer to pay a year’s rent up front, especially when it’s a small owner like someone who owns one condo.
2. If you’re relocating with an employer-paid budget of $10,000 a month, for example, but the apartment is renting for $9,000, offer the landlord the full $10,000 in exchange for including electric, cable, and cleaning service. (Be sure to check with your company’s relo department first.)

Online auction: Is this the
future of home sales?

NEW ROCHELLE — Buying a home in the city's luxury
Premium Point development had always been
considered a safe investment, especially since the
gated community is only about 20 miles from New
York City.

So when Peter Mastroianni bought a home there for
$2.2 million in March 2007, he figured he would
enjoy the summer with his family and then rent out
the property.

But then the housing market collapsed, leaving his
rental prospects high and dry.

"Sobering reality, that's what it is," said Mastroianni,
a community banker who has been unable to rent or
sell the property despite dropping his asking price
to $1.95 million. "You ride the highs and deal with
the lows, like any business."

Now he and his Realtor are trying their luck in a new
venue — an online home auction site called Bid on
the City.

Launched in Manhattan in October, the business is
starting to make waves in Westchester County as
buyers and sellers seek the best deals in a generally
deflated housing market.

The site's second Westchester County auction will
begin at 11:30 a.m. today.

Bidders can register at BidontheCity.com, which will
stream the auction in real time out of the company's
New York headquarters. Interested buyers can also
participate in person at 226 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan.

There are about 10 properties up for sale, with bids
starting at $1. Sellers have a base price requirement,
though, so don't expect to run away with a complete
steal.

Homes on the bidding block are mostly around $1
million and up this time around. An auction planned
for September will be dedicated to homes under $1
million.

"Our experience in Manhattan shows that the most
successful events are those that are dedicated to
certain groups of buyers," said Vlad Sapozhnikov,
general manager, who co-founded Bid on the City
with Albert Feinstein.

There are no listing fees to put a home up for
auction; the only charge is a 3 percent buyer's
premium once a transaction is completed.

Approximately 70 people are already registered to
bid in today's auction, though many more are
expected to tune in just to watch.

"The people who put their houses up on Bid on the
City are the same people who put their houses on
the market," Sapozhnikov said. "It's people who need
to sell. There's nothing to lose. We take all the risk
up front. We sponsor all the advertising and
marketing."

In Westchester, Bid on the City has partnered with
Realtors to show the properties and conduct open
houses, unlike in Manhattan, where they also handle
this component.

Lester J. Kravitz, a Pelham Realtor who has two
houses up on Bid on the City, says this combines
the best of 20th- and 21st-century marketing.

He sees this as the future of real estate, likening it to
eBay, the online marketplace.

Jennifer Gould Keil
GIMME SHELTER

He’s out!
Joe Torre’s former Westchester residence is up for auction. The New Rochelle mansion, located at 60 Premium Point Road and offering Long Island Sound views, had originally been listed at $2.695 million.

The six-bedroom, five-bathroom, 6,534-square-foot home that Torre rented, in a gated community with a private beach, has a dock and an indoor pool. The master suite opens onto a deck, and the family room has a stone fireplace. Bidonthecity.com is auctioning off the property on July 20.

Although Torre is now with the Dodgers, his former Westchester neighbors don’t seem to hold it against him. A Larchmont restaurant, La Riserva, even has a dish — Pollo Joe Torre — named after him.

Bidonthecity.com is also auctioning off a piece of music history — the Pelham childhood home of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Felix Cavaliere. Cavaliere’s band, The Rascals, wrote and performed classics like “Groovin’ ” and “Good Lovin’.”

While Cavaliere rehearsed in the garage/basement, his dad worked as a dentist out of the home, which still has zoning that permits a small medical office. The five-bedroom, 2½-bathroom, 2,810-square-foot house was originally listed at $1.095 million

Going, Going, Gone!
By Elsa Brenner
Bid on the City, a new online bidding service for luxury real estate, has chosen Westchester as one of three upscale areas in the New York Metro region for technologically advanced approach to selling in the current housing market.

“It’s the new eBay for real estate,” says Vlad Sapozhnikov, Bid on the City’s co-founder and general manager. “A standard brokerage approach no longer works in this type of economy. There is a need for much more dynamic tools.”

