Friday, October 3, 2008

Cash crunch causes condo crash in LIC


With credit tightening and real estate prices citywide plateauing or starting to fall, one phrase encapsulates the beginnings of a possible cool-down in the once white-hot Long Island City condo market: Fire sale.

That’s the heading on a recent Prudential Douglas Elliman listing for a three-bedroom unit at 44-27 Purves St., a new condo building going up off Jackson Avenue in Queens Plaza. The 1,249-square-foot apartment is selling for $725,000 with $784 in monthly maintenance fees.

Meanwhile, there are signs that sales at Queens West Development’s first condo building, with units first put on sale just after Labor Day, haven’t been all that robust either at a starting price of $650,000 for a one-bedroom.

So the prospect of a rough road ahead is real, even for Rockrose’s highly-anticipated condo development, which boasts unobstructed Manhattan skyline views and a waterfront location that includes a soon-to-be expanded Gantry State Park.

But for units in other developments without those perks, like the condos going up near Purves Street in the heart of asphalt-covered Queens Plaza, the future looks even murkier. “I’m a little surprised at the locations of some of the buildings,” McMillan said. “They’re near major traffic arteries and bridges, where there aren’t many residential amenities.”


Read the whole article about what a train wreck LIC condos are becoming.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

thats a shame. what r the chances of these becoming more afforadable in reality?

Anonymous said...

They will sit empty and brokers will be stubborn with prices for these crap holes in odd locations stacked up by Queens plaza.I knew it wouldnt fill up.Those who do move in these condos should be drilled to know there pushing the infrastructure of the power plants in Astoria and LIC.Its only a matter of time before we hear of construction accidents or things collapsing from being poorly made boxes.

Anonymous said...

Let's build even more housing!!! Willets Point here we come...

Anonymous said...

“I’m a little surprised at the locations of some of the buildings,” McMillan said.

Agreed: It boogles the mind why anyone would buy in certain buildings in construction that are in the worst gritty locations. If there is crap on the waterfront at least it is waterfront - not so these other buildings and of which will unfortunately fail at these $$ prices. These properties should not receive Federal bailout money.

Anonymous said...

Now all you property pimps
out there who are desperately trying to unload your LIC condo lemons can go "STIFLE YOURSELVES" !

It looks like we were way ahead of the game with our predictions of a BIG BUST in the LIC market a year before you so called experts
wised up.

Maybe some of those Wall Street honchos ought to keep as close an eye on "Queens Crap" as they do
with the S & P and the Dow Jones!

I guess all us old "Archie Bunkers" knew a thing or two about
about the real deal while you guys were busy pushing your pipe dreams.

Happy landing "meat-heads"!

Anonymous said...

Coming soon
to these empty condos....
SECTION #8 HOUSING!

Anonymous said...

LIC....h-m-m-m...

Losing Income (on) Condos!

Ha, ha, ha....
the price that over-developers
will be soon be paying for their arrogance and ignorance!

Anonymous said...

things collapsing from being poorly made boxes.
---------

This is built on a swamp. The buildings will start to settle and become dangerous within 20 years.

Then the developers will want our taxes to bail them out.

Anonymous said...

what r the chances of these becoming more afforadable in reality?
--------

oh that is just around the corner.

it affordability will depend on how many roomates you can stand.

Anonymous said...

Capitalism and free enterprise is such a great idea.

Those who invest take all the risks and reap all the profits. That's an idea possible only in a free country with free people.

If these developers lose everything, that's sad, but instructive.

If the politicians try to make the taxpayer pick up the tab, then we have to remove those politicians from office and any sort of power.

There must be no thought whatsoever that taxpayers must pay for the mistakes of greedy, ignorant, politically connected developers.

Removing connected politicians will also be instructive.

Anonymous said...

sucker yuppies

Anonymous said...

maybe now these lic realtors will admit that investing in a trashy nabe was a bad idea. aren't they the ones always saying location, location, location?

lic is trash, always has been, always will be

Anonymous said...

maybe now they'll admit NORTHEAST QUEENS is the place to be. we won't see the decline in the market like we've seen in western queens.

Anonymous said...

Face it, NYC realtor scum, the housing bust is finally here! No more $700K condos and $500K houses in areas where people barely make $60K a year!!!

Anonymous said...

lic is trash, always has been, always will be

–––––––––––––––

Well to people like me, LIC is my home. Born and raised and still living here, I take a little offense to that comment. We may not have had all the amenities of your typical fabricated Main Street, but we had character (before the Beaux Arts buildings got torn down) and culture (before the artists got priced out)and a sense of neighborhood (before all the hipster assholes started moving in).

So for you to say it was always trash is wrong. Sadly, it's trash NOW.

Anonymous said...

LIC's new real estate slogan: The new LIC.... you have arrived....and now you are leaving....wait, please come back, buy a ridiculously overpriced condo, PLEASEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Are there any surviviors from the original LIC??

Anonymous said...

Are they still planning on putting lipstick on the pig that is Queens Plaza?

