by stephenlee 1. Trump’s new tax reform might be negative impact to New Jersey residents
- Reform will cancel exemption on certain property tax → increase tax pay
- Average exempted tax amount: Palisades Park → $15,907 / Fort Lee → $25,153 / Englewood Cliffs → $48,303 / Tenafly → $60,697
- Example: Tenafly → $60,697 = 21.4% of AGI (Adjusted Gross Income)
- NJ State average exempted amount: $21,500
- In NJ State, 41.4% → Itemized tax report
2. A child died when the balcony collapsed
- Residential house balcony collapsed on 10/05 around 5:00pm in Perth Amboy
- 2nd floor, 13 FT balcony was troublesome → when collapsed, the child (9 year old) fell off and died on the spot (13 year old relative survived)
- Tenant notified the owner many times → Owner did not respond
- Owner is under investigation by local police
3. Malcolm Harris got convicted
- Sentence: 42 month in jail, 3 year surveillance, $500,000 forfeiture for fraud and money laundering
- Dennis Ban, Real Estate broker, is planning bribing to Middle-East foreign officials for selling ‘Landmark 72’ in Hanoi, Vietnam. He gave money to Harris as a middleman and Harris used for himself
- Dennis Ban’s trial will be held on 02/05/2018 (Dennis Ban is a nephew of former UN Secretary General – Ban, Ki Moon)
- Ban, Ki Moon’s brother fled to Korea
4. Roosevelt Island becomes hot place to go
- Total 147 acre / 14,000 population: Originally only jail and hospital on the island
- Many High rise apartment and co-op built for last 15 years
- Tram cable car connects to Manhattan in 4 minutes / Ferry takes 35 minutes / F line served
- 266 unit apartment built on 480 Main Street in 2015 /Very low vacancy rate: currently only 12 units condo/co-op on the market (Average listing price: $1.16 Million, lowest studio co-op is at $499,000)
- Roosevelt Island School (PK ~ 8th) / Cornell Tech Center opened last month
- Average sale price for residential property → $1,005,000: 59% up CMT $660,000 in 2012
- Studio Rent: $2,300~2,500 / M
5. Manhattan Luxury Apartment becomes less popular .혻혻
- In 3rd QT, luxury apt sales slow down
- Highest condo in West Hemisphere ‘432 Park Ave’ (Billionaires’ Row) shows low volume sales → Only 77% sold (82 units) among total 106 units (This year only 12 units sold)
- Median price $2.8 Million → 23% down CMT last year
- Closing time (listing to closing): 101 days → increased by 27.8%
- Sold at 5.5% lower than listing price (2.9% last year)
- By contrast, co-op sales for middle class increased by 5%
6. Home price jump in July even as sales level off
- Home price steadily climbed: 5.9% up in July from a year earlier
- Sales of both new and existing homes slipped over this summer which might slow price gain → But, demand remains strong → pushing the price up
- # of existing homes for sale (inventory) down 6.5% on the past year
- More people (buyer) move into the market →Reasons are: Low unemployment, paychecks rising modestly, Mortgage standard easing
- Also Price up because 1. Limited supply of land, 2. lack skillful construction workers, 3. Not enough new homes built
7. Why the inflation rate is still low?
- Fed Chair Yellen is acknowledging Fed is puzzled by the persistence of unusually low inflation
- Fed is delving into questions why inflation rate is remained less than 2% chronically
- Officials expect that the forces keeping inflation low to fade away eventually, but she concedes Fed might have to adjust its assumption
- Most annalists expect rate increase in December → Federal says it depends on incoming data
8. Commercial Property Vacancy Rate increase → Slow down?
- Commercial VR increased continually for a few years → 3rd QT, VR stays with 10%: Same as 2nd QT (Survey from 22,000 commercials in 77 cities)
- VR increased in 34 cities (in 2nd QT, 39 cities)
- Big shopping mall VR → 8.3% (0.2% Up)
- Reasons: new shopping center supply decreased / Restaurant, Market, Fitness center increased (Health oriented new fitness/health centers increased) → Experiential Entertainment stores
- 3rd QT, Avg. commercial rent → $20.74 / SF (1.8% Up from last year)
