A sampling of last week’s press coverage of CORE and CORE properties.

“Bow tie”
New York Post
Now that the north side of the Bowery has been transformed from gritty to glam, the southern portion of the Bowery is on developers’ radars. CORE’s Tony Sargent spoke to the Post about the state of the Bowery market below Houston Street, and the offers he’s fielding on his great two-bedroom listing at 195 Bowery, pictured at right.

“On the Market”
New York Times
Maggie Kent’s listing at 200 East 16th Street in Gramercy, a one-bedroom, one-bath with a built-in office nook in a prewar doorman building, is praised by the Times for its park views and recent renovations.

“Living Large: 240 Park Avenue South”
CBS
As we mentioned last week, the stunning 5-bedroom apartment on Park Avenue South listed by Michael Graves was the subject of a “Living Large” segment on CBS New York. Check out the piece for a great video tour of the 3,700-square-foot spread.

“The Real Estate Artists”
Avenue
CORE CEO Shaun Osher and Managing Director Tom Postilio are featured in Avenue magazine’s silent-film-inspired photo spread on New York’s leading real estate stars.

The new issue of Avenue magazine has a great collection of photos that’s part celebration of the movers and shakers in the New York City real estate market, and part homage to the Oscar-winning silent film The Artist. Topping the list of stars are two great leading men in any era: CORE CEO Shaun Osher and CORE Managing Director Tom Postilio. The price of Manhattan real estate hasn’t changed all that much since the silent film era … right?

Welcome to Ten, CORE founder and CEO Shaun Osher’s rapid-fire interview series with prominent CORE figures. Read on to find out how this week’s subject deals with being on the hot seat.

David Beare has been with CORE for six years. He has built a solid reputation as a top young agent who is trustworthy, hard working, and always eager to learn and grow his business in the residential and commercial field. It was time we chatted for Ten.

1) How did you get into the business?
I got into the business in 2006, when I graduated from college. My mother Emily had gone into real estate a few years earlier. I was very intrigued with the business. It was the summer, she suggested that I try it out, so I got my license and the rest is history.

2) Who is your mentor?
My mentors are all members of my family. My grandfather Eric, who turned 83, is still at the helm of his business, and he taught me the 4 C’s that lead to success in business: communication, cooperation, coordination and collaboration. My father Brian also is a great mentor to me. He came to this country as a foreigner and started his own business from nothing. My mother Emily has an incredible work ethic – workaholic is more like it – and she is proof that success doesn’t just come to you, you have to want it and work for it.

3) You’ve become very successful in a short time. What do you attribute this success to?
Success for me really boils down to hard work, determination, developing/maintaining relationships, and following through (cliché I know, but it’s the truth). Having a good personality, being able to converse, and having a sense of humor are also very important – that is another thing I learned from my mentors.

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HGTV’s “Selling New York” follows CORE agents as they navigate the country’s most competitive—and compelling—real estate market. Here’s our behind-the-scenes look at Episode #509, which first aired on March 22, 2012. For more SNY recaps, click here.

In “Strategic Marketing,” CORE Managing Director Vickey Barron was faced with the challenge of listing a Fifth Avenue penthouse that two brokers had previously failed to sell. With her seller stressing the importance of getting the $6.995 million penthouse into contract quickly to facilitate his move to Florida, and with a fairly strict building policy of no public or broker open houses, Vickey had to get her creative juices flowing. In order to come up with new ideas on how to market and sell her new listing at The Brevoort in Greenwich Village, Vickey decided to enlist the help of her fellow CORE brokers by hosting a friendly marketing competition. The two teams of two toured the penthouse and partnered up with architects and designers to create a new marketing strategy.

After a few weeks, both teams regrouped and presented their marketing strategies to a group of colleagues, potential buyers and the competition’s judges – Vickey, CORE CEO Shaun Osher and The Brevoort’s board President, Diane Nardone. Each team presented a variety of marketing strategies that ranged from architectural renderings of possible renovations to historic information on the building and surrounding neighborhood. After much debate the judges picked a winning team, and just three weeks later, Vickey had an accepted offer on the penthouse and a very happy seller. Keep on reading for some exclusive behind-the-scenes information about what didn’t make it into last night’s episode of “Selling New York” and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling!

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JDS Development's Michael Stern and CORE CEO Shaun Osher in a Walker Tower penthouse. Photo by Fred R. Conrad/New York Times.

We’ve received an incredible amount of interest in Walker Tower ever since we pulled back the curtain on this beautiful pre-war building last November. Today we can finally say more. As the New York Times reports in its Sunday edition — the story is online right now — the ultra-luxury condominium conversion of this Ralph Walker-designed Art Deco skyscraper in downtown Manhattan will soon be hitting the market through CORE at prices of around $3,000 per square foot, with penthouses approaching up to $10,000 per square foot. The average size of these massive homes, there are 53 in total, will be approximately 3,000 square feet. The building, located at 212 West 18th Street in Chelsea, is being developed by JDS Development and Property Markets Group, and the process of turning a 1929 telephone building into a 21st century residential icon is intricate and complicated. The Times‘ C.J. Hughes touches on the transformation:

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A sampling of last week’s press coverage of CORE and CORE properties.