Anonymous said...

Archie, dear boy, you took the words right out of my mouth!!

Anonymous said...

LIC was alway a unique gritty place. where I fondly worked for 20years. There was a sense then that it was bypassed and it's heyday was long done, but still vibrant. Some of the buildings on the waterfront near off 47 Ave probably will retain their value over time and others far from the water or the plaza (yucck) will not and those developers will lose their shirts. The brokers are just that - selling and move on to next best thing. THe neigborhood can use help with affordable housing and may get it via the buildings that go bust.

Anonymous said...

Some of these overpriced condos are located right where the convicts from Riker's Island are dropped off after they've served their time.

Perhaps some of the real estate scammers who thought these were a good idea will have an easy commute after the FBI puts them in jail where they belong.

Unknown said...

The House of Cards is falling apart, no more easy money to pump up bloated housing prices at 15-20 time salaries with creative finance engineered by rocket scientists hired by the arrogant greedy bootheads who never knew. These same criminals Those big swinging dicks forced outsourcing to overseas companies for cheap labor but the real goal was to prop up stock prices so they can enrich themselves with big fat bonuses both at the corporate level and Wall st....at the expense of the average Joe. Then these crooks took this subprime junk securitized into triple A bonds and sold it off. Now credit card debt is defaulting to the tune of 1 trillion, commercial real estate is popping, Junk bonds collapsing from all the Mergers and acquisitions tha were only done to take massive fees for wall st while destroying companies. Not to mention a home became an ATM, it had magic powers.Yes Greespan kept interest rates low to create a housing boom because all good jobs have been being outsouced.

Unknown said...

BTW today on MSN there's an article on the massive layoffs on Wall St 110,000 so far and 200,000 by the end of the year. The game is over on Wall St, the robbed and pillaged the average folk so they can live high on the hog. Now insurance companies are showing signs of collapsing because they overleveraged and got into bed with Wall St and they too took home big bonuses and salaries....it now looks the the government has to come to the rescue of the insurance industry. WOW taxpayers are getting soaked.
Who is going to buy this crap now in Long Island City now?

Unknown said...

Wall Street layoffs could surge past 200,000

By JOE BEL BRUNO – 1 day ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Traders and investment bankers might have more to worry about than dwindling bonus pools this year as mass firings on Wall Street are set to hit a record.

The fallout from this year's global credit crisis has claimed jobs on all corners of Wall Street, from hedge fund managers to floor traders and beyond. More than 110,000 have lost their jobs so far this year, and some industry experts forecast it could come close to 200,000 before the year is over.

Even the financial industry's biggest name isn't immune. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's biggest investment bank, made plans on Thursday to cut 3,200 positions from its staff of 32,000. Barclays Capital is in the midst of purging 3,000 jobs as part of its takeover of Lehman Brothers, and Bank of America Corp.'s acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. is sure to add thousands more.

Major U.S. financial companies are getting rid of redundancies caused by this year's rapid-fire consolidation. They are also adapting to an environment of more regulation, less risk, and dwindling profits.

"Wall Street the way we know it is frankly gone," said Dr. Michael Williams, dean of the graduate school of business at Touro College in New York. "This was inevitable because there's just not enough money out there to support the huge staffs these banks and investment banks had before."

Williams and other analysts believe this next wave of cutbacks will be the biggest the American financial industry has faced since massive bank failures in the 1930s. He believes up to 250,000 financial workers — perhaps even more — could find themselves out of work by the second quarter of next year.

U.S. financial services companies have cut 111,201 positions through September, on top of 153,105 made last year, according to Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association said there are currently 867,400 people employed by their members that include securities firms, brokerages, stock exchanges, and banks.

John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said layoffs will surge in the next few months as companies begin to position themselves for 2009. In addition, cutting employees before the year's end in some cases eliminates hefty bonus payments.

"There's been heavy layoffs already, but until you see events start to slow down, we're not out of the woods," he said. "These companies, even the very best of them like Goldman, are subject to the conditions of much lower activity and much less revenue."

For the two surviving stand-alone investment banks, Golman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the business environment might slow as they reshape themselves into companies that more closely resemble retail banks. That means they'll be more regulated, with greater limits on their ability to take risk.

There also remains uncertainty about how many banks might fail, even with the government's various bailouts. Banks that have heavy exposure to toxic mortgage investments and other risky bets might collapse or be acquired by healthier banks, in the next year.

Washington Mutual Corp., the Washington-based thrift, is in the process of unloading its retail branches to JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Wachovia Corp. is selling its retail network to Wells Fargo & Co. The number of jobs lost is still unknown from those transactions.

BofA's acquisition of Merrill Lynch could result in thousands of lost jobs, especially in areas like technology, operations and finance. Both sides are still attempting to map out where the cuts will come from, and there were reports this week that Merrill had already sent pink slips to 500 or more traders in New York.

A spokeswoman for Merrill declined to comment.

Anonymous said...

