real estate prices in

MemeFirst: New York real-estate prices explained -- MemeFirst December 01, 2005 New York real-estate prices explained The 2.2 million jobs in Manhattan pay, on average, $2,025 per week . (You know that feeling you get when you find out you're below average? I've been having that for years.) Manhattan is 22 square miles, which means that the island of Manhattan pays, on average, $378 per square foot per year . And that includes Washington Heights. Posted by Felix at 02:54 PM GMT All proceeds go to MSF -- Comments #1 Pity we can't all work for Goldman Sachs. Posted by: Gherimiah on December 1, 2005 03:28 PM #2 I'll happily defer to someone with a firmer grasp of stats on this, but in the meantime, I wonder, does that average income number tell you very much? Given the massive disparity in Manhattan incomes, between, say, the dishwasher and the hedge-fund owner, which surely are among the widest in the country, wouldn't you also need to know the distribution of the data points? At a minium, wouldn't you want also to know the median income? Also, is this net or gross? Article talked about paychecks, which could probably mean either. Posted by: Matthew on December 1, 2005 04:36 PM #3 Oh, and also, Felix, presumably the 2.2 million people with jobs in Manhattan don't all live there, so your extrapolation doesn't wash. Posted by: Matthew on December 1, 2005 04:38 PM #4 Obvs mean incomemedian income, and I'd be surprised if more than 40% of Manhattanites made above average. Probably less. But even so. And actually, the fact that there are 2.2 million jobs to 1.5 million people in Manhattan actually only serves to exacerbate the demand-supply imbalance when it comes to real estate. Posted by: Felix on December 1, 2005 04:53 PM #5 I hate to be the one to break this to you, Felix, but nearly all residential housing in Manhattan consists of multi-story buildings. The salary range you describe explains real estate prices in Westchester County, NY and Bergen County, NJ to about the same degree as prices in Manhattan. Posted by: Sterling on December 1, 2005 07:05 PM #6 How delightful that the discussion of property prices one is sometimes unable to defuse at dinner parties just carries on here - almost as if taunting one with its dreary ineluctability. And how nice that Felix should bring along his no doubt expert appreciation of statistical lore. The one thing I am missing is the crucial evaluation of bedbug incidence as it affects property prices in Manhattan. In another thread, Betty has said this bedbug malarkey is all a plan of Bush's. For myself, I prefer to recall that bedbugs tend to originate in Belgium. Schtumm for now. More on this later. Posted by: Claude de Bigny on December 1, 2005 08:40 PM #7 Also, this seems to imply that everyone pays all of their income for housing, which is hopefully not the case. To be more realistic (ignoring the issues rightly brought up by the other commentators, including whether all of those people actually live in Manhattan and whether you can just take the sq ftge of Manhattan as the residential sq ftge), say people on average spend 40% of their income on housing. That gets your income for housing per sq ft to around $151. Posted by: Susan on December 1, 2005 09:14 PM #8 Susan and Sterling, you are embarassingly confused. What percentage of real estate in Manhattan is used for housing? According to this http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/landusefacts/landuse_tables.pdf (in case you are confused by the graph, the percents sum together veritcally and the land area sum horizontally). And even assuming that all "Mixed Residential and Commercial" was used for housing, less than 38% of the land in Manhattan is for housing. These data certainly allow for the idea that much of rent paid in Manhattan is for commercial use, and even then, a considerable percent is used for public space (Central Park alone is 10% of the area of Manhattan). Anyway, the amount people earn in a particular location is not directly related to the amount the people who live there earn, or the amount the people live there pay for rent. Look at this site: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/saipe/index.html The direct link is unavailable, but the Median household income for New York County was 43,573. Nassau County on the other hand is more than 71,000. In which place is it cheaper to rent by the foot? Posted by: Andrew on December 2, 2005 07:22 AM #9 I don't think I'm confused. My points are: a) there is actually quite a bit more than 22 square miles of residential floor space in Manhattan because of vertical construction b) a lot of upper-income Manhattan workers live outside Manhattan, and their buying power lifts prices in tony bedroom communities Posted by: Sterling on December 3, 2005 03:38 PM #10 OK, Sterling, let's do it your way. Assume that each of the 1.5 million residents of Manhattan has 400 square feet to call their own: that works out to 1200 square feet for the average family of three and 1600 square feet for the average family of four. Generous, I'd say. That comes out to 600 million square feet of residential real estate in Manhattan. Using that figure, my calculation actually comes out slightly higher : $386 per square foot per year, rather than $378. What makes you think that there's more than 22 square miles of residential floor space in Manhattan? As for your point b, I fail to see how it is in any way germane. Posted by: Felix on December 3, 2005 11:09 PM #11 OK, 22 square miles equals about 613,324,800 square feet. That would leave each of Manhattan's 1.5 million residents with 409 square feet of living space. But I don't believe that most Manhattan residents are actually so deprived, especially when you take into account common areas in apartment buildings such as laundry facilities, hallways, lobbies, etc. I'd be surprised if the average wasn't at least 600, and it's probably more than 800. And besides, that's not what you originally meant - you were dividing Manhattan's land footprint and not taking into account its vertical expansion. As for the second point, I suspect there's a strong tendency among $100,000 - $1,000,000 per annum Manhattan earners - which is well-off to wealthy-on-a-budget - to live in places like Valhalla and Ho-Ho-Kus, especially if they're married with kids. Family-flight in turn increases the average