As expected, the Rent Guidelines Board approved rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments in New York City. The board, in a 5-4 vote, okayed moving forward with 1.75 to 4 percent hikes for one-year leases and between 3.5 to 6.75 percent increases for two-year leases. more ›

We had heard mumblings that NY1 anchor and sometimes Live! With Kelly guest-host, Pat Kiernan, may be moving to Brooklyn, and now Brownstoner has uncovered some public records showing that Kiernan and his family will be making a home in Williamsburg form the UWS. And at just over $2 million, it's reportedly "the highest price ever paid for a single family home in Williamsburg," more ›

An Upper West Side townhouse-owning couple's attempt to get the Supreme Court to revoke NYC's rent stabilization laws has failed, with the country's highest court declining to hear the case. Which means that James and Jeanne Harmon must keept their rent-stabilized tenant, who pays $1,000/month for a one-bedroom on West 76th Street, even though she's paying another $1,500/month for her Southampton home. more ›

Last summer everybody (i.e. the NYC media) was all Rockaways this Rockaways that. And guess what? This summer we'll be singing the same tune, because the Rockaways are still white hot. So hot that Andrew VanWyngarden, co-founder of popular psychedelic rock band MGMT, just bought a house on Beach 93rd Street for $375,000. "Rockaway Beach is the Hamptons of New York City," realtor Maureen Walsh (who was not involved in VanWyngarden's transaction) coos. more ›

In 1987, Russian immigrant Nataliya Dyakovskaya moved into a rent-stabilized apartment on the Lower East Side, scoring a dirt-cheap rent-stabilized apartment in the Vladeck Houses. In the years since, she's gone on to live the American dream, using income from her successful real estate company to buy a $700,000 Upper West Side condo, and a house in the Hamptons. And all the while, she held onto that $400-a-month subsidized apartment on the LES, bilking the NYC Housing Authority out of $79,000 over the years, federal prosecutors allege. more ›

Hmmm, maybe that person above the East Village IHOP who said the smell of bacon made their apartment unsellable was telling the truth. While everybody knows if you want to sell a home you should bake some cookies, the Washington Post has a very useful story on all the things you shouldn't cook (or even eat) while trying to unload a property. No broccoli? Yup, no broccoli. more ›

Sure, people complained when St. Vincent's Hospital closed. But now that the Fire Department wants to keep ambulances on a lot at 512 West 23rd Street, residents of fancy High Line condos are upset. One fumed at a community board meeting, "We have nieces and nephews that come to visit, and it was a nice day and they had problems going outside on the terrace because of the fumes." more ›

Feel guilty about using an Airbnb rental to host a huge rager? Enter Eventup, which is like your new best friend whose parents go away a lot... except this "friend" charges you a bunch of money to hang. The service, which will be running out of New York City by later this month, allows property owners to rent out their vacant spaces to those who need a sweet spot to host an event. Right now you can score Bob Dylan's former digs in Midtown East (for $32,000), Katherine Hepburn's East Side brownstone ($25,000), and the East Village walk-up that Lady Gaga once resided in. more ›

But what will Eloise think?! The iconic Plaza Hotel appears to be for sale again. Eight years after El Ad Properties bought the Central Park anchor for $675 million, reports are swirling that they are about to unload it in an exclusive sale to the Indian Sahara Group conglomerate for a cool $600 million. Sahara will reportedly be paying $400 million for the hotel part of the building and another $200 million for the increasingly successful retail section below. more ›

You might have caught Morley Safer on Sunday grumbling about "the Russians" who come into the world's biggest art fair to buy everything up. Safer may be a philistine who looks like Huckleberry Hound, but he was right: Russians can't cram their fortunes into the United States fast enough, particularly when it comes to paying record prices for New York real estate. The billionaire fertilizer tycoon who paid the highest-ever for an apartment for his 22-year-old daughter ($88 million) has spent $188 million on property in the U.S. alone. Why shovel this money into America? Because they don't want to end up writing sweet op/eds for the New York Times from a Russian penal colony. more ›

