Last week, Mayor Bloomberg introduced a bill that would require owners of Class A multiple unit residential buildings to disclose where smoking is permitted or prohibited inside the units, outside areas within 15 feet of entrances and doorways as well as the common areas, balconies, courtyards and rooftops.

Current trends to regulate smoking in public spaces, such as in parks and restaurants, have sparked interest in pursuing non-smoking policies for residential buildings. Additionally, New York City’s Smoke Free Air Act already requires that individuals cannot smoke in public places, including the common areas of a multiple dwelling such as hallways, elevators and stairs.

The proposed legislation put forward by the Mayor’s office would require buildings to create a smoking policy if they do not already have one.  There are several concerns with the legislation.

• In the current draft of the bill, buildings would have to comply within 90 days.   This is an unrealistic turnaround time for condo and coop boards. They would need at least 6 months to confer with their attorneys and have any smoking policy approved by the board members.
• Under the legislation, the proposed notification requirement is the responsibility of many parties including owners, managers and leasing agents.  In actuality, given the various ownership and management structures in New York City real estate, each lease and sale transactions can be structured differently and can make it difficult to clearly delineate responsibility.  It may be straightforward to designate responsibility in an owner managed and leased rental building, but it may be less clear if a condo owner is subletting his/her own apartment.
• Additionally, the City is seeking to impose hefty violations if this notification is not in place. We question the need for a complicated fine schedule.

REBNY will be working with the Mayor’s office and City Council to ensure that any bill that is passed is practicable for building owners and managers.

Related to the smoking issue, the Best Practices Subcommittee of REBNY’s Residential Management Council created a guide that serves as a starting point to help managing agents best inform their buildings and boards if they are considering implementing a no-smoking policy. This Subcommittee, which finalized the guide at the beginning of April, laid the groundwork to open communication and provided insight into addressing this issue.

Under existing city, state, and federal law, owners of rental apartment buildings are free to adopt a non-smoking policy with regard to the individual residential units that are free market. Currently, there are no laws in New York prohibiting smoking within an apartment in residential buildings, but implementing a smoking ban could lower maintenance costs and insurance rates.

Here are some highlights from REBNY’s guide for implementing a smoking ban in residential buildings:

Rentals

A landlord or owner can ban smoking in the building for each new non-rent-regulated tenant.  However, the landlord would have to add a rider to that effect to the lease.

In the event that an existing tenant has smoke emanating from his or her apartment and other tenants have registered complaints, the landlord may be able to use that as a basis to attempt to terminate the smoker’s lease.

Coops

An outright ban on smoking would most likely require an amendment to the proprietary lease, which would require the affirmative vote of the owners of a supermajority (typically two-thirds or 75 percent) of the shares.

The Board of Directors may consider whether the smoker’s conduct rises to the level of objectionable conduct sufficient to terminate the shareholder’s proprietary lease.  The Board of Directors could also use the prohibition against “objectionable odors” emanating from an apartment found in most proprietary leases to attempt to terminate the smoker’s proprietary lease.

Condos

Condominium’s By-Laws can generally be amended by the affirmative vote of the owners.  The Board of Managers has the ability to reject any purchaser who permits smoking in the unit.  The Board of Managers can also indicate a specific date in the future at which point no resident may smoke in the building including within the unit.

If the Board of Managers has the authority under the By-Laws to fine a unit owner who smokes in a unit and the smoke enters another unit, it may impose such a fine.  Absent such a provision, the Board or offended unit owner could sue the owner who smokes for monetary damages and an order enjoining the owner from smoking.

The Guide titled, Issues to Consider-Smoking and Second Hand Smoking in Multi-Unit Residential Buildings, is easily accessed on the member’s only side of REBNY.com.  Go to ‘Just for Managers’ and click on ‘RMC Subcommittees” for the full document.

From REBNY memo April 25, 2012.