per-capita-square-footage of the Manhattan residential footprint through bleed-off of children. Posted by: Sterling on December 4, 2005 02:29 AM #12 Sterling jumped the shark so long ago it's probably not surprising, but for those of you keeping score at home, he really did just say that the average Manhattanite has 800 square feet of their own. So if you're an average person living with 2 roommates, that means you're in a 2400 square foot apartment. In Manhattan. Yeah. Oh, and that 350 square foot apartment you've got? It's not 350 square feet at all, it's probably more than 4000 square feet. You're just not including the lobby and all the hallways. Posted by: Felix on December 4, 2005 02:43 AM #13 My claim is that the amount of residential-zoned floor space in Manhattan probably works out to between 600 and 800 square feet per resident of Manhattan. You're not only challenging this, but asserting that my claim is absurd. Sure you wanna do that? Posted by: Sterling on December 4, 2005 02:59 AM #14 I've tried to find the statistic, but to no avail. It seems that while office space inventor is measured in square footage, residential space is simply measured, in all documents, by units. But we can work with that. So far I've learned that 82% of zoned lots in Manhattan are residential, making up about 280,000,000 square feet, which includes permanently undeveloped spaces like yards and gardens. If the average height of development across all that land is four stories, then, we're looking at about 750 square feet per person. I've also learned that in 1999 there were about 727,000 residential units in Manhattan , which means that the average unit houses two people. So those three-roomies crammed into one 800-square-foot-tenement-with-the-bathtub-in-the-kitchen examples are mostly fiction. Which is a shame because I get a tingle from the mental picture of Manhattan twenty- and thirty-somethings living in cramped, dingy conditions. If we divide the total residential land area by the total number of units, we get 385 square feet, which works out to 192.5 square feet per person, assuming no dwellings above one story in height and no unimproved/vacant land. If the average height is assumed to be four stories, in this scenario we get about 770 square feet per person. Here's a report from Prudential Douglas Elliman that details its 1Q 2005 sales. Units sold averaged 1,334 square feet, which divided by two yields 767 square feet per person. Breaking it down further we find co-ops averaging 1,197 square feet, condos at 1,496 square feet, luxury at 2,921 and loft at 2,145. So that's 598.5 square feet per person at the low end all the way up to 1,460.5 at the top. There's three separate analytical models for you Felix, all of which yield per-person square footage of 750 or better. I admit they're not all that fleshed out, but I'm stuck inside with a cold watching The Taking of Pelham One-Two-Three on DVD, and I'm disinclined to dig deeper. But you're welcome to. Posted by: Sterling on December 4, 2005 04:04 AM #15 Sterling: do your calculations include infrastructure or is the 280MM number a percentage of raw space? Building density is higher here than anywhere else in America, but 15% to circulation (in buildings and streets themeselves) would be an easily defended metric. Counting hallways in urban residential structures is like counting sidewalks as part of sf for suburban homes. As much Sterling does sound like a set designer for Friends, Felix, I gotta say, of the 25 or so apartments of people that I can definitely make an estimate of size, we average 500 sf easy. Most everyone is a half a standard tenement lot (25 x 25), with a couple of lofts and post-war, large-scale developments thrown in. This is skewed because many of them are single (I live in a 2bd alone) or have rent-controlled apartments from way back. Posted by: 99 on December 4, 2005 07:19 PM #16 Where does your 280m sq ft number come from? Your first two calculations are based on it, so I'd like to know. (They're also based on a multiplier of 4, which as far as I can tell came pretty much out of thin air.) As for apartment sales, in Manhattan individual condos and coops tend to be much larger than the apartments inside rental buildings. So if you look just at sold apartments as opposed to rented apartments, you're going to get a skewed figure. What's more, if a 3800-square-foot brownstone in Harlem, say, is sold and then the downstairs floor is rented out, that still counts as a 3800 square foot deal under these figures. Posted by: Felix on December 4, 2005 09:21 PM #17 The multiplier of 4 was back-of-envelope guess. The 280,000,000 number came from this PDF . Sorry, thought I'd linked to it initially. As for rental apartments being smaller than privately owned condos or co-ops...not sure I buy that. But even if it's true, how much smaller could they be? 10%? Doesn't really matter. You can apologize any time now. Posted by: Sterling on December 4, 2005 10:06 PM #18 if anyone is real curious why not pony up the $250 to get a list of every tax lot in the city? http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/bytes/applbyte.shtml in the meantime, simply because i am tired of having to read sterlings pontifications about things he knows anything about, i downloaded a list of all the residential tax lots from 14th street and below from propertyshark. only 14th street and below, because after 6000+ entries, i became bored. 14th street down is a good representative sample of the 99000+ residential tax lots in manhattan. it includes spacious luxury lofts of tribeca, tenements of the les, projects on the eastside, high rise high density battery park and half building condo conversions of downtown (note that a rental bldg with multiple units counts as a single tax lot with the number of units listed as a seperate data field). the average unit size works out to 1100sf with 590sf per person (based 2000 census population stats for 14th st & below). this includes all common space in a building as it is based on total building size for single tax lot (rental) buildings and counts common space tax lots for condo buildings (read lobbies, circ, etc.) multiplying back out by the 2000 census population numbers for manhattan of 1,537,195... we get 906,945,050sf of residential space in manhattan. let's call that an even 9Bsf since the city lists 3800 acres of lot area in manhattan (165,500,000sf), that gives a rough overbuild factor of 5.5. this will obviously skew higher with the ues & uws densities without actually affecting the sf/person. summary- -590sf of residential per person (inclusive of common areas). close to sterlings low estimate of 600, but nowhere near the 800sf -1100sf average size per unit (inclusive of common areas). again close to sterlings guess based on broker mumbojumbo, but still below the stated average. -9Bsf of residential space in manhattan sterling- close on your numbers, but not nearly close enough to be quite so pompously smug. stick to things you know about, like why bush is a foreign policy genius. felix- remind me what this related to? Posted by: geoff on December 5, 2005 12:34 AM #19 Geoff - The only reason I was pompously snug is because Felix had reacted to to my estimates with such comedic outrage. Also, I don't think 14th St. and below is a good representative sample. Newer and I suspect more spacious high-rises make up a much larger proportion of housing from the 30s up through the low 100s. So I'm sticking with 600+. I suspect the actual number is around 750, as stated above. As for your justification of your work - "simply because i am tired of having to read sterlings pontifications about things he knows anything about" - I'm not sure what it means. Perhaps you meant to write "nothing" instead of "anything"? I'm not claiming to be right all the time - I am not right all the time. I am, however, pretty much always right whenever Felix gets all worked up and tells me I have no idea what I'm talking about. Thanks for your small role in marking off another example for me to throw back at him at some future date. Posted by: Sterling on December 5, 2005 06:19 AM #20 Renter-occupied apartments are much smaller than owner-occupied apartments. And as the PDF you yourself linked to shows (see page 24), the vast majority of apartments in Manhattan are renter-occupied. Think about it: one needs maybe 350 sq ft per person to live in some reasonable comfort. Beyond that, you're shelling out extra cash for extra space. Owners are happy doing that because they have 100% equity in that space: everyone has heard the advice that they should buy the biggest apartment they can afford. Renters, on the other hand, are simply giving away thousands of dollars in rent every month, with nothing at all to show for it. So they tend to go not for the biggest apartment they can afford, but rather the cheapest apartment they find adequate. Put it this way: Manhattan is full of individuals spending an enormous proportion of their income on outsize mortgage payments. Almost everyone, when they move from renting to buying, sees their monthly housing costs rise substantially. If you move to Manhattan and have a relatively low income, then you might spend a crazy amount of it on rent, it's true. But if your income is average or higher (and remember that average is $2,025 per week), I very much doubt that your rent is making nearly as much of a dent in your paycheck as it would if you owned your own apartment. You reach a standard of living you're comfortable with, and you stop. Anything beyond that is money which you could otherwise spend on clothes, or travel, or restaurants. Whereas if you buy , you're not spending so much as investing. The only money which you're really spending is the interest on your mortgage -- and even that comes with a tax deduction. Or let's put it another way. That Elliman report you linked to has an average sales price of $1.21 million. A typical rental yield in Manhattan these days is 4%, so if rentals were functionally identical to owner-occupied apartments, which you seem to assume, then the average rent in Manhattan would be over $4,000 a month. In fact, of course, it's nowhere near that. Posted by: Felix on December 5, 2005 06:55 AM #21 There's the shark, and then there's the A train. Sterling's Manhattan clearly stops at 96th street. Sterling, dear, north of that bright white line, the housing stock is incredibly stable and consistent in terms of size and layout. Harlem is just now getting it's first 'luxury' apartment building in a half century. Any larger apartment complexes are housing projects, which have smaller units by definition, and, allowing for the dispersal of the towers in some International Style fantasy also insures that the density does not increase much. Posted by: 99 on December 5, 2005 04:03 PM #22 Felix, just because apartments are currently going for $1.21 million a pop doesn't mean that everyone who owns an apartment paid that much. Rent prices move in sympathy with real estate prices but are less prone to bubbles. What you're missing here, and you've missed the same thing when we've talked about the stock market in the past, is the difference between speculative investors and income investors. Speculators don't buy an apartment (or apartment building) primarily for the benefit of the rent; their main motivation is the hope of flipping the property at some later date for a larger sum than they paid for it. The current Manhattan real estate bubble is the product of speculators. Real estate income investors view rent collection as their goal - most apartment buildings in any town or city in the U.S. are owned by income investors. They get less press than speculators, but they also tend to go bankrupt less often. The market value of a rental property can be determined by the amount of rent it generates for the owner, not the other way around. Manhattan rents are high - probably even ludicrously high - but that is a function of large demand chasing relatively low supply, and is only weakly related to current real estate prices. I do acknowledge your point about space not being a priority for Manhattan renters, there is some truth in that. People who do see space as a necessity tend to wind up in rental units in Brooklyn, Queens or Hudson County. But that's not exclusively the case. Posted by: Sterling on December 5, 2005 04:59 PM #23 This thread is hilarious and sad, although a good example of how the same statistics can be applied to support any and all political positions. Posted by: sac on December 5, 2005 06:39 PM #24 Sterling, Manhattan is the one real-estate market in the US where there are, to all intents and purposes, zero speculators under your definition. No one buys Manhattan property in order to flip it. For one thing, co-op boards (and even condo boards, for that matter) hate flippers, and are likely to punish them. There's flip taxes, brokers' fees of 6% for the seller, and a luxury tax of 1% on any apartment over $1m for the buyer. Prices are so high that the carrying costs are enormous -- and you can't rent out the apartment in the meantime, because that makes it pretty much unsaleable. There are, of course, lots of buildings owned by income investors in New York. Most of the East Village, where I live, is comprised of such buildings: they normally have 20 or so apartments (say 5 floors, 4 apartments per floor), and they've been going up in price almost as much as individual apartments have -- the only reason they haven't gone up just as much is because many of the tenants are rent-controlled or rent-stabilised below market. These are typical New York apartments, from a renter's point of view -- but I can tell you, as someone who was apartment hunting in the East Village for almost a year, they're much less typical from an owner's point of view. Also, there's a strong incentive for for-sale apartments to be as large as possible: price per square foot is positively correlated with size. That's not the case in the rental market: it's easier to rent out a 650sqft apartment for $2500 than it is to rent out a 1300sqft apartment for $5000. Posted by: Felix on December 5, 2005 09:14 PM #25 "Manhattan is the one real-estate market in the US where there are, to all intents and purposes, zero speculators under your definition. No one buys Manhattan property in order to flip it." Felix, of course people speculate on property in Manhattan. Just because the barriers to entry are high doesn't mean some won't jump them. How else do you think a modest apartment winds up costing as much as a dozen Mercedes-Benz CL500s? Who do you imagine is providing demand at that level? You know banks are not issuing $1,000,000 mortgages to households with joint incomes of $200,000. It's trust fund kiddies - who are often divorced from fiscal reality - and speculators. As for your point about different-sized apartments being suitable for rent versus sale, I might agree with you except for the fact that every rental apartment IS OWNED by someone. It IS PART of the for sale market. I'd be surprised if fewer than half of the condos in Manhattan are rented out by their owners. Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 01:51 AM #26 Sterling, I'm afraid the factors leading to high apartment prices are much more mundane than your feverish mind would like to imagine. Lots of global liquidity, driving down interest rates and banks' credit tests. Lots of demand, due to Manhattan's status as the center of the universe and high Wall Street bonuses. And very limited supply. The market for flippers is Miami, not NYC -- where a condo can be bought and sold three or four times before it is even built. As for your point about rental apartments being owned by someone, it sounds clever until you stop to think about what I've already said. Rental buildings are owned by landlords; the vast majority of condos and co-ops are owner-occupied. For one thing, co-ops vastly outnumber condos, and they're hard to rent. And as for condos, they generally get rented out when they're not the place their owner really wants to live. Given how valuable they are, few owners who don't want to live here would rather rent out their condos rather than simply sell them. Take my East Village condo building, for instance: when it went condo in 1983, only one owner lived here. Today, all the units bar one are owner-occupied. I haven't done my homework on this, but I'll happily accept your wager: I'll bet the standard bottle of vintage champagne that more than half the condos in Manhattan are owner-occupied. Deal? Posted by: Felix on December 6, 2005 02:43 AM #27 If you go double or nothing on the proposition that the amount of existing residential floor space in Manhattan divided by the number of residents of Manhattan is equal to or greater than 600 sq. ft., then it's a bet. How are we going to research this? FWIW, I am descended from a man who is reputed to be the first person to negotiate a real estate deal in New York: Wessel Wesselse (ten Broek). He may have been the man to offer 60 guilders (often misreported as $24) as the purchase price of Manhattan from the Canarsies. (Technically the Canarsies didn't own Manhattan Island - it's not for nothing that "Canarsie" is in Brooklyn. Also technically the Dutch West India Company didn't care which tribe owned it. It just needed some bunch of natives to smile and sign off on the deal to keep the English away.) This of course conveys no special knowledge upon me, but it certainly adds a humorous subtext to our disagreement. Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 04:14 AM #28 I'm not sure about the terms of the wager: we seem to be betting on two different things at the same time. But spell it out, and I'll be amenable. I do want to ensure, of course, that hallways and elevator shafts and the like do not count as residential floor space. And please also ensure that if one of the propositions can be determined while the other one can't, then the other wager still stands. Posted by: Felix on December 6, 2005 05:55 AM #29 I'm not sure how we could specify the terms to exclude elevators if they are included in filings. However, it occurs to me that Manhattan Borough probably requires a statement of total dwelling space for its Certificate of Occupancy, so that would work for me. And no, I think double or nothing sounds good to me, especially since we will be attempting to falsify two of my estimations, rather than either of yours. Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 06:20 AM #30 You've lost me, I'm afraid. When you say "double or nothing", are you proposing a 2BVC bet on the residential floor space, and no bet at all on the proportion of condos which are rented out? Or what? It makes no sense to me: "double or nothing" normally happens after A has lost a bet and B has won it. Then going double or nothing means that either B wins double the original amount, or he wins nothing. You essentially run the bet over again. Are you maybe trying to propose something whereby if I lose I lose 2BVCs, and if I win I win nothing? Posted by: Felix on December 6, 2005 07:44 AM #31 Are you trying to squirm out of it? Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 06:03 PM #32 Sterling, will you propose your bet already? I've already said that I'm likely to accept. Just tell me the terms! Posted by: Felix on December 6, 2005 06:12 PM #33 I did! Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 06:25 PM #34 OK, have a few moments now, I had to get someplace before 2pm and the roads are crap with snow and slush. Um, OK. My terms for the bet is those two things specified, avg. sq. footage = 600 and = 50% of condos. Either side has to get both right to collect. gotta run Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 06:51 PM #35 So if one of us gets both right, he wins 1BVC or 2BVCs? And if one of the two turns out to be unverifiable, then it's a wash? Posted by: Felix on December 6, 2005 07:22 PM #36 Honestly, Felix, I doubt either number is verifiable. Like I wrote above, the city appears to track residential rental inventory by units, rather than by square footage. Also, most owners of condominium units who rent them out do so through agents - even the tenant may be only vaguely aware of the legal status of the unit. In NJ I don't think an individual condo owner even needs to report the unit as a rental property if it's in a building that's already inspected under multi-family housing regulations (or if it's a standalone unit or duplex). The rent revenue has to be reported as taxable income, naturallly, but not to any entity with housing oversight. So make it for one bottle and yes both figures have to be verifiable. That said, if either of us can show a grouping of not-completely-conclusive figures from multiple sources that seem reasonable and fall long or short of my guesses by ten percent or more, then I think we should accept them. (Of course, I have arguably already met this condition with my square footage prediction, and Geoff's calculations don't contradict it under the 10% rule I suggest.) Posted by: Sterling on December 6, 2005 10:05 PM #37 as i mentioned earlier, you can get the sf and unit count for every residential tax lot in the city from the cities web site... google 'bytes of the big apple' and look at the 'pluto' product. the license fee is $250 or you can get the info from propertyshark.com. there are 99000+ listings for manhattan. at 100 listings per page, thats a lot of cutting and pasting into excel. both of these will give you tax lot sizes (whole buildings/unit count or condo unit), which will be inclusive of common area. 10-15% is considered a fairly standard deduction for circulation. mechanical space is not included in the floor area count. happy dueling Posted by: geoff on December 6, 2005 10:29 PM Post a comment Name: Email Address: URL: Remember personal info? Yes No Anti-spam question: Share four cupcakes equally among four people. How many does each person get (in digits)? 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(7) Comments 06/12: geoff: as i mentioned earlier, you can get the sf and unit count for every residential tax lot in the ci 06/12: Sterling: Honestly, Felix, I doubt either number is verifiable. Like I wrote above, the city appears to tr 06/12: Felix: So if one of us gets both right, he wins 1BVC or 2BVCs? And if one of the two turns out to be unv 06/12: Sterling: OK, have a few moments now, I had to get someplace before 2pm and the roads are crap with snow an 06/12: Sterling: I did! 06/12: Felix: Sterling, will you propose your bet already? I've already said that I'm likely to accept. Just te 06/12: Sterling: Are you trying to squirm out of it? 06/12: Felix: You've lost me, I'm afraid. When you say "double or nothing", are you proposing a 2BVC bet on the 06/12: Sterling: I'm not sure how we could specify the terms to exclude elevators if they are included in filings. 06/12: Felix: I'm not sure about the terms of the wager: we seem to be betting on two different things at the s 06/12: Sterling: If you go double or nothing on the proposition that the amount of existing residential floor spac 06/12: Felix: Sterling, I'm afraid the factors leading to high apartment prices are much more mundane than your 06/12: Sterling: "Manhattan is the one real-estate market in the US where there are, to all intents and purposes, 05/12: Felix: Sterling, Manhattan is the one real-estate market in the US where there are, to all intents and p 05/12: sac: This thread is hilarious and sad, although a good example of how the same statistics can be appli 05/12: Sterling: Felix, just because apartments are currently going for $1.21 million a pop doesn't mean that ever 05/12: 99: There's the shark, and then there's the A train. Sterling's Manhattan clearly stops at 96th stree 05/12: Felix: Renter-occupied apartments are much smaller than owner-occupied apartments. And as the < 05/12: Sterling: Geoff - The only reason I was pompously snug is because Felix had reacted to to my estimates with 05/12: geoff: if anyone is real curious why not pony up the $250 to get a list of every tax lot in the city?<br 04/12: Sterling: The multiplier of 4 was back-of-envelope guess. The 280,000,000 number came from <a href 04/12: Felix: Where does your 280m sq ft number come from? Your first two calculations are based on it, so I'd 04/12: 99: Sterling: do your calculations include infrastructure or is the 280MM number a percentage of raw 04/12: Sterling: I've tried to find the statistic, but to no avail. It seems that while office space inventor is 04/12: Sterling: My claim is that the amount of residential-zoned floor space in Manhattan probably works out to b 04/12: Felix: Sterling jumped the shark so long ago it's probably not surprising, but for those of you keeping 04/12: Sterling: OK, 22 square miles equals about 613,324,800 square feet. That would leave each of Manhattan's 1 03/12: Felix: OK, Sterling, let's do it your way. Assume that each of the 1.5 million residents of Manhattan ha 03/12: Sterling: I don't think I'm confused. My points are: a) there is actually quite a bit more than 22 02/12: Andrew: Susan and Sterling, you are embarassingly confused. What percentage of real estate in Manhattan i Trackbacks

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History Detectives . Investigative Techniques . Property Search | PBS -- Purpose To obtain historical data about a place and/or persons associated with it. Method A property search is often part of a larger investigation, perhaps for genealogical purposes, or to prepare for renovation of a home. The main resources are legal documents (collectively referred to as land records) including original grants, deeds, mortgages, leases and tax records. Because these documents were the legal proof of ownership and inheritance, all relevant facts were recorded, and archives were kept in standardized locations. Using these land records and related sources, a property search can produce several types of historical evidence, including: biographical details about the owners, from first to last; construction information such as the building date, architect and builder, and sometimes the original plans and cost of construction. Supporting data may be found in probate, tax and insurance records, building permits, old maps and atlases, census files, and other period materials. Although a property search can provide critical facts, some researchers are put off by the problems. For example, it can be hard to navigate the archive levels (e.g. city, state, national). Some material is indexed by number instead of name. Some transactions were recorded years after the event, or not at all. Above all, these are generally secondary-source documents, copied from originals retained by owners. If they were copied by hand, the records may have errors, and the writing can be difficult to decipher. Despite these issues, land records are still a prime place to search for missing pieces of a historical puzzle. Test how much you know about researching property. Take our Property Proficiency Quiz now. Where to next? Get More Leads . Back to Top PBS Privacy Policy | © 2003-2005 Public Broadcasting Service all rights reserved Home | About History Detectives | Case Files | Investigative Techniques | Do It Yourself Games & Quizzes | Submit Your Mystery | Classroom Resources | Glossary | Contact Us

Land For Sale Acreage

North Carolina Land for Sale | Asheville NC Land and Large Acreage Tracts Home | Featured Listings | MLS Search | About Us | Contact Us Horse Farms | Land | Luxury Homes | Condos & Lofts | Waterfront Property | Commercial | 1031 Exchange Phone Us 828.694.1558 North Carolina Land For Sale Acreage in the Greater Asheville NC Area I f you are seeking North Carolina land for sale, Sheelah Clarkson Asheville Real Estate Agency is pleased to assist you . We serve as buyer's agents helping national and international investors locate tracts of mountain land that are suitable for investment, 1031 exchange , or private estate property. As a land specialist, Sheelah Clarkson is a member of the Realtors Land Institute (RLI), the only national organization comprised of licensed real estate professionals who broker, sell, lease, manage, and develop land. This influential affiliation gives our agency the leverage and network necessary to identify and procure large acreage land tracts on behalf of our buyers and investors. Featured Land For Sale Our featured land for sale is a rare 228-acre tract of land in Waynesville, NC . This property has been passed down in the family for generations and is available on the open market for the first time. With frontage on all sides of an intersection along major Highway US 276 less than 1 mile from the city limits , this acreage is ideal for a major mixed use development or urban village. The prime location with multiple access points, level land, and nearby utilities make this acreage a developers ideal. View more information on this Waynesville NC land . Our featured investment land includes 101 acres and 62 acres near three pretigious Cliffs Communities with views to The Cliffs at Glassy in upstate South Carolina. This acreage is perfectly positioned for a private mountain estate, high end residential development, or a national retreat center. The 101-acre tract lies adjacent to more than 1,700 acres of the Chestnut Ridge Heritage Preserve , protecting your year round mountain views. Both offer paved road access and access to utilities. These land tracts are within easy driving distance of Greenville SC, Hendersonville NC, and the GSP Airport. View more details of this prime acreage. If you would like to see other properties on the market, contact us with your acreage requirements. Also, a number of land listings can be found in the Farms and Land section of the Asheville MLS or the Lots and Land section of the Tryon MLS . Ask us for more information on specific listings that interest you. Finding NC Mountain Land for Sale The magnificent vistas and ecology of our western North Carolina highlands have drawn people here for centuries. However, locating large acreage tracts of North Carolina land for sale can be challenging. Why? Portions of our most spectacular mountain ranges are protected by state and national agencies. More than one million acres are contained in the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests. State parks and forests also hold thousands of acres. In the Brevard and Hendersonville area alone, The Gorges State Park and the Dupont State Forest protect more than 20,000 acres of pristine mountain land. Large acreage tracts are rare and exclusive mountain land for sale is not always listed in a public MLS. However, a number of significant land tracts in western North Carolina are still available if you know how to find them. Most real estate agents focus on houses and residential lots. Few realty professionals excel in the sale of land and acreage, perhaps because this specialty area is unique, requiring knowledge of an extensive geographic region, willingness to travel the back roads, and an in-depth understanding of land tract zoning, characteristics, and markets. Our North Carolina Land Services As large acreage buyer's agents, we cover 11 counties in the greater Asheville NC area, a wide territory that spans some of the most stunning mountain land and pastoral foothills in western North Carolina and upstate South Carolina. We help match your investment needs with the most appropriate land tract. We understand how the unique characteristics of a property can impact your proposed use of the acreage. For instance, the topography in western North Carolina varies greatly from rolling foothills that provide an exceptional location for horse farms , to steep mountains with scenic vistas, to valleys suitable for agri-business. Zoning and restrictions vary from county to county as well. We serve our buyers and investors by tapping into a network of land savvy specialists throughout our region to locate acreage for a variety of purposes, including property for 1031 exchange , land for investment, and acreage for private luxury homes and estates. We know this region. We drive the back roads. And we are pleased to work closely with qualified buyers who are ready to purchase land. Contact us to discuss your needs regarding large acreage land tracts for sale in western North Carolina. North Carolina Land Conservancy Under all is the land. Upon its wise utilization and widely allocated ownership depend the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization. - Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice of the National Association of REALTORS At Sheelah Clarkson Asheville Real Estate Agency, we believe in the wise use of land. We support land stewardship through such measures as personal responsibility, sustainability, and land conservancy. The North Carolina Conservation Tax Credit Program (CTC) North Carolina boasts some of the most progressive legislation in the nation regarding land conservancy. The North Carolina Conservation Tax Credit Program (CTC) offers financial incentives that encourage both corporate and private property owners to protect the land. Preserving our land benefits both the environment and future generations. Moreover, it can be a smart financial strategy for land owners because it offers substantial income tax credit for those who donate real property for conservation purposes. Land conservancy is a win-win for all involved. You can learn more about the tax credits offered through conservation easements and other land conservancy options by visiting the website of the North Carolina Conservation Tax Credit Program . North Carolina Land Conservancy Organizations A number of nonprofit groups are dedicated to protecting our North Carolina land. We invite you to visit these websites for more information on land preservation in the Tarheel state. The North Carolina Chapter of the Nature Conservancy Durham, NC State chapter protecting more than 100 sites across the state including several sites in western North Carolina. Million Acre Initiative Raleigh, NC State program dedicated to preserving one million acres of open space in North Carolina this decade. Conservation Trust for North Carolina Raleigh, NC Statewide organization working with local land trusts, community groups, and private landowners to protect North Carolina land and water resources. Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy Hendersonville, NC Local organization serving Henderson and Transylvania counties. Pacolet Area Conservancy Lynn, NC Local group focused on the Pacolet and Green River watersheds in portions of Polk County and Henderson County in North Carolina as well as parts of Spartanburg and Greenville Counties in South Carolina. Land Trust for the Little Tennessee Franklin, NC Local trust serving the upper Little Tennessee Valley area that lies along the corridor between the Nantahala and Cowee mountains of western North Carolina. Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy Asheville, NC Local conservancy serving Buncombe and Madison Counties plus Highlands of Roan, a major project that preserves 15,000 acres along the North Carolina and Tennessee border. Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust Boone, NC Local trust serving a seven county area in northwestern North Carolina including Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, Watauga, Wilkes, and Yancey Counties. National Committee for the New River West Jefferson, NC Local group focused on the protection and restoration of the New River and 5,000 acres of watershed in northwestern North Carolina. Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina Morganton, NC Local organization serving Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Cleveland, Lincoln, McDowell and Rutherford Counties. If you are interested in purchasing large acreage land tracts of land for sale in North Carolina, contact us to discuss the benefits of land conservancy. Sheelah Clarkson is a member of the Realtors Land Institute (RLI) Asheville Real Estate | Asheville North Carolina MLS | Tryon North Carolina MLS | Asheville Homes For Sale | Asheville Condos North Carolina Luxury Homes | North Carolina Land For Sale | North Carolina Acreage | North Carolina Mountain Real Estate North Carolina Horse Farms | Equestrian Communities | Horse Property | Equestrian Property | North Carolina Mountain Land North Carolina Commercial Real Estate | 1031 Exchange Real Estate | NC Waterfront Property | Sitemap | Links | About Us | Contact Info © 2005 Sheelah Clarkson Sheelah Clarkson Asheville Real Estate Agency • PO Box 8804 • Asheville,NC 28814-8804 Phone 828.694.1558 • Fax 828.694.1549 • Email sheelah@sheelahclarkson.com

home equity loans Average

NYS Banking Department-Home Equity Loans Survey Interest Rate Information Home Equity Loans Markets Albany Buffalo Long Island New York Metro Rochester Syracuse Westchester Co, NY Definition of terms used in this survey New York State home equity loans Average Highest Lowest 7.31 8.50 5.50 Albany Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Bank of America, NA 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Central National Bank 800-449-6842 12/23/05 7.00 .50% disc w/auto debit; $7,500 min Citibank 800-627-3999 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min Citizens Bank, N.A. 800-922-9999 12/23/05 6.35 $10,000 min First Niagara Bank 518-270-3200 12/23/05 6.75 .25% disc w/auto debit; $340 fee; $10,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min KeyBank 888-KEY-1234 12/23/05 7.14 Range: 7.14-8.94%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $99 fee; $5,000 min M&T Bank 800-724-2440 12/23/05 7.74 .25% disc w/auto debit; $15,000 min Pioneer Savings Bank 518-274-4800 12/23/05 6.00 $50 fee; $2,500 min TrustCo Bank 518-436-9043 12/23/05 7.00 $5,000 min Buffalo Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Bank of Akron 716-542-5401 12/23/05 6.25 $500 fee; no min Bank of America 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Citibank 800-627-3999 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min Citizens Bank, N.A. 800-922-9999 12/23/05 6.35 $10,000 min Evans National Bank 716-549-6000 12/23/05 6.50 .25% disc w/auto debit; $7,500 min First Niagara Bank 877-722-9842 12/23/05 6.75 .25% disc w/auto debit; $340 fee; $10,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min KeyBank 888-KEY-1234 12/23/05 7.14 Range: 7.14-8.94%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $99 fee; $5,000 min M&T Bank 800-724-2440 12/23/05 7.74 .25% disc w/auto debit; $15,000 min Long Island Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Astoria Federal S&LA 800-278-6742 12/23/05 7.63 .25% disc w/auto debit; $20 yrly fee; $10,000 min Bank of America 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Bank of New York 212-495-1784 12/23/05 6.25 $10,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Citibank 800-321-2484 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min M&T Bank 800-724-2440 12/23/05 7.74 .25% disc w/auto debit; $15,000 min Ridgewood Svgs Bk 718-240-4800 12/23/05 6.00 .50% disc w/auto debit; no min Suffolk County NB of Riverhead 631-208-2222 12/23/05 6.75 $5,000 min Washington Mutual Bank 800-788-7000 12/23/05 8.50 .13% disc w/auto debit; $10,000 min New York Metro Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Astoria Federal S&LA 800-278-6742 12/23/05 7.63 .25% disc w/auto debit; $20 yrly fee; $10,000 min Bank of New York 212-495-1784 12/23/05 6.25 $10,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Citibank 800-321-2484 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min Independence Community Bank 800-732-3434 12/23/05 6.49 .25% disc w/auto debit; $10,000 min Queens County Svgs Bk 718-268-6801 12/23/05 7.99 Range: 7.99-10.99%; $600-1000 fee; $10,000 min Union State Bank 800-887-8775 12/23/05 6.25 1.50% disc w/auto debit; $100 refundable app. fee; $5,000 min Wachovia Bank, NA 800-922-4684 12/23/05 6.84 Range: 6.84-8.00%; $150 fee; $8,000 min Washington Mutual Bank 800-788-7000 12/23/05 8.50 .13% disc w/auto debit; $10,000 min Rochester Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Bank of America, NA 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Citibank 800-627-3999 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min Citizens Bank, N.A. 800-922-9999 12/23/05 6.35 $10,000 min Community Bank, N.A. 800-388-4679 12/23/05 5.50 no auto debit offered 25000 min First Niagara Bank 716-434-6621 12/23/05 6.75 .25% disc w/auto debit; $340 fee; $10,000 min Five Star Bank 888-624-2300 12/23/05 5.99 .25% disc w/auto debit; $10,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min KeyBank 888-KEY-1234 12/23/05 7.14 Range: 7.14-8.94%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $99 fee; $5,000 min M&T Bank 800-724-2440 12/23/05 7.74 .25% disc w/auto debit; $15,000 min Syracuse Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Alliance Bank 800-310-6275 12/23/05 6.75 $5,000 min Bank of America, NA 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min First Niagara Bank 877-722-9842 12/23/05 6.75 .25% disc w/auto debit; $340 fee; $10,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min KeyBank 888-KEY-1234 12/23/05 7.14 Range: 7.14-8.94%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $99 fee; $5,000 min M&T Bank 800-724-2440 12/23/05 7.74 .25% disc w/auto debit; $15,000 min Partners Trust Bank 866-777-8659 12/23/05 6.99 .50% disc w/auto debit; $7,500 min Solvay Bank 315-468-1661 12/23/05 6.37 $2,500 min The Oneida Savings Bank 315-363-2000 12/23/05 6.50 .25% disc w/auto debit; $7,500 min Westchester, Co Institution Telephone Date Rate Fees and Conditions Astoria Federal S&LA 800-278-6742 12/23/05 7.63 .25% disc w/auto debit; $20 yrly fee; $10,000 min Bank of America, NA 800-299-2265 12/23/05 8.45 .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Bank of New York 212-495-1784 12/23/05 6.25 $10,000 min Chase Bank 800-CHA-SE24 12/23/05 7.75 Range: 7.75-10.45%; .25% disc w/auto debit; $5,000 min Citibank 800-321-2484 12/23/05 7.40 .25% disc w/auto debit; $25,000 min First Niagara Bank 877-722-9842 12/23/05 6.75 .25% disc w/auto debit; $340 fee; $10,000 min HSBC Bank USA 800-975-HSBC 12/23/05 8.38 $10,000 min Union State Bank 800-887-8775 12/23/05 6.25 1.50% disc w/auto debit; $100 refundable app. fee; $5,000 min Wachovia Bank, NA 800-922-4684 12/23/05 6.84 Range: 6.84-8.00%; $150 fee; $8,000 min Washington Mutual Bank 800-788-7000 12/23/05 8.50 .13% disc w/auto debit; $10,000 min Rates are subject to change without notice and may vary from branch to branch. Although the rates reported here have been obtained from the financial institutions themselves, the accuracy of the information cannot be guaranteed by the publisher. 2005: Bankrate.com All rights reserved. | Home | Search | SiteMap | | Interest Rates | | Credit Cards | MortgageRates | Home Equity Lines of Credit | | Home Equity Loans | New Auto Loans | Used Auto Loans | Last Modified Friday, December 23, 2005 FastCounter by bCentral

Colorado Real Estate

Colorado Springs Real Estate - Colorado Springs Homes For Sale - Century 21 Academy Request Info Form | Links | Life @ Home Newsletter Home | Company Profile Property Info | Colorado Springs Info | Military Info | Multiple Listings Service | Mortgage & Financing | Foreclosures | Careers Looking at homes for sale in Colorado Springs ? Relocating to Fort Carson, Schriever Air Force Base, Peterson Air Force Base, United States Air Force Academy, or NORAD? Interested in commercial properties or vacant land? Century 21 Academy Realty Inc. and our team of professional and award winning Realtors are ready to meet and exceed your Colorado Springs Real Estate expectations. We have been proudly serving the Pikes Peak Region since 1974. Our Colorado Springs Realtors specialize in first time homebuyers, foreclosure and investment properties. Featured Homes Featured Homes Listing Number: 10250 1695 Colgate Drive Listing Number: 8702 10570 Huntsman Drive CENTURY 21 Academy Realty, Inc. in Beautiful Colorado Springs, CO. Two Locations in the Pikes Peak Region 311 Main Street; 80911 Sales: 719.390.7865 School: 888.574.9701 4760 Flintridge Drive; 80918 Sales: 719.598.2000 Admin: 719.591.9889 "Colorado Springs Real Estate - Colorado Springs Homes For Sale " Created and Maintained by Creative Online Services 2003 Century 21 Real Estate Corporation. © and sm - trademark and servicemark of Century 21 Real Estate Corporation. Equal Housing Opportunity. "Each Office Independently Owned and Operated" A ssociates O nly The Best Sales Associates Find A Home Home Listing #