My Brooklyn Report

Over the last 7 years I’ve been on more than 600 appointments with buyers to view properties. Each time I’ve taken customers to view a home I always look to see if this time it might be different. I open the door, welcome them in and look to see if they’re fully prepared for the showing. And as with others they’re not. What are all home shoppers doing wrong?

Councilman Vann has served in office long enough to witness his constituents become the target of Ponzi schemes by unsophisticated operatives who have mastered the loopholes in New York City’s deed recording process. And having lived in Bedford Stuyvesant for many years, he’s seen Mortgage Discrimination occur in central Brooklyn in different forms: Redlining in the 70′s and Predatory Lending in the 90′s. Since his re-election, what should we expect from the incumbent?

September 15th 2008 became a day of reckoning for the U.S. economy. Less than 60 days from an historic election and Wall Street finds the crisis that’s been at the front door of Lucylla Baynes and others like her now busting through the doors of some of the worlds wealthiest individuals, corporations, governments, pension funds and sovereign nations. And the company who sold the junk investments backed by mortgages made up of predatory loans is now the proud owner of property in a neighborhood hard hit by Foreclosure. Are your elected officials familiar with Goldman Sachs role?

Over the last 10 years we’ve seen New York City politicians align their political futures with well financed real estate developers. However, none will come close to the reach and wealth that a recent entrant into the real estate landscape possess. Goldman Sachs comes to Bedford Stuyvesant with money and influence (and a real estate investment strategy that politicians favor). Here’s why.

Here, in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, part of the 36th NYC Council District and the 56th Assembly District, sits another shuttered building on Fulton Street between Albany Avenue and Marcus Garvey Boulevard. 1576 Fulton Street has to its left a bicycle shop that’s been in business for at least 10 years to my knowledge (I purchased a BMX bike for my son from the shop that far back) and rows of shuttered properties to its right. What it doesn’t have are apartments with tenants. Ever wondered why?

With more existing homes coming to market alongside recently constructed houses and condominiums in Brooklyn, all home shoppers and real estate investors are hunting for the best deals available, by any means necessary. But as you walk though streets in the outer boroughs, they’re more sellers than there are buyers.  From one block to the [...]