I am an original LIC'er. I always loved the grit. Now the ridiculous empty overpriced condos just add to the grit. But I am extremely saddened we have lost many beautiful old buildings here. They gave a character to this area that is gone. But then again, this was done to all communities up and down the East River right from under us. Bloomberg's and Davidoff's master plan. Yeah, bring the Olympic's here! What a cruel joke! Every time I pass Queensboro Plaza and think of the amazing old buildings that were once vibrantly alive with JOBS that are not here anymore I cringe. JOBS that went to China so our corporations can getting richer at our expense. Outsourcing DECIMATED this area and Wall Street got fat on that. The real estate bubble was only a band aid solution and was destined to fail. The insiders all knew this, we know now. They should have all been put in jail, NOT BAILED OUT WITH OUR TAXES, DAMMIT! This was all done by greed and unethical corrupt under the table maneuvering by our elected 'elite'. They have destroyed this country. They are criminals. The European protests will spill over here eventually because I doubt very much Americans can take this anymore.

These new buildings will decay because the city bureaucrats do not have any ideas what to constructively do with them. Just look at all the empty lots that pockmark this neighborhood now, with their collapsing wooden fences surrounding them and torn and tattered signs of the latest 'luxury condo coming soon'. We started to complain about these two winters' ago when ice and snow built up around them and were unpassable to pedestrians. Got NO WHERE with the city about this, because they do not want to get involved. Clueless. Why aren't the defaulted landlords responsible for maintaining these sidewalks? That's the least they can do for the neighborhoods they have ruined or did they all skip town? THIS LOOKS LIKE DOWNTOWN BEIRUT IN THE 80'S FOR GOODNESS SAKES! What a disgrace. Or is this now the responsibility of the overburdened NY Sanitation Dept. to clean our sidewalks? I doubt they can take this on.

Bloomberg and Quinn and the rest of that corrupt crew of city council scum really pulled a fast one on all of us, native New Yorkers and recent arrivals alike. They screwed this city by letting the rich get richer so THEY can stay in power longer at the cost of city decay and quality of life issues here. And they STILL want to go ahead with Willets Point and Ratner City? What a scam. Who are they fooling? Anyone that supports more massive overdevelopment in this city at the expense of our taxes SHOULD BE PUT IN JAIL. Bloomberg's "Green NY" - MY ASS! What a loser this guy turned out to be. What a waste. All the problems he started. "The Great C.E.O."

Crime is way up, there are no jobs. There are more problems now with pollution and traffic and overcrowding than ever in my lifetime. Flooding is rampant from over development. Our infrastructure, power and communication and sewer lines are way overburdened. This is the 70's all over again but worse. At least we had some sort of hope back then. I've seen better communities in eastern Europe, a geographic area that was in the dark ages until 20 years ago. I find nothing good coming out of what has happened to this city. This is truly a new depression, it is NOT a recession, as 'THEY' would like you to believe.

Anonymous said...

I am an original LIC'er. I always loved the grit. Now the ridiculous empty overpriced condos just add to the grit. But I am extremely saddened we have lost many beautiful old buildings here. They gave a character to this area that is gone. Every time I pass Queensboro Plaza and think of the amazing old buildings that were once vibrantly alive with JOBS that are not there anymore. JOBS that went to China so our corporations can getting richer at our expense. Outsourcing DECIMATED this area. The real estate bubble was only a band aid solution and was destined to fail. The insiders all knew this, we know now. They should have all been put in jail, NOT BAILED OUT WITH OUR TAXES, DAMMIT! This was all done by greed and unethical corrupt under the table maneuvering by our elected 'elite'. They have destroyed this country. They are criminals. The European protests will spill over here eventually because I doubt very much Americans can take this anymore.

These new buildings will decay because the city bureaucrats do not have any ideas what to constructively do with them. Just look at all the empty lots that pockmark this neighborhood now, with their collapsing wooden fences surrounding them and torn and tattered signs of the latest 'luxury condo coming soon'. We started to complain about these two winters' ago when ice and snow built up around them and were unpassable to pedestrians. Got NO WHERE with the city about this, because they do not want to get involved. Why aren't the defaulted landlords responsible for maintaining these sidewalks? That's the least they can do for the neighborhoods they have ruined. THIS LOOK LIKE DOWNTOWN BEIRUT IN THE 80'S FOR GOODNESS SAKES! Or is this now the responsibilIty of the overburdened NY Sanitation Dept.?

Anonymous said...

continued...



Bloomberg and Quinn and the rest of that corrupt crew of city council scum really puLled a fast one on all of us, native New Yorkers and recent arrivals alike. They screwed this city by letting the rich get richer so THEY can stay in power longer at the cost of city decay and quality of life issues here.

Crime is way up, there are no jobs. There are more problems now with pollution and traffic and overcrowding than ever in my lifetime. This is the 70's all over again but worse. At least we had some sort of hope back then. I find nothing good coming out of what has happened to this city. This is truly a new depression, it is NOT a recession, as 'THEY' would like you to believe.