4/26/12  Useful  Vocabulary for Building Watchers:  Here are a few  architectural definitions that anyone who wants fluency in New York architecture will find useful.  Read the full story in the New York Times  

4/26/12  Prudential Douglas Elliman releases “The Elliman Report:  Long Island Sales 1Q 2012”:  Mild winter weather brought consumers into the market earlier than usual, causing the number of signed contracts in the Long Island housing market to jump from year ago levels. Housing prices were mixed, as buyers of lower priced properties took advantage of record low mortgage rates. Although properties took slightly longer to sell, listing inventory fell to its lowest first quarter total in six years. Despite the slow improvement in the national economy, we are encouraged by the state of the market in 2012.  See the full report 

4/26/12:  Prudential Douglas Elliman releases “The Elliman Report:  Hamptons & North Fork Sales 1Q 2012”:  The Hamptons and North Fork housing markets showed stability in both price and sales activity. Just as we have seen in prior quarters, the high end of the market continued to show strength. While it took somewhat longer to sell a typical property this quarter, listing inventory continued to decline. Considering the slow pace of our national economic recovery and tight credit, the East End housing market has continued to hold its own.  See the full report 

4/27/12:   Space Shuttle Enterprise’s Historic Flyover Wow’s New Yorkers: Did you see it?  Hundreds of space shuttle shuttle fans braved the chilly temperatures and biting wind Friday Morning along the Hudson River here to catch a glimpse of NASA’s prototype orbiter as it flew past the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum it will soon call home.  See the full article on Yahoo! News 

4/27/12:  Threats, stormy Exits and…:  The setting for the closing on an apartment in the East 50s was a lawyer’s office. Things seemed to be going well between the sellers until the wife found out the price her husband had received for the apartment.  This is New York City, where real estate transactions can literally take on the trappings of a blood sport. Unlike most other parts of the country, it is a place where lawyers are invariably involved in the transaction; at the very least, this increases the number of people around the table.  Read the full article in the New York Times 

4/27/12  Brokers See Bright Future for 2012’s Residential Real Estate Market: The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has released the results of its Residential Brokers Survey for the first quarter of 2012.  With the unseasonably warm weather and favorable market conditions, brokers saw an uptick in activity this quarter and are optimistic about next quarter.  Of the brokers surveyed, 69 percent reported that they thought the first quarter of 2012 was better than the previous quarter.  Additionally, 76 percent of brokers reported that they expect the second quarter of 2012 to be better than the first, a 16 percent increase from last quarter. 

 Their optimism was based on the improving activity in the market.  The survey found that 70 percent of brokers reported completing executed contracts of sale this quarter, a nine percent increase from last quarter.  Another highlight from the first quarter of 2012 was that 74 percent of brokers reported closing rental transactions at or above asking prices, which is a 13 percent increase from this time last year.  In addition, 26 percent of the brokers reported closing sales at or above asking price, a nine percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2011 and a 4 percent increase from the first quarter 2011.

 “Brokers feel changes in the market first and we count on them to help us gauge where the market is headed,” said REBNY President Steven Spinola.  “Based on the survey results, it’s clear that broker’s optimism is coming from an improving market and that their view that 2012 will be a strong year for New York City real estate is justified.” 

 The survey also found a near perfect record of 99 percent of brokers reporting that they received a coop board approval in less than 90 days from the time a completed coop board application was submitted.

 Similar to last quarter’s findings the top features/amenities this quarter were: 1) doorman building, 2) laundry in unit, 3) private storage space, and 4) on-site fitness center.
 The survey was sent to REBNY’s Residential Broker Members.  404 brokers took the survey this quarter.  See the REBNY Q1 2012 Residential Broker’s Survey Results

4/12/12:  Audits Find Flaws in City’s Property Assessments:  The audits note that for many years the city used one methodology, called net income capitalization, to determine property valuations. For the 2008-9 fiscal year, the city switched to another method, called gross income multiplier. Then, without advance notice to homeowners, it reverted to the original methodology for the 2011-12 fiscal year. Read the full article in the New York Times

4/13/12  Exclusive 1st Quarter 2012 Elliman Report for the Miami, Florida Market:  The Miami housing market experienced the highest market share of non-distressed sales in several years, with a surge in both condo and single-family sales activity. The luxury and the non-distressed markets both continued to see upward pressure on prices. Distressed sales activity is expected to pick back up over the next year, which will help the market gain better footing for the long term. Foreign buyers continue to play a key role in driving sales demand, incentivized by the weak US Dollar. We anticipate an active Miami housing market over the next several quarters.  Read the report from Prudential Douglas Elliman 

4/2/12  NY ranks as No. 1  global business center:  “Thanks to investments in public transportation, cultural amenities and education, New York surpassed London, Paris and Tokyo as the city with the most global clout.”  Read the full article at Crain’s NY Business.