“Scene”
Manhattan
The unveiling of the amazing duplex penthouse at 211 East 51st Street, listed by CORE’s Tom Postilio, made the Scene society pages of Manhattan. Check out the slideshow for great shots of the apartments, as well as the crowd that turned up to see the place. At right, CORE founder Shaun Osher and Postilio, courtesy of Jeff Fried Photography.

“CurbedWire”
Curbed
Wrote Curbed about CORE’s joining the rapidly growing social bookmarking site Pinterest: “Notable because this is the first brokerage we’ve seen with its own Pinterest page, and because there’s a section for Selling New York fans.” You can find and follow us on Pinterest by clicking right here.

“Haute Event: Love & Real Estate”
Haute Living
Vickey Barron’s and matchmaker Samantha Daniels’s Love & Real Estate party, which aimed to add a little romance to the world of real estate, was featured as a Haute Event.

A sampling of last week’s press coverage of CORE and CORE properties.

“The Market That Never Sleeps”
New American Luxury
CORE founder and CEO Shaun Osher was interviewed about trends in the New York City real estate market and how CORE stays ahead of them. Here’s Osher on what people want right now: “Clients are looking for quality—something they’ve become so used to seeing a lack of in this market. New Yorkers want turnkey, well-conceived, perfectly finished apartments and homes.”

“So You’re Priced Out. Now What?”
New York Times
The historic Ladies’ Mile section of Chelsea is offered up as a more affordable version of SoHo in an interesting Times story that looks at five pairs of neighborhoods, one expensive, one cheaper. Part of what gives the Ladies’ Mile its SoHo feel is the conversion of old department stores into lofts, like the Cammeyer, where the Times highlighted Kirk Rundhaug’s $2.8 million listing in the building (right).

“Watts up”
New York Post
Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts checked out three of Vickey Barron’s townhouse listings in the Village, but in the end the celebrity couple decided to buy a loft in TriBeCa.

The New York Condo Blog is the latest publication to take notice of the transformation going on around Central Park along Upper Fifth Avenue, and they spoke with CORE founder and CEO Shaun Osher about the changes, as well as CORE’s new luxury development in the neighborhood, 1280 Fifth Avenue. Here’s Osher’s response to a question about the “stigma” surrounding properties above 96th Street on the Upper East Side:

Manhattan neighborhoods are always evolving. 96th Street is an antiquated border that once denoted the northern boundary of the Upper East Side. Central Park is just as lush and green above 96th Street as it is below, and the architecture is equally as impressive. Both developers and savvy buyers recognize the value of having a Fifth Avenue address with direct park views, access to Central Park and presence along Museum Mile. It is that opportunity that is driving the growth along Upper Fifth Avenue, the newest in a long line of well-known neighborhoods that have evolved such as the Upper West Side, Chelsea, SoHo, and the Meatpacking District – all neighborhoods that are now among the most coveted in New York City.

“Opportunity” is a key word. As the Financial Times wrote, prices on Upper Fifth can be 25% to 50% below what’s asked south of 96th Street. For a look at some listings at 1280 Fifth, click here.

Today several quarterly reports detailing the ups and downs of the Manhattan real estate market at the end of 2011 were released, and the headline, according to the Wall Street Journal, was a sharp decline in sales. Though apartments in Manhattan still sold for an average price of $1.445 million and a median price of $855,000 (about even with past reports), the number of deals fell 12.4% from the fourth quarter of 2010, and 35% from last summer. Part of that drop has to do with seasonality — the fourth quarter is typically the slowest real estate sales period — but the blame can also be pinned on a simple lack of supply. New condominium sales showed the deepest declines, and as the Journal writes, “Real-estate brokers noted that the supply of apartments on the market had been shrinking, especially for new condominiums, which showed the fewest listings on the market in several years.”

Is this lack of supply creating demand? It’s one of the major story lines to follow in 2012, according to Shaun Osher. CORE’s founder and CEO offered these predictions for the 2012 Manhattan real estate market, with the impact of new inventory being chief among them:

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HGTV’s “Selling New York” follows CORE agents as they navigate the country’s most competitive—and compelling—real estate market. Here’s our behind-the-scenes look at Episode 409, which first aired on December 15, 2011. For more SNY recaps, click here.

L-R: CORE's Shaun Osher and Doron Zwickel discuss pricing with 83 Franklin developer Francis Moezinia.

In “Big Decisions and Fast Deadlines,” CORE CEO Shaun Osher and top broker Doron Zwickel collaborated with developer Francis Moezinia of Rex Properties to bring a luxury rental building at 83 Franklin Street in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood to the market. The building’s high ceilings, high-end amenities and condo-like finishes made it a rarity in the Manhattan rental market, and pricing the apartments was tricky. Doron had to tour over a dozen other luxury rental apartments in the neighborhood in order to come up with competitive pricing for each of 83 Franklin’s 11 units.

Working with a hands-on developer isn’t always easy—and Shaun and Doron acted as the “voice of reason” when it came to identifying the perfect price range. While Francis was expecting around $9,000/month for the first apartments, it was ultimately decided that starting low at $8,500 would be the best way to get renters in quickly. According to Shaun, pricing is more of an art than a science, and it all worked out. A low-key open house event brought in a crop of candidates, and four weeks later 9 of the 11 units were rented — all for above the asking prices.

Keep on reading for some exclusive behind-the-scenes information about what didn’t make it into last night’s episode of “Selling New York” and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling!

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