PropertyShark Real Estate Blog

Announcing the final winners in our Facebook contest

laura — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:56:38 +0000

The most anticipated moment of our contest has finally arrived! It’s time to announce the final winners of both the lifetime subscription to PropertyShark services and of our big prize, the iPad Mini.

The good news is that, once again, there are 2 people who won subscriptions. Votes were pouring in on the last minute for Gabe Chitzlifs and we were so impressed of his friends’ support that we decided to give away a second subscription this week.

So here are the winners, together with their stories:

Gabe Chitzlifs – 136 votes

“We have been using propertyshark.com for a while now and the thing we like the most about this website is its simplicity in getting information at the click of a mouse and the experience keeps getting more user friendly!”

Dan Tang – 88 votes

“ PropertyShark is a great tool for finding out the “inside information” on any properties that many information providers miss or don’t provide. As a real estate professional and investor in a competitive market such as NYC, it’s essential to be armed with the best tools on the market. Proper due diligence must be done for any major purchase. You owe it to yourself and to your clients to know everything possible that could affect the valuation of your target properties. PropertyShark makes this possible.“

The lucky winner of the iPad Mini was drawn randomly by the computer. Congratulations to Eric Weinberg! See Eric’s story below:

“Over one weekend in the fall, I walked by a gas station in Brooklyn and thought it would make for a great residential development site. I checked the FAR, zoning and tracked down the owner through Property Shark that Monday when I got to my desk. The owner named their “crazy” price to do an off-market deal. After speaking with a few buyers and submitting a number of credible offers, I got a hand shake on the deal and it went into contract a few weeks after. Closing Q2 2013.”

Thank you all for entering this month’s contest and stay tuned for our future ones.

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Mobile Property Reports Are Here!

Roxana Baiceanu — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:40:49 +0000

From the feedback we’ve been constantly receiving from our users (thanks so much, by the way!), we know that many of you have been facing the challenge of solving more client requests while on the go.

In the light of this, we’re excited to let you know that we’ve just launched a product that’s meant to help you work more effectively — mobile friendly property reports. This means that you can now have the wealth of property information included in the reports, available directly on your smartphones and tablets.

What’s different?

While the information and functions stay the same — and in the same place — no matter the device you’re using, accessing property data while being away from your desktop has gotten a lot better.

Here are a couple of things you’re going to enjoy:

– high-resolution photos and maps, optimized to fit small screens;

– clearly separated sections for easy scrolling and data access;

– easy-to-spot-and-click buttons and links.

“Presenting the rich data that our site is known for on smaller screens was a challenge, but one that we felt we had to take on to satisfy the needs of our customers. ” said Alex Palade, Director of Product Development. “We are committed to giving our users the best PropertyShark experience regardless of their preferred device. Browsing the site from any smartphone or tablet just got a lot easier after last week’s release.”

New Home Page Design

Together with the new mobile-friendly reports, our home page has had a make-over too, using the same responsive design approach. You can now start looking up any property on a better looking and more user-friendly home page.

So why not take your smartphone out, run a property search, access the report and then drop us a comment at feedback@propertyshark.com?

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And the third week winner is..

laura — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:28:14 +0000

Kamla Jaikaran! She shared her PropertyShark story with us on Facebook and won a lifetime subscription. Here is her story:

“I started using propertyshark to complete my BPOs and what a difference; it has facilitated the whole process. So much better that the local MLS. There are properties that closed and agents haven’t update the MLS or it just was not listed. How many of you can say you can come about this, I know it is quite a few of us. I also use it to get information from the owners, alternative address and the history of the properties. There is nothing better than this site. Geodata has nothing on PROPERTYSHARK!! You can search and compare properties. You can build your own property list, you can search foreclosures, see when they are going for auction. The forums help you when you need to connect with others. You can even list your properties on propertyshark. This is a true “One Stop Shop” per say. This site is the world to me!!What would we do without propertyshark?!!”

We’re down to the 4th (and last!) week of our contest, which means 7 more days for you to tell us your story and enter the chance to win another lifetime subscription. Don’t forget about the big prize–the iPad mini. Hurry to enter your story and ask your friends to vote for it!

