I’m giving myself the luxury of going on a RANT today. One that I have avoided for years, but one I can’t hold in anymore.

WARNING! If you write, create or print a market report of some sort, you might find this offensive and I’m sorry, but here goes…

Everyone’s a critic.

Fine.

But there seem to be more “market experts” with a voice than ever before. And they are broken down into these 3 main categories:

ATMRE’s “Appraisers Turned Market Report Experts”: These are people who have made careers out of creating reports that are dated, not relative to current market conditions and really carry no validity in providing insight into current market conditions. They have also probably never sold an apartment.

BTME’s “Brokers Turned Market Experts”: These are brokers who create reports in various formats. They are mostly for marketing purposes, so they can say they have a “report” and are experts. (CORE’s Real Time Report will get some criticism for this, and if you email me, I will valiantly defend it). Oh, and if you have a better report, I’d love to start using it, so my team who compiles this data every month can start doing something else for our clients, thank you very much.

NRWHNIAOM’s “National Researchers Who Have No Idea About Our Market”: These are people who have probably never visited New York, let alone know what a Co-Op is. They still think that The Bowery is a slum and West Chelsea is a wasteland.

I was going to include specific examples of these people and reports, but I decided against it (for obvious reasons).

The latest absurdity is called the “broker confidence index”. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

Buyer Beware! There is NO market report for New York City that exists right now that will give you answers to all your questions. In fact, you will probably be more confused after reading these reports than if you had never laid eyes upon them.

If you want to know what the market is doing, ask your broker to take you on a property tour. They know what’s going on. They are on the front lines, and this is really the only way to get educated. There are no short cuts!

Almost every seller I have ever met believes that their home is valued above what the market will bear. Don’t be one of “those” sellers. This will only hurt your chances of finding the right buyer who will pay top dollar for your home. When you overprice a property, it can have an adverse effect on the marketing effort by alienating buyers, and discouraging brokers from showing it.

You probably feel your home is worth more because you have lived in it and are aware of all its attributes. Remember this – a future buyer won’t get to know these things as intimately as you until they live there. You need to take an objective view.

If your concern is underselling – make sure you have an agent on your team who is doing all the right things to market your home, and the market will dictate your home’s value.

My advice to you, BEFORE you list your property, is to get educated:

1.) Have your broker give you a comparative analysis of homes recently sold, in contract and currently on the market.

2.) Take 2 hours to go and see what the competition is.

3.) Ask your broker to bring in a few more agents to get their opinion on the value of your home.

The building located at 345 Grand Street is believed to have been built around 1900.  It is a SOHO-Style Cast Iron that somehow was transplanted to Lower East Side.   Before the building was converted to a  Condominium in 2002, it had a quite an interesting history.

During the 1910’s the second floor was a dance hall.  The ticket pictured below was found under the floorboards on the 2nd floor, which has  13′ ceilings and used to have a wide staircase down to the ground floor, also 13′ high.  That stair is still there in the space that is for sale or rent as retail or gallery — but it is covered over now by the 2nd floor’s new flooring.

In the early 1900’s it became a distribution outlet for for H W Perlman Pianos.  1950’s it was a warehouse for Sun Ray Yarn.  As demonstrated in the photo below, Sun Ray Yarn used to be housed in the building next door to 345 Grand Street.  You can see that 347 the original home of Sun Ray Yarn was next door, while H W Perlman Pianos took up most of 345.  It was a warehouse and sales showroom, probably not a factory.  The lady’s long dress and the lack of wire suggest the date was around 1910, right around the time the “Grand Hall” Ballroom Dance was held.

Allen and Alice Freidman, the owners of the building put the building on the market in 1999.  Phillip Frazer and 5 other partners bought it as a Co-op.  They kept  the commercial spaces downstairs  where there was one tenant Grand Sterling Silver, operated by Grand Sterling Co Inc, now on 14th Ave Brooklyn.

AFTER the group brought together bought the building, in 1999, they chose an architect and builder and filed plans for a total rehab — new electrical, plumbing, HVAC, elevator, intercom and alarms.  A new roof enabled higher ceilings for the 5th floor and an entirely new apartment to be built on top — this 6th floor penthouse was designed and built by the present owner and seller Phillip Frazer.

For property details, visit: http://www.corenyc.com/en/listings-345-grand-street,18,163788.html

First Open-house 12-3PM, Sunday June 14th.

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The Monthly CORE Real Time Report is the only one of its kind in the Manhattan residential market.

As the fourth quarter of 2008 brought unsettling news we looked to the first quarter of 2009 to provide an indication of what to expect for the coming year and beyond. Although uncertainties in many aspects of the entire economic picture remain, there are some reassuring indicators to grasp at this point. Our new president has been a strong proponent of economic policies that will shore up badly damaged sectors of the economy and will no doubt continue to implement much needed regulation. As the financing needed to allow homebuyers to purchase property is loosened we will certainly see rises in numerous measures of consumer confidence. At this time, we are seeing a steady increase in sales volume, albeit down from this period last year, as sellers become more comfortable with realistic pricing in this cooled market.

As a former wine professional, I am still intrigued by the comings and goings of that industry. There are many correlations between the fine wine market and real estate, especially rarefied New York City real estate.

Today’s article in The New York Times Food & Wine section reveals a struggling wine market. “The London International Vintners Exchange’s Liv-ex 100 index, which tracks trading in 100 fine wines, mostly red Bordeaux, nearly tripled in dollar terms between February 2005 and August 2008. The index has lost about 43 percent of its value since then.”

Sound familiar?

The article goes on to quote Robert Parker, noted wine critic, “In terms of wine prices, even the luxury end are soft, but have not fallen as much as real estate, art, and stock. However, buying of top wines has slowed considerably, and what unfolds over the next six months will push prices lower, I suspect.”

Remember, this is a wine expert speaking candidly and not a real estate expert. I would assert again that the indicators and the inevitable outcome for both markets will be much the same.

An expert of another order likes to use the Liv-ex 100 as an indicator of how the world’s wealthy are faring as whole. Soon, we all may need another drink!