Are Apartment Buildings Next in Mortgage Crisis?

Remember how the NY Times looks at apartment complexes in danger of defaulting on their mortgages last month? Well, Crain's continues that line of thought, noting that almost 600 buildings "have one or more factors that could lead to mortgage default." The Riverton Houses and Savoy Park in Harlem are both mentioned again, as is Stuyvesant Town. Per the Daily News, "Housing advocates told Crain's that buyers had unrealistic goals about rent increases. The same lenders caught up in the mortgage free-for-all in single-family homes lent them money anyway." Speaking of apartments in NYC, Britney Spears told Z100, "When I come back, it's like, 'Man, I wish I still had my apartment here.' But I love it. The energy is crazy."

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NYC will be an adjustment versus west coast's crisis if you ask me. Out west you had people w household incomes of 80-200k annual were buying 200k houses for 500-600k after they had been bubble-hyped by appraisers, and junk banks or builders were carrying the paper on them and asking little or nothing for down pmnt.

High quality jumbo paper is still under assault. The big issue is valuations that support their repo asset value. Speculative buyers of these apartments helped to inflate these values and now they could be under water. That's not a problem if they have the cash to service the debt but if they have to borrow, goodbye.

hopefully this means the rents will go down.

It will be so much fun seeing the Stuy town folks
chopping down all the new trees for firewood to
heat their apts.5 Billion dollars,wow!
Trump said it was" a bad deal",I bet it is.

Yes. Absolutely. I predict a Stuy Town/PCV building sell-off after the year-end reporting.

More city apartments facing foreclosure

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080928/FREE/809289997/1058&category=FREE&nocache=1

#1 you must be a recent buyer, under 35, or just naive. Replace "out west" with here in NYC, and 200K houses with 200K apartments (or in Brooklyn 200K brownstones for 1 mil +). We are in no way different than the west coast or florida or for that matter anywhere else where property became tremendously overinflated. I paid less than 100K for my single family house in Williamsburg in 1998. It appraised a couple years ago for 1.5 Million. No way in hell should it really have appreciated that much, and not a single neighbor of mine could afford any house or even studio apartment anywhere in our entire neighborhood under normal 20% down 30 year fixed mortgages. We are all teachers, policemen, Verizon workers, store owners, transit workers, etc. Most families on my street make less than 120K with combined incomes, which basically means they couldn't afford anything in the entire 5 boroughs using the traditional 28% of income max pmt with 20% down plus closing costs. Something had to happen, and its about to do just that. If you bought in within the last 6-8years, be prepared to love the heck out of your place for the next 20 years and hopefully you will keep your jobs. I for one think the next great depression will happen before spring.

"Advocates say". What advocates? Which buildings? Can we get a complete list or what?

What they have in those two articles is pretty vague
and therefore pretty useless.

Most stable co-op buildings had strict rules about buyer requirements for approval. It wasn't enough to just have enough money to buy in and just enough income to make the payments. Marginal co-ops (They need money NOW)and maybe some of the very new ones maybe didn't have high standards (no long-term board of shareholders to guard the gates), but that's a distinct minority.

The real estate market should be no place for predatory speculation. People don't MAKE land. Landlords don't PRODUCE buildings. That's the central fault of our society. Young people (or old) shouldn't be shelling out more than half their salaries for rent. You can't build stable communities in an environment like that. Also end borrowing and lending on speculative real estate values. A house is not an imaginary ATM machine. OZ, has spoken.

Let's not forget the developers who borrowed to build all those overpriced Manhattan condos. They kicked out the elders, ruined neighborhoods, I wonder if the bailout will support these vermin.

britney spears input irrelevant

#7, I should have added caveat for brooklyn and other outer B's. Agree with you that it is basically very similar situation to west coast. And will add that I never really intend to sell my place -- would be happy to live and die always having this place to call home in west village.

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