The post And the third week winner is.. appeared first on PropertyShark Real Estate Blog.

NYC Foreclosures Remain Down but Pre-Foreclosures Are Up 50%

Roxana Baiceanu — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:27:32 +0000

NYC foreclosures recorded a new low in the first quarter of this year, according to our quarterly report. However, pre-foreclosures continued their upward trend, reaching a two-year high.

Down a significant 29% year over year (146 compared to 206), and 33% over Q4 2012, the number of new NYC foreclosures is now the lowest since the beginning of the real estate meltdown.

Take a look at the chart below to see the trend in foreclosures for the past 8 quarters:

In Q1 2013, most of the boroughs registered significant drops in the number of scheduled foreclosure auctions. The most dramatic ones were seen in Manhattan and Queens, down 47% and 46% respectively. In Brooklyn, new foreclosures were also down by 29%. The only exception to the rule is Staten Island, which registered a 14% uptick, from 14 to 16 foreclosures scheduled for auction.

Unlike foreclosures, pre-foreclosures have been on a steady rise. The number reached this quarter (3,556) marks a 50% increase year-over-year and a 7% increase from Q4 2012.

Manhattan recorded the biggest jump in the number of pre-foreclosures — 61% up year-over-year (from 90 to 145 pre-foreclosures). Brooklyn pre-foreclosures were also up 46%, from 722 in Q1 2012 to 1,057 in Q1 2013.

Here is the break down by borough of all pre-foreclosures filed in NYC in Q1 2013 compared to Q1 2012:

And a chart, showing the slow, but steady, upward trend of NYC pre-foreclosures:

The property with the biggest lien filed was the apartment at 350 East 82nd Street #16D. The building, Wellington Tower, is one of those properties which didn’t pass banks’ screenings for loans last year. As a result, buyers seem to have been having a hard time buying units in the building.

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Second Round Winner in Our Facebook Contest

laura — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:26:39 +0000

The second round of our Facebook contest is over, thank you all for your submissions and for your nice words. Joshua Haller is this week’s lucky winner of a lifetime subscription.

Joshua managed to get 11 votes from his friends with the following story:

“I have been working in Real Estate for 4 years and always going back to Property Shark and for any research or project. The problem is I can only look up 1 listing at a time so the best research tool for RE in NYC becomes the most annoying. Imagine needing to look up 4 properties and having to wait 3 days, then stay up till midnight just to get the fourth! Thats Me All The Time! Please Vote for me, Apr 12 is m B-Day and this would be the best present EVER!”

We’re looking forward to the third round of story submissions. Join our contest and tell us how PropertyShark helped you with your work.

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Facebook Contest – First Round Winners

laura — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:08:56 +0000

The moment to announce the first winner of our Facebook contest is finally here!

Congratulations to Geeta Leitzsey and Sammy Hilany for winning lifetime subscriptions to PropertyShark services! There were two winners this time, the person who received the most votes, and the person who referred her.

Geeta Leitzsey, managed to gather 50 votes from her friends for her story below.

“I’ve been in Real Estate for a while. There is no other tool that comes close to what Property Shark provides. I’ve found owners for property I have seen and wanted to purchase, and with PS it was so easy to do so. My company has also listed property for sale on their PS account. It’s very amazing to have all this information on one page. I love that I can easily get a C of O or deed/mtg.”

Her friend, Sammy Hilany will also get a lifetime subscription for referring Geeta and a big thank you for his story.

“I have used Property Shark for many years and as an Investor it is one of my main tools in this industry in getting vital information on properties, ownership, taxes etc. Everything is at your fingertips. I have bought several properties using Property Shark. It gave me numbers to work with regarding offers and purchases. I recommend it to everyone I meet.”

Although he did not get the most votes, Emilio Mazzucotelli wrote a very inspiring story about how he managed to sell a property in distress. The good news is that he’s still in the contest for winning the iPad Mini at the end of the contest!

“I had a random call from a buyer, wanting to purchase an abandoned property one day. He asked to please find out. I passed by the address and there was 2 big properties totally abandoned for years. Not even listed. No activity. I went to all sort of public records and nothing. Just a name or two in past years transactions. The only resource left was to pay a full property shark subscription to look up more resources. And there it was. Full past description of previous records, owners and even phone numbers. It was amazing. So I finally got in touch with one of the owners. Which was in distress with its mortgage for years due to a bad investment. I asked him to reconsider the situation and let me help deal with it. 3 weeks later he made up his mind and called me. I used property shark as the principal tool to find out the exact position this property was. After a couple a weeks I listed it in the market and kept showing it to investors. But no price was even close to what he owned. I got in touch with his bank and tried to negotiate a better price. The bank accepted. And after a long year we finally reached a good offer, accepted it, went through a long bank process and got the deal closed! Today, this man is stress free, he has no debt, he owes nothing to no one, his late taxes were waived out at closing and today he is planning to buy a new property in a couple of more years. Peace of mind, is what basically me and this gentleman have today, and all thanks to being able to find everything and everyone through property shark! After this transaction I got so good handlinlg distressed properties that I took a HUGE and special certification (CDPE- Certified Distressed Property Expert), which are very few in the nation and I am specialized in dealing with these type of situations and CLOSING the deals! And I have property shark as my main property/ people research tool! Peace to all too!”

There were some really nice stories entering the contest and we were happy to see how useful our products are to so many folks out there. Many thanks to all the participants and we’re looking forward to reading more interesting stories this coming week as well.

If you want to join our contest you can do that here.

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PropertyShark Reaches the 1-Million Members Milestone in Time for Its 10-Year Anniversary

Roxana Baiceanu — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:38:07 +0000

Ten years after PropertyShark.com was launched, we’re very happy to announce that we’ve passed the 1-million registered members milestone, just in time for our anniversary. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all our users for helping us grow through giving us their business, passing on recommendations, or simply for browsing our site.

Because we want to give something back, we have some great prizes for you in our Facebook contest, so make sure you check it out. Also, since we’re looking back at what we’ve done in these past 10 years, we’d like to take you on this journey, so we’ve prepared a graphic to mark the occasion (click on the image below to enlarge it).

How we got to 1 million registered users

Although back in 2003 the beginnings were modest (like most start-ups), founder Matthew Haines has quite a story to tell, as turning a real estate business into a success during the difficult years of the financial crisis is no small feat.

Having experienced firsthand how tough it was for a real estate investor to find reliable data on properties in NYC, Haines quickly turned his frustration into something more proactive. The online real estate data aggregator he and a handful of people created was meant to help other real estate professionals minimize research time by offering vital property information in a single place.

The first data packages, initially available only for the NYC real estate marketplace, included property reports, foreclosure listings, and real estate maps. Soon after, the comparables tool was added, and coverage expanded to Florida, California, and Pennsylvania.

The focus has always been on innovation and on providing users with comprehensive products and services they can rely on and which address the market’s constantly changing needs.

By the time the company reached half a million registered users, it had become trusted by well-known real estate companies such as Corcoran, Elliman, and Town Residential, was named by Time.com one of the 50 best websites –alongside giants such as Google, Facebook and Wikipedia—and was offering one of the most complete product suites on the NYC market. Street-level photographs and an important lead generating tool were also added.

In 2010 real estate software company Yardi Systems acquired PropertyShark. Gordon Morrell, Yardi Systems’ executive vice president and COO, commented on the value of the acquisition: “PropertyShark’s aggregation of real estate data from hundreds of sources into a single property research website has changed the way real estate investors, professionals, and consumers educate themselves and make decisions about property in hubs like New York and Los Angeles.” The ownership tool was added the same year.

PropertyShark now provides data to more than 1 million real estate brokers, investors, and other professionals in 46 states. It currently partners more than 300 companies, and the number of corporate clients is constantly increasing, Wells Fargo being one of the latest to join. The constant growth in terms of traffic, as PropertyShark now registers more than 1 million visits per month, is yet another sign for the general upward trend.

The post PropertyShark Reaches the 1-Million Members Milestone in Time for Its 10-Year Anniversary appeared first on PropertyShark Real Estate Blog.

Selling Homes? These Are the Most Popular Keywords NYC Agents Use to Sell Fast

laura — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:11:20 +0000

Selling a property can take a long time, and in NYC the average selling time can last even longer than in many other parts of the nation. One of the things that agents can do to speed up a sale is to work on the listing description carefully.

