Screwed by flooding!

From The Real Deal:

Homeowners in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have seen home values lose nearly $7 billion due to flooding since 2005, according to a new study.

That’s on par with the $7.4 billion in value lost during the same time across the five southeastern states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.

The new study from the nonprofit First Street Foundation said the Northeastern tri-state area lost nearly as much property value than storm-drenched Florida because of the concentration of valuable real estate in the area, the Wall Street Journal reported.

New York lost $1.3 billion in potential value between 2005 and 2017, and New Jersey lost $4.5 billion. Connecticut lost $916 million.

Mr. de Blasio goes to Albany

From the Wall Street Journal:

New York state lawmakers are pushing Mayor Bill de Blasio to move faster on a promise to take on a property-tax overhaul, saying many residents are already being financially hurt by changes to the federal tax code.

“It’s urgent that we move forward,” Assemblyman Michael Cusick, a Democrat, said during a finance hearing in Albany Monday where the mayor was presenting his preliminary budget.

The mayor’s budget appearances in Albany take place several times a year. It’s typical for state lawmakers to grill the New York City mayor on subjects ranging from taxes to schools to police.

At one point, State Sen. Catharine Young, a Republican, asked Mr. de Blasio why Shola Olatoye, the head of the city’s public housing authority, was still at the helm amid concerns over management issues, including revelations the agency had failed to conduct lead-paint inspections required by law for four years. Mr. de Blasio defended Ms. Olatoye, saying she had made progress in a difficult agency.

But many lawmakers in Monday’s hearing focused on property taxes, an issue that in New York has cut across partisan lines.

The mayor said he would “unquestionably” roll out property-tax changes this year. But he said any changes would have to be “revenue-neutral” to allow the city to maintain its current services.

The city’s property-tax rate hasn’t increased under Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat. But the levy has grown by 23%, or about $5 billion, since fiscal 2015, the first full year he was in office. The increase is because of a rise in property-value assessments by the city.

Cuts to property taxes haven’t been a priority for the liberal mayor and liberal City Council. But the city could change the way it assesses property values to reduce what many residents, lawmakers and experts have said are disparities in the way the levy affects homeowners in different areas.

Bill may change property tax system

From Crain's:

Something is afoot on one of the city’s diciest policy issues: property taxes.

Mayor Bill de Blasio promised Tuesday his office would soon move to reform property taxes—two days before his finance commissioner will appear at an event with a group suing to change them.

The mayor made the remarks at an unrelated afternoon press conference in Brooklyn, more than a year after he said he would assemble “a task force or whatever” to examine the city’s patchwork, piecemeal property tax system.

The group Tax Equity Now—an odd-couple coalition of civil rights groups and real estate powerhouses—have sued, alleging that owners of some dwellings get favorable treatment at the expense of minorities.

De Blasio reiterated his promise to tackle the “massive undertaking” in the near future, and noted that it would involve changes in both city and state laws. He declined to provide further details.

“We will have much more to say on the property tax issue in the next few weeks. It’s clearly a priority for the second term,” he said Tuesday. “We will, I believe, fundamentally, we will end up with a more straightforward, more transparent, more consistent property-tax system for homeowners and co-op owners and condo owners. But we have to ultimately be revenue-neutral in terms of its impact on the whole city. And those are the ground rules that I will proceed with.”

That means if taxes are reduced on some properties, they would be raised on others by the same amount. The prospect of a tax increase on owners of one- to three-family homes, which would trigger a political outcry, has kept city politicians from even attempting to reform the system for years.

AirBnB makes rents, home prices increase

From the Wall Street Journal:

Could the use of Airbnb increase home prices and rental rates?

A new, not-yet-published working paper suggests the popular home-sharing service might do just that. The researchers looked at rents and home prices in the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. between 2012 and 2016. They found that a 10% increase in Airbnb listings leads to a 0.39% increase in rents and a 0.64% increase in house prices.

“That may sound minuscule, but between 2012 and 2016, rents rose by about 2.2% annually [on average in the 100 areas], so a 0.39% increase in that context isn’t very small at all,” says Edward Kung, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California Los Angeles and one of the study’s authors. The same is true for home prices, which rose by an average of about 4.8% annually in the 100 areas, he adds.

Are property tax assessments done fairly?

From the Daily News:

This year Mayor de Blasio will pay $3,581 in property taxes on each of two row houses he owns in ultra-gentrified Park Slope. The city says his properties are worth about $1.6 million apiece.

Some 14 miles away, in middle-class Laurelton, Queens, Arthur Russell, 66, who retired from computer sales, will pay a property tax bill that, at $4,569, is about 28% higher than the mayor’s — even though the city says his single-family home is worth 75% less than de Blasio’s properties, at $396,000.

If Russell were taxed like the mayor, his bill would fall by roughly $3,500 a year.

“That money could be vacation money,” said Russell, who is African-American. “It’s a substantial amount. My frustration is that it’s blatant abuse. People, if you take a look at this thing, you see disparity.”

