CLICK THE MENU ITEM ABOVE FOR A MORE COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE FOLLOWING AREAS:
THE WEST VILLAGE: There is no neighborhood like the West Village (Greenwich
Village, the village). Its a diverse neighborhood that has a life of itself,
flowing with artists and musicians, and actors.
In the mid-19th century, however, as the city spread north of 14th Street,
the Village became the province of immigrants, bohemians, and students (New
York University [NYU], today the nation's largest private university, was
planted next to Washington Square in 1831). Its politics were radical and
its attitudes tolerant, which is one reason it became a home to such a large
lesbian and gay community.
ABOUT SOHO: Starting at Houston (pronounced how-ston) Street, walk south down Broadway, stopping to browse the stores and vendor stands between Houston and Prince streets. The sole remaining museum on the block is the New Museum of Contemporary Art, devoted exclusively to living artists. Within the Prada store at 575 Broadway, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas has created a high-tech setting for the Italian house of fashion. Several art galleries share these blocks as well, most notably at 568 Broadway, which houses 10 galleries, and the trendy Armani Exchange store on the ground level.
ABOUT CHELSEA: As Broadway marches north and west across Manhattan it Chelseaforms a series of squares beginning with Union Square at 14th Street. The square itself hosts a popular Greenmarket, and before Christmas, a crafts market. In this neighborhood are some of the city's trendiest restaurants lining Park Avenue South up to 23rd Street. Madison Square, the site of the original Madison Square Garden, is dominated by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower and the Flatiron Building (20-stories and triangular). It was once the end of "ladies mile," the city's most fashionable shopping district along Broadway and Sixth Avenue; this area still has great shopping. To its east is Gramercy Park, a small, fenced park acessible only to residents of its surrounding townhouses. Theodore Roosevelt was born in this neighborhood.
October 2007, The Real Deal
Ground shifts for borrowers
Banks' new refrain: "we're not doing this anymore"
By Jen Benepe
Shifts in the New York real estate market aren't as drastic as in the rest
of the country, but credit questions are getting tougher to answer. The
Real Deal looked at the moving target of credit offerings and its effect
on the residential market as part of an in-depth series of stories this
month examining the shifting climate.
Property buyers and real estate brokers in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens watched with increasing disbelief as mortgage lenders and bankers walked away from previous rate commitments, further tightened borrowing restrictions or suddenly eliminated previous mortgage programs.
"Every day is changing," said Barbara Ladesou, a mortgage broker for Manhattan Mortgage Company. "Every day we get a message from the banks, and the catch phrase is, 'We are not doing this anymore.'"
New York buyers increasingly find themselves searching for a new banker or broker at the eleventh hour, and sometimes must pay higher net prices for property. Or they simply walk away from transactions, leaving their deposits on the table.
In many instances, other mortgage brokers have stepped in to secure similar deals for their clients, only to find that one door after another was being shut as banks sent e-mails canceling terms, programs and commitments on specific lending options.
Mortgage market not directly tied to Fed rates
As insulated as Manhattan is from the mortgage storm, it has responded poorly to the interest rate correction ordered by the Fed in mid-September, said mortgage brokers.
They said the Federal Reserve's Sept. 18 cut of 50 basis points -- one half of 1 percent -- to 4.75 percent hasn't yet loosened mortgage credit. A more important indicator of rate levels is really tied to the one- and 10-year Treasury bill rates, which hovered around 4.54 percent, said Ladesou.
The day after the Fed made the announcement, the 10-year Treasury was actually up by about 7 basis points, "higher than it was before the announcement," said Michael Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a mortgage lender that specializes in refinancing.
In fact, after the Fed's announcement, all of the key mortgage rates had risen: the 30-year fixed, the 15-year ARM and the 5/1 ARM rate, according to Freddie Mac mortgage data. Any drop in rates will lag the Fed's move by several months.
"The banks are very quick to raise their rates and very slow to bring them down," said Ladesou.