Live bidding takes place in Bid on the City's 4,000-square-foot Fifth Avenue headquarters, but can also be done online with video and audio streamed in real time.

Properties—not foreclosures, mind you—that are up for bid range from $684,000 to $5 million, with opening bids starting at $1. These are houses that simply have not sold for one reason or another, and the owners, while not in desperate straits, are nevertheless anxious to strike a deal.

Under the Bid on the City model, sellers sign a 60-day exclusive listing agreement, but unlike traditional auctions, these will have no hidden reserve price. The houses will be sold to whomever bids the most above the seller’s stated minimum.

Want a sample of what’s up for bid? Check this out.

Among the offerings, you’ll find a 5-bedroom, 5-bath house with an in-ground pool on 1.25 acres in Scarsdale, with a starting bid at $1.99 million. (It came on the market at $2.8 million.) Taxes: $54,662.

If you miss that one, though, not to worry. There’s more to come, like a 4-bedroom, 5- bath Colonial at 182 Finch Road in North Salem, which came on the market at $3,200,000, but has a starting bid of only $1,995,000.

New York City Realtor Branches Out into Westchester County

Catherine Cioffi Reporting
WCBS 880 Reporter

A well-known online Manhattan realtor is moving up the Hudson River into Westchester County.

LISTEN: Catherine Cioffi reports
LINK: BidOnTheCity.com
READ: More Opening Bell Stories

It's sort of like eBay for property. BidOnTheCity.com has long been in the business of auctioning off New York City homes online. Now, the company is branching out in Westchester.

BidOnTheCity co-founder Vlad Sapozhnikov says, "It's a very logical move for us becuase Manhattan is so interconnected with Westchester."

He says this is the wave of the future and yes, he says, you do get used to seeing the starting bid of an $800,000 home be $1.

"There is a sense of oppourtunity for people to buy the property," says Sapozhnikov.

Is Chappaqua for the Fockers?

By S.Jhoanna Robledo

A one-bedroom on 15th Street fetches $650,000, a 12% discount from original price—and exactly $649,999 above the starting bid; hard part is getting sellers to sign on to the tactic.

By Amanda Fung

Apartment auctions haven't quite caught fire in Manhattan as expected, so auctioneers at Bid on the City are dramatically lowering the ante. They will now be putting properties on the block at starting bids of a mere buck.

Last year, the e-Bay-like website for apartment and building sales began holding auction events, where properties were auctioned off at starting bids of as little as 35% off the original price. Now, to attract more buyers, it has decided to put properties, including posh Hamptons homes, on the block for starting bids of $1. The move comes after the Manhattan-based start-up briefly tested the idea earlier this year.

“We are very excited. Our $1 events are so much more successful,” said Vlad Sapozhnikov, co-founder and managing partner of Bid on the City. “It brings more traffic to our website and results in more bids.”

While apartments clearly do not sell for $1—there are bidding increments of at least $50,000 based on the original sale price and reserve prices—the one-buck starting point grabs people's attention. The hard part can be getting the property owner to agree to sign off on the idea.

For $1 auction events, the company attracts four to five times more bidders than at regular auctions, Mr. Sapozhnikov noted. Most recently, Bid on the City successfully auctioned off a one-bedroom at The Parker Gramercy, located at 10 W. 15th Street, for $650,000, a 12% discount from original price—and exactly $649,999 above the starting bid.

Bidders participate in events live at the company's 4,000-square-foot showroom at 226 Fifth Ave., at 27th Street, or online via the firm's website. Each property attracts roughly 2,000 daily page views and 30% of those visits are from overseas, according to Mr. Sapozhnikov. Bid on the City collects a 3% commission from sellers and a 3% commission from buyers upon closing.

Previously, Bid on the City held an odd reverse auction for Hamptons rentals, in which rents for the properties fell over time when no bids were offered, and the first person to bid on the property won the rental. Now Hamptons rental auctions will start at $1 and rise from there.

Next month, Bid on the City will launch its Westchester auction event, in which as many as nine properties will be up for grabs. Its next Manhattan auction will be devoted solely to studios and is scheduled for July 20. Coming this fall, the firm also plans to begin auctioning off high-end Manhattan rental apartments.