The City Council has been working on a living wage bill that would raise the minimum hourly wage to $10-11.50 for companies that receive substantial city subsidies. But now it looks like one of the biggest development projects, the Hudson Yards, may be exempt from the proposal, thanks to mayoral hopeful City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. more ›

Sarah Jessica Parker's possible real estate moves are always fodder for gossip, so after rumors about her and her brood moving to the Upper West Side or elsewhere in the West Village, why not Brooklyn next? more ›

While we've been looking at apartments that make us a little jealous, there are plenty of nightmare abodes out there in the boroughs, and this latest one is a doozy. Over at Business Insider a woman writes about a $500/month apartment on Mott Street, between Grand and Hester, that she considered renting a few years ago. Some of the highlights: more ›

The Federal style columned veranda that Truman Capote used to sit upon while penning prose now officially belongs to Dan Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games (what would Peter Vallone, Jr. say?). The Brooklyn Heights home was on the market until recently, when Houser scooped it up for $12.5 million—the most expensive real estate deal in Brooklyn history, according to the Observer, who likens Houser to Herman Melville and Grand Theft Auto to Moby Dick. more ›

Anne Hathaway, the most recent incarnation of Catwoman, has moved to Brooklyn... from Brooklyn! That's right, Ms. Hathaway was living in Prospect Heights last year, but recently moved to a sleepier section of the borough: DUMBO. She and fiancé Adam Shulman have settled into 1 Main Street, and Curbed believes she's in unit 6K, "which seems to fit the bill of what she and Shulman were searching for—a 1BR with room for a home office going for $6,400 a month." more ›

In the time it will take Whole Foods to wrap itself around that landmarked building in Gowanus, the borough of Brooklyn may well already have gotten a Whole Paycheck to call its own. That's right, the Post is reporting that the loved and loathed upscale market is close to signing a deal to anchor another new luxury building in Williamsburg. more ›

In 1929 a NYC-based writer visited a penthouse for sale in Manhattan after hearing these dwellings were all the rage. Originally he believed penthouses were nothing more than "a little shack on a dingy roof," until visiting one himself. more ›

The critically-acclaimed—and tough to get into—Brooklyn restaurant-in-a-grocery, Brooklyn Fare, will expand to Manhattan. The Wall Street Journal reports owner Moe Issa "has signed a lease for a space on 39th Street between Ninth and 10th avenues and aims to open by June or July." more ›

The Economist has this chart showing rents for "high-end flats of the type commonly let by expatriates," and guess what, there are three cities that are more expensive than NYC when it comes to a three-bedroom apartment. more ›

Belle Harbor is a micro-neighborhood in the Rockaways not far from Riis Park, and it's making waves because of a recent Property Shark report measuring the median home price on a particular block at a whopping $2.5 million dollars—a surprise to everyone, including the local folks selling the homes. Most real estate types were expecting the Forest Hills area, in which median home prices hover around $1.3 to $1.6 million in one particular block, to take the cake in New York's largest borough in area. more ›

A couple's crusade to overturn rent regulations for a rent-stabilized tenant at their Upper West Side townhouse is being looked at by the U.S. Supreme Court. See, James and Jeanne Harmon think that Nancy Wing Lombardi, who has lived in a one-bedroom apartment at 32 West 76th Street, should pay more than the $1,000/month she currently pays. After all, she does have a second home in Southampton! more ›

Two weeks ago we asked to see your apartments. New Yorkers, including us, are voyeuristic creatures (admit it), and who doesn't love to see how their neighbors are living... even if it can lead to pangs of jealousy. So here is our first installment, which comes with a pretty amazing story from Lisa R., dating back to 1980. more ›

We all know the real estate market in Williamsburg is cra-zay, but apparently it's driving the real estate brokers nuts, too update: Justin Farrow returned our email and explained that he is no longer a real estate agent. In this video, area man Justin Farrow shows off his sweet bachelor pad, inside a van in an abandoned warehouse. Crazy, or crazy like a fox? Something to consider when you're signing the rent check in a couple of days. Be sure to check out his view from the roof at the four minute mark (and place bets in the comments on how soon Farrow removes the video after the Internet figures out the location): more ›