Across the five boroughs, the city Department of Finance is subjecting tens of thousands of homeowners to similarly unequal billing — with the winners located primarily in upscale neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn Heights and Greenwich Village and the losers located overwhelmingly in working- and middle-class neighborhoods like South Jamaica, East New York and Brownsville.

Often, the brunt falls most heavily on black or Hispanic property owners.

A coalition called Tax Equity Now NY, which includes the NAACP, the Black Institute, several landlords and homeowners, has teamed up with lawyers from the firm Latham & Watkins, including former Chief Judge Jonathan Lippmann, to file a class-action suit this week charging that the DNA of the city’s property tax system is racially biased and favors the affluent over the working- and middle-class.?

Ridgewood rents raised more than elsewhere

From the Queens Courier:

Rents in Ridgewood last year nearly doubled since 2009, according to data compiled by real estate website StreetEasy.com at the request of The Courier, as more luxury rental buildings moved down the L and M train lines from Bushwick and Williamsburg.

The data finds the median price of rents in Ridgewood last year increased to $2,182 from $1,340 in 2009, good for first place in rents charged in Queens. Even when comparing year-to-date numbers between last year and 2013, Ridgewood experienced median rent increases of more than $382, while Astoria saw only a $50 increase and Long Island City actually had a decline.

Time to bend over again!

From the Daily News:

The city’s hot real estate market led to a whopping 9% hike on assessed property values, which will likely force some homeowners to fork over more in taxes.

The Finance Department released its preliminary tax assessments on Thursday, with most of the nearly double-digit growth the result of strong real estate sales.

Another 2% was attributed to new construction — which includes a Bronx boom.

The city uses the assessment numbers to gauge how much people will pay in taxes.

According to the city’s estimates, market values on class 1 properties — primarily one, two and three family homes — rose 7%.

Market values on condo and cooperatives went up by 11%, according to the department.

The governor don't need no stinkin' permits!

From the NY Post:

Domestic diva Sandra Lee has been renovating the tony Westchester County home she shares with Gov. Cuomo while blowing off the town’s permit process — and possibly dodging higher taxes, officials say.

The millionaire Food Network star got a relative steal on her six-bedroom home at 4 Bittersweet Lane in New Castle when she bought it for $1.2 million in early 2009, not long after home values crashed.

Since then, she’s been fixing up the property, known as Lily Pond, with virtually no consultation from town Building Inspector Bill Maskiell, The Journal News reported Sunday.

Maskiell said it took six months of “chasing and threatening’’ Lee in 2012 to get her to apply for a proper building permit for the $11,000 gazebo and shed she had already installed.

“I got no response from her people,’’ he told the Journal News. “I finally spoke with [Cuomo’s] people. They sat down with me and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Then, they didn’t get back to me. I finally sent a violation and got a response.

Finally, [Cuomo’s spokesman] Larry Schwartz got in touch with me.”

He said Lee — who is worth an estimated $20 million, according to the Web site Celebrity Net Worth — eventually got the permit, although the town’s assessor said that ultimately, the gazebo and shed did not affect her property assessment or $28,312 annual tax bill.

But there has been a host of renovations inside Lee’s home — and proudly shown off to the press — that were done without town approval, meaning she could be skirting higher taxes, the paper said.

The town’s property taxes are based on home values, so any upgrades could increase the amount.

Proof that landmarking increases property values

From DNA Info:

A large, single-family home in Jackson Heights' historic district recently sold for close to $1 million — more than $300,000 above the neighborhood's average asking price, according to the realtor.

The three-story home on 86th Street was listed at $979,000 and sold for $940,000 after being on the market for a "few weeks," according to Jeff Putterman, an agent with Beaudoin Realty Group who listed the home.

The home — which was built in the 1930s — has five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a fireplace and all of the quaint details original to the house, including crown molding and hardwood floors.

"There were a lot of people interested in the home," Putterman said, noting that it was on the market for a few weeks and received many bids.

The average cost of single-family homes sold in the neighborhood so far this year is $622,455, according to the most recent data available analyzed by the realty group.

I guess the REBNY line about landmarking suppressing property values is as full of shit as the candidates they supported this past election.

Flattened houses worth less

From the Daily News:

Residents of the Rockaways are facing another big blow: Hurricane Sandy has slammed their property values.

The average price of a home in the storm-wrecked area fell by 30% to $348,095 in the fourth quarter of 2012 compared with the previous year, according to brokerage firm Douglas Elliman.

As closings were delayed by the superstorm and as buyers pulled out of deals, closings fell by more than 60% to 31, the lowest level in nearly six years.

Before Sandy hit, the Rockaways had been enjoying a rebound, with prices rising steadily, year-over-year, for four straight quarters.

“This is clearly a setback,” Jonathan Miller, CEO of appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which compiles reports for Douglas Elliman, told the Daily News.

“I think we will see the Rockaways lag for the next couple years as homes are rebuilt.”
Robin Shapiro, the owner of Robin Shapiro Realty in Rockaway Beach, said several houses closed at reduced prices because they were severely damaged and were sold as-is.

“There are a few brokers in the neighborhood who are looking for a quick buck,” Shapiro told the News.

But Shapiro said the recent price declines are a temporary setback.