“Employment conditions have continued to slowly improve, inventory levels have remained modest, and new development stabilized, but tight mortgage underwriting conditions remain a challenge to the market.”

• Median sales price was $775,000, 0.9% below $782,071 in the prior year quarter. Price per square foot increased 6%, and average sales price increased 0.8% over the same period.
• The S&P’s downgrade of US debt, paired with the European debt crisis, Wall Street bonus concerns, and large swings in the stock market indices all contributed to the market’s slowed pace leading into the first quarter. As a result, the number of sales slipped 3.5% to 2,311 from 2,394 in the prior year quarter.
• Active listing inventory slipped 0.6% to 7,560 in the first quarter from 7,605 in the prior year quarter, but remained consistent with the 7,478 quarterly average over the past ten years.
• Days on market—the number of days between the last price change, if any, and the contract date—saw a 25-day increase to 152 days from 127 days as older inventory was sold off.
• Listing discount—the percent difference between the list price at time of sale to the sales price—increased to 6.3% from 4.5% in the same period last year.

• 51% of sellers are more willing to price their property competitively than this time last year
• 45 % said sellers are more willing to change the appearance of their homes to entice buyers
• 94% said sellers are clearing clutter and painting or making minor repairs
• 78% said sellers are de-personalizing the home
• 59% said sellers are willing to allow staging with new decorations or furniture

Buyers are going back to the basics valuing new or updated kitchens, bathrooms and open floor plans.  Motivating buyers are growing families and job relocation.

Source: “Survey Reveals Sellers More Willing to Price Competitively,” RISMedia

3/14/12  Rent Study Finds NYC Cheaper Than Long Island, New Jersey:  “In what will be a surprise to many New Yorkers, the city isn’t the most expensive place in the country to rent a modest two-bedroom apartment, a new report released has found. In fact, it’s not even the most expensive rental market in the region.”  Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal

3/15/12  Pension Reform Announced:  “Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos today announced the passage of a sweeping pension reform plan that will save state and local governments more than $80 billion over the next 30 years.  New York City taxpayer savings will account for $21 billion of this savings.  Our legislative leaders have shown extraordinary determination and deserve immense credit for addressing the critical fiscal challenges facing state and local government.”  Read the Governor’s Press Release and Mayor Bloomberg’s Statement

 3/15/12  NY State lawmakers to allow casino gambling:  “New York state lawmakers have agreed to legalize public casinos and will amend the state constitution to allow seven new casinos to operate, lawmakers said on Wednesday.”  Read the full article at Reuters.com

3/6/12 NYC sees biggest building permit rise since crash:   Number of permits for demolition work soars nearly 37% in the first two months of year, while the number of permits to put up new buildings jumps almost 43%. Levels are still well below pre-2008 peaks.  Read more about it at Crain’s New York.

3//8/12  Apartment bargains melted away in warm Feb.:  Unseasonable temperatures bring out more customers and landlords respond by cutting concessions and even hiking some rents. A “disappointi9ng season” for tenants seen.  Read the full article at Crain’s New York

3/8/12  Stunning gains for city economy:  The city economy grew nearly twice as fast in 2011 as initially thought, according to data released Thursday, and jobs boomed in January.  Read the article at Crain’s New York.

3/9/12  Crumbling East 81st Street Pedestrian Bridge Set for Makeover:  Months after cutting the ribbon on a stainless steel pedestrian bridge at East 78th Street, the city is moving forward with tackling the next decaying walkway connecting the neighborhood to the East River waterfront.  Read the article at DNAinfo.com 

In the following charts and graphs you can see how the market stacks up against last month and this month last year.