And if you ever wondered what those “magical” words that might help sell an NYC home faster are, a recent study made by real estate listings portal Point2Homes (PropertyShark’s sister company) might give you some answers.

Their analysts scanned almost 2,000 NYC homes that sold in 90 days or less in 2012, (the average is 180 days) and created a list of the specific words used by the agents who closed those deals.

Download this list and more valuable data regarding the most popular listing keywords used by agents nationwide and regionally, at the end of their study.

Who Wants to Sell an NYC Home Fast?

Judging from the words that appeared most frequently in East Coast agents’ listing descriptions, home buyers in this area are looking for more practical features in a home. For example, it needs to offer the possibility to “move right in,” be “renovated” and “close to everything.”

And NYC home buyers seem to be after even more specific features.

Real estate agents in the Big Apple sold homes faster when they used keywords such as “closet space,” “city views,” “soaking tub,” “sunny,” “open kitchen,” “oversized windows,” and “elegant” in their listings. Knowing how hard it is to find these features in an affordable NYC home, we’re not overly surprised to hear that home buyers flocked in. Therefore, a combination of words referring to light, space, and views–all in high demand in NYC–stands very high chances of being a winning one.

There might be another important aspect of selling a home fast.

As senior vice president and managing director with Brown Harris Stevens, Elaine Clayman, underlined, it’s not only the features you include in the ad that may help a home sell faster, but also how you choose to describe them. In her own words, “Soaking tub is more inviting than bath tub, for example. Private storage is also more compelling than public storage”. Therefore, if you are able to come up with an inspired description of your home for sale, you might inspire others to go ahead and buy it, maybe even faster than you would expect.

Most Popular Listing Keywords Nationwide

How does this compare to nationwide results? Point2Homes analysts scanned 300,000 listings active in 2012 all over the country and then broke down the results by price and geographical area.

“Beautiful” is the most popular keyword used when selling a home across the nation. Surprisingly, it is the only adjective in the top 3. It is followed by “hardwood floors” and “stainless steel appliances,” terms used to describe amenities. Here’s a cloud with other common terms used when listing a home (the bigger the word appears, the more common it is):

Most used real estate listing keywords. Credit: Point2Homes

Area and Price Influence Choice of Listing Keywords

While there are lots of terms that are popular nationwide, the choice of specific keywords used in listings varies between regions, that is, there are certain words which have a strong impact in certain areas but couldn’t be found in others.

People on the West Coast for example may like “beautiful” homes, but if you want to convince them to buy you have to give them something more specific, like “mountain” or “ocean views.” And it also helps if that “beautiful” home is located in a “gated community.”

Things are really different on the other side of the country. East Coasters prefer to “move right in” in “renovated” homes with “gleaming hardwood floors.”

Point2Homes folks put together this really nifty map showing what specific words agents used the most when advertising homes in several geographical areas:

Specific listing keywords by geographical areas. Credit: Point2Homes

Keywords also vary when looking at homes in different price ranges. It seems that while average home buyers are interested in “beautiful” homes, wealthy ones like “private” properties more.

People looking to spend up to $1 million look for “well maintained” homes with “lots of storage,” and a “covered front porch”. Home buyers in the $1 – $5 million range are interested in “ocean views,” a “guest house,” and a “media room,” while those willing to spend over $5 million seem to want a property with “a pool house,” “a wine room,” and “a home theater.”

What do you think about these words? Let us know your opinion by writing a comment below!

The post Selling Homes? These Are the Most Popular Keywords NYC Agents Use to Sell Fast appeared first on PropertyShark Real Estate Blog.

Hotel Investments in NYC Saw Sharp Fall in 2012

Roxana Baiceanu — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:10:00 +0000

Although last year the overall activity in the commercial sector in NYC was the most upbeat we’ve seen in 5 years, the hotel segment was far from boasting the same results.The sales volume dropped by 58%, totaling only $1.6 billion. This is a sharp fall from the results seen in 2011, but still at least twice the figure in either 2008 or 2009.

The number of transactions saw a 30% decrease year-over-year, with only 31 deals closed in 2012, while the median sale price also dropped by 78% over 2011, from $46 million to 10 million.

Brooklyn sees Median Sale Prices per Room Double

Despite median sale prices per room going down from $286,766 in 2011 to $194,143 in 2012 (a 32% decrease), Manhattan remains the leader for this segment.

However, its top position may no longer be that secure. Brooklyn managed to take the market by surprise, with the median sale price for its hotel rooms almost doubling. At $190,592, a record value for Brooklyn, this is now rubbing shoulders with prices registered in Manhattan.

The Biggest Hotel Transactions in NYC in 2012

There were only 4 large transactions of over $100 million in 2012, bringing in almost 50% of the total sales volume.

JW Marriot Essex House

JW Marriot Essex House

160 Central Park South, Manhattan NY

Selling price: $349,538,000

Selling date: September 14, 2012

The 509 rooms at the former Jumeirah Essex House are again under JW Marriot ownership, a 50 year agreement having been signed. The hotel was purchased in 2005 by Dubai Investment Group for almost $100,000,000 more, and has seen some of its rooms turned into condominiums since then.

The Manhattan at Times Square Hotel

The Manhattan at Times Square Hotel

790 7th Avenue, Manhattan NY

Selling price: $271,600,000

Selling date: October 02, 2012

The all-cash buy of The Manhattan Hotel’s 665 rooms had as buyers, affiliates of Rockpoint Group, Goldman Sachs’ Real Estate Principal Investment Areas and Highgate Holdings.

King and Grove Hotel

King and Grove Hotel

29 East 29th Street, Manhattan NY

Selling price: $116,000,000

Selling date: May 31, 2012

In 2012, Chetrit Group bought 3 adjacent building parcels on East 29th Street among which was the hotel at 20 East 29th Street, formerly known as The Hotel Lola. The building was previously owned by Property Market Groups under the name of Hotel Thirty-Thirty.

The Ritz Carlton

The Ritz Carlton Hotel

50 Central Park South, Manhattan NY

Selling price: $105,000,000

Selling date: Jan. 26, 2012

The 265 hotel room transaction was part of a recapitalization plan of Millennium Partners. Millennium sold the hotel to Westbrook Partners for almost $20 million more than the price it paid in 2006, when it first purchased the hotel from St. Moritz.

Some of the hotel rooms were transformed into luxury condominiums that sell separately.

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NYC Demolition Permits Slowly Rising, while New Building Permits’ Decline May Be Leveling Out

Roxana Baiceanu — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 11:17:31 +0000

One of the (very) early signs that new construction is about to start is that old buildings are being demolished. In New York City, the total number of demolition permits issued in all boroughs has been on an upward trend, although it’s a slow rise.

NYC Demolition Permits See a 5% Uptick

There were 1,174 demolition permits issued in NYC in 2012, a 5% increase from 2011 and a 13% increase from 2010.

A break down by boroughs shows that in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island numbers are going up.

Brooklyn had 300 demolition permits issued in 2012, which is only a 5% uptick compared to 2011, but a 4-year high since 2008. In the Bronx, there were 105 demolition permits issued in 2012, a 21% increase over 2011, while in Staten Island the numbers jumped even more, marking a 50% increase (197 permits).

However, in Queens and Manhattan demolition permits are slightly down — 5% down in Queens (441 demolition permits) and 10% down in Manhattan (131 demolition permits).

Here’s a map with all the sites that were approved for demolition in 2012:

New Building Permits May Be Leveling Out Soon

Our data indicates that the overall number of new building permits issued for all 5 boroughs is 6% down, from 4,092 permits issued in 2011 to 3,861 in 2012. Compared to 2008, the number is a lot (59%) lower. However, as you can see below, the drop shrank every year since 2008, which could mean that we may soon see a leveling out of the trend.

Take a look at this ski slope trend showing how the number of new building permits changed year after year since 2008:

And there might be another good sign. The number of new building permit applications (those which were filed for the first time in 2012), almost doubled in Manhattan and the Bronx.

Manhattan had 86 new building permit applications issued for the first time in 2012, an 83% spike from 2011 (47 permits). In the Bronx there was a 93% increase, from 93 permits filed in 2011 to 180 permits in 2012.

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