My Brooklyn Report

Crown Heights, Brooklyn is home to hundreds of landmark brownstone row houses. Here’s what Linda thought of one for sale on Dean Street.

On Saturday, June 19th 2010, I attended a rough cut screening of a new documentary by Abeni Garrett and Laurel K. Brown at the Five Myles Gallery. I’ve known Laurel since the 2009 elections.  We both supported Mark Winston Griffith for City Council to represent the voters of Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights in the [...]

Just as we were going to publish the first installment of our 7 part series on Short Sales in Brooklyn Real Estate, our editor wanted to make sure our readers were not only receiving great information about short sales, but also knew where these opportunities were. I thought the suggestion made a lot of sense [...]

In May 1970, the movie world witnessed Hal Ashby’s directorial debut of his adaptation of Kristen Hunter’s novel titled, The Landlord. A story depicting the experiences of a young suburbanite from Long Island, New York who bought a house in a Brooklyn ghetto. The hero is a young white male who is influenced by the [...]

Brooklyn is home to some of New York City’s oldