Harvey Heit

Long Island City, Queens, New York, once the Industrial center of New York City, is now in the limelight as one of the premiere NYC neighborhoods to live in.

The neighborhood is the first Queens neighborhood just over the the 59th Street Bridge from Manhattan's East Side LIC is easily accessible by the E, V, N, G, & 7 trains ( a 1 stop 3-5 minute ride to midtown or Grand Central/Times Square). It is also a short commute on the Long Island Railroda (L.I.R.R)., NY Water Taxi, or by car via the Queens Borough Bridge and the Midtown Tunnel

Currently LIC is home to over 200 museums and galleries, including PS1 MoMa, Museum of Moving Image, and many more, Most notably it is home to Silvercup Studios New York's largest movie studio, plenty of new shops, restaurants and bars. It is a mecca for artisans, and well as now becoming a new home film-makers and movie lots. And quite recently it has been observed that Long Island City is becoming a place to call home of many new families and is quite possibly ready to take the place of runner up to Park Slope Brooklyn as being the next big “stroller mom” community.

Long Island City Real Estate also known as L.I.C. recently has been going through a real estate boom. Since the city rezoned it from industrial to residential in 2003, there has been a lot of excitement with new luxury condo buildings opening up every month.

The View Condominium and The East Cost Complex,developed by TF Cornerstone Inc., were the first pioneering buildings leading the charge of the redevelopment process. Rockrose Development Corp. is currently developing seven towers on the Queens West site, near the Queens side of the 59th Street Bridge. Silver Cup Studios has plans on developing the largest movie studio outside of LA and plans on investing over $1 billion dollars into the area including the recent opening of the 76 unit Industry Condominiums on 44th Drive near Court House Square.

Companies as well as organizations are looking at this once forgotten city with a whole new perspective. CitiBank is building there 2nd tower across the street from their original one near 23rd and Ely and Jackson Avenues. The United Nations of Manhattan has recently moved across the East River with completion a Long Island City Office building right near the new LIC Citybank Complex near Courthouse Square.

New York City has allocated $46 million dollars to develop parks, public spaces (Gannett State Park), and plans for a new public school (PS 78), police precinct, library and post office are in the works, Long Island City has become the largest NYC artist district and will soon be the 4th largest business district in the city, once Tishman Speyer completes its over 3,000,000 square feet of office, retail and commercial center dubbed Gotham Center in Queens Plaza.

Home to Brooks Restaurant, Est. 1890 one of the oldest restaurants in New York, there are always plenty of eclectic and interesting activities in Long Island City to partake in: from Wednesday evening film screenings at Socrates Sculpture Park, to PS1 Summer Warm Up Series, which is a weekly outdoor music festival every Saturday in the summer. From Harry's LIC Taxi Beach, New York's first urban beach to video art and dance performances at the Chocolate Factory it seems like there is something either hoppening or happening on any given night.

Other well known restaurants are Sushi Siam, Testaccio Tournesol, Tuk Tuk, Waterfront Crabhouse, Water’s Edge, Lucky Mojo, Manducatis Rustica Manetta’s Masso, Riverview Restaurant & Lounge, Sage General Store SHI,BANY Asian Fusion, Bella Via, Blend, Bricktown Bagels, Brooks 1890 Restaurant, Café Henri, Cassino Restaurant, Court Square Diner, The Creek Da Gianni’s Ristorante, Dorian Café, Five Star Banquet & Restaurant, Ihawan Jackson Avenue Steakhouse, Junior’s Café.

Nest Seekers International Realty handles Long Island City sales, rentals, new developments, conversions and new construction out of it’s three Manhattan offices as well as its own Long Island City office located at 47-44 Vernon Bldv (bet 47th & 48th Streets) in the heart of LIC’s retail district. Some of the area most notable condominium projects that Nest Seekers has been involved in, both as seller’s and buyer’s agents, include the Powerhouse Condos, Galaxy Apartment, Arris Lofts condominium and Arris Loft rentals, Hunters Point condominiums, Hunter View condominiums, 5SL, Star Tower, the Murano Condos, One Vernon Jackson Ave Condos,L’haus Condos, the Industry Condos and the developer and exclusive agent for the Vere condominium.

Nest Seekers is responsible for selling over 50 units at Arris Lofts at the initial offering and hundreds of transactions thereafter in every other development, rentals conversion and resale in the area. Nest Seeker’s storefront on 47-44Vernon Blvd makes it the first Manhattan based agency in the area This real estate agency is now considered an expert in all matters of Long Island City related real estate and transformation issues.

Some useful and interesting Long Island City (LIC) links include the following:

http://5ptz.com/graff/about/

http://www.noguchi.org/

http://www.licblog.com/

http://www.licalliance.org

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/parks/info.asp?parkID=86 http://www.licboathouse.org/

http://liccsa.wetpaint.com/

http://www.licweb.com/

http://5ptz.com/graff/about/

this spring hopefully.

Well it looks like I won't be in some seller's attorney's office on New Years Eve as I previously predicted.

I am actually glad that I am "eating crow" as they say and that income taxes and capital gains taxes won't being going up this year with President Obama's delaying of the expiration of the Bush Era Tax decreases.

It was a very a rather strange Fall of 2010 in the New York City Real Estate market. Deals over the last 6 months did seem to take a longer time to close. My own deals took 4 to 6 months instead of the usual 3 to 4 months.

And although there was no shortage of inventory in the new condominium market, it seemed like there was hardly any inventory at all left in the single through four family house and multifamily markets. This last trend was very different from previous year (winter of 2009) where much of the inventory from the fall lingered and languished on the market past New Years and didn't really sell until spring.

Also it seemed in New York City this fall that prices had not yet returned to 2008 levels but on the otherhand prices were no longer decreasing. Ie. it seemed like prices may have bottomed at some point in the fall and were holding steady and actually increasing somewhat in certain sectors.

Hopefully now sellers who didn't want to get hit with increased capital gains and income taxes slated for 2011 will now put their properties on the market for the Spring of 2011 causing a new flurry of activity. It certainly seem like here that are plenty of buyers from the European and Asian markets who will be able to absorb this increase in inventory.

I am in Sarasota, Florida right now and will be celebrating the New Years on the east side in Boca Raton with my parents. I am thinking and hoping that I should start resting up going out to the mall to buy new sneakers to keep up with what I hope will be a very busy selling season for the Spring of 2011.

One can only hope.

(I wanted to write a didactic article for my real estate blog about the possible effects of the 2011 Federal Tax increases on the New York City Real Estate Market. But I just couldn't seem to write it in a straight, formal essay format. The results are below. I hope this does not fail miserably.)

I'd like to think I won't be spending Friday night, December 31, 2010 stuck in some Real Estate or Bank Attorney's office like the rest of my real estate colleagues across the country. Maybe this won't happen say if Santa Barack (aka Santa ‘Bama) is able to stall the expiration of those nasty Post Bush Era tax decreases. These changes could stuff the American Taxpayers Christmas stocking`s with coal beginning on Jan. 1, 2011

But as a proud and privileged New York City Real Estate Broker, I'd like to think that I might be above all of the hoi polloi and fuss-"capital gains, smapital gains!! I should be sucking down egg nogs in the Caribbean and making champagne New Years toast in Tahiti.

Today however I am sitting looking at the NY Times Real Estate Classifieds alone and confused. Wondering when and where my next commission check will be coming from. The four Jewish holidays start tonight and the end of Ramadan so early this year. Before you know it October Fest, Thanksgiving, Xmas, Quanza, Chanukah-all caused by the tricks of the end of October:

Twas the day after Labor Day

And all though the housing market

Not a seller was stirring

Not even their accountants

The house ads seem barren

The web listings quite bare.

But maybe Obama Claus

Will save us the scare.

Now I don't know if I am going to be able to say to my sophisticated Manhattan clientele this winter-"oh if it hasn't sold in a week, take it off the market until January 15 or so. Then raise the price for a very sweet Valentines Day sale". Or-"don't worry, do a tax deferred exchange, be happy".

Just yesterday, for example, I started seeing graffiti like this scrawled on "subway walls and tenement halls":

The grumpy investors

Were not on the ball.

While riding the market

It took a great fall.

All of their brokers

And lawyers and friends

Couldn't make prices rise

Ever again.

(To be continued)