Weekly News ( April 17, 2019)

This week’s Interest Rate

     30 Y Rate: 4.125%/  15 Year Rate:3.625%/ 10 Y Treasury: 2.59%/ Prime Rate:5.5%

 

“The Palisade Church” in Old Tappan, NJ  Chapter 11 file has been declined

  • The court has declined the chapter 11 file in response to PCUSA’s filing for declining the bankruptcy. The court mentioned that the church is not qualified to apply bankruptcy and entity who has full authority has to file the bankruptcy.
  • Accordingly Valley National Bank will proceed to a sheriff sale on 5/10/2019 at the Bergen county sheriff department. The church owns $2.4M to the bank.

 

Kay Max Realty in Palisades Park, MJ got sued by a prospective tenant

(The Korea Times/ Radio 1660/The Record)

  • A prospective tenant Anna Ceylan couple was informed from an agent that landlord does not want to lease to non-Korean. Anna Ceylan couple filed a complaint to The State Division of Civil Rights against a home owner and Kay Max Realty(Broker of record : Keun Joo) for discrimination of race on 4/16/2019.
  • A preliminary investigation by the State Attorney General’s office has determined that there is a probable cause that the realty office violated discrimination laws when employees refused to show an apartment to a non-Korean couple.
  • In New Jersey, according to LAD, it is illegal to discriminate against a prospective buyer or tenant because of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, disability, ancestry, nationality, domestic partner status, source of lawful income used for mortgage or rental payment.

 

New super size Self Storage facility (152,000 sf) will be in Ridgefield, NJ

  • 4 story self-storage building with more than 1,275 units at 625 Grand Ave. Ridgefield will be opened in August, 2019. Ridgefield town has 11,000 population and Korean population is about 3,000. This facility is located in between Korean commercial district in Palisades Park in North, H-Mart district in South and Industrial district in West.
  • ARCO Murray head-quartered in TX is the construction company who had constructed about 4000 major projects in US for 25 years.
  • The previous owner of the lot was Korean, and he had a plan for building Senior center with 120 units or a hotel with 121 rooms, but he had faced financial difficulty about 10 years ago and lost ownership at the end through bankruptcy.

 

Manhattan SOHO (South Of Houston) used to called “Hell’s Hundred Acres”

  • South of Houston Street between Lafayette Ave and 6th Ave is called SOHO. During middle of 1900, many buildings using cast iron were constructed in this area, which shows beautiful balconies and various cast iron decoration. After WW II, many sweat shops came in because many storage area become vacant because owners left or abandoned the storage for their merchandise, which makes the area looking bad. So, it used to be called “Hell’s Hundred Acres”.
  • At the beginning of 1960, poor artists moved into vacant buildings without ownersh High ceiling and bigger windows attracted more artists.
  • In 1971, loft law was made that owner cannot vacate tenant by force to protect tenant’s residing right. Early 1970’ there were about 2000 artists around in this area.
  • Toward the end of 1990’, speedy gentrification happened and many brand stores and high level department stores moved in.
  • Good sightseeing and dinning places include Green Street (cobblestoned street), Little Singer Building, SOHO Cigar Bar, The Woo(Korean restaurant) are attracting NY tourists.

 

Upper East side mixed use building in Manhattan sold at $6.9M($867/sf)

  • The building is located at 240 East 75th street between 2th and 3rd Ave and has 2 ground floor retail tenants and 10 walk-up residences: 4 Studio, 3 one bedroom, 3 two bed rooms ( three are rent stabilized and seven are free market). Total building size is 7,951 sf and the sale includes air right of 2,265 sf.
  • Buyer is Reda 75 and represented itself and listing broker was Michael Ferrara of Brax Realty.

 

US economists forecasted staying with the current rate in 2019

  • According to WSJ on 11th, in a research campaign with 63 economists between 5th and 9th in April, economists anticipated earlier that Federal Reserve might increase the rate one time this year, but they changed their anticipation due to Federal Reserve’s public announcement and their forecasts. Economist Scott Anderson of Bank of West mentioned that Federal Reserve’s increasing cycle is over and it is time to start deceasing now.
  • Only 1% of economists answered one time decreasing rate this year while about one third of them said at least one time decreasing might happen by the end of 2021.
  • Right after the last FOMC during 19th to 20th, Jerome Powel, chairperson of Federal Reserve also mentioned eliminating the possibility of increasing the rate in the near future.

 

Price increasing rate of lower price houses is greater than higher price houses

  • According to US Today, after 2012, as house price was recovered, price increasing rate of lower price range houses is much greater than high price range houses. Credit rating research company Moody’s surveyed most populated 204 towns in US and reported price increasing rate for low 10% towns rose 7.6% annually from 2011 through 2018, while only 5.2% increase for high 10% towns.
  • According to Trulia, similar phenomena observed: low 30% town showed 8.03% price increasing, medium price houses showed 6.39%, and high price houses showed 5.01% price increasing.
  • Moody’s said that the reasons are  1) after financial crises price of lower priced house has dropped sharply so that room for increasing is bigger and  2) supply for low price houses is very short in US.
  • Some agents say more buyers are looking for low price house and they are increasing.

 

Flipping business is back on the track

  • According to WSJ/Core-Logic, 10.6% of sold houses in 4th Qt, 2018 were flipping sales, which was the highest for 4th quarter in the past 20 years. This flipping sales were 11.3% during st quarter in 2006 before the financial crises.
  • Home owner’s median profit through flipping was 23% which is 9% higher than 1st quarter in 2006.
  • RE professional said that many flipping sales are done by professionals or investment organizations. Their target house is average 39 year old houses.
  • Their primary focus is to buy the houses in the area that they can sell those repaired houses fast and it is very critical to know buyer’s reference.

 

 

Tech/Other News :  Tesla Model 3($35,000) will be available for lease at $3000 down with $504.00 monthly for 10,000 miles/year.

No purchase option at the end of the lease. No on-line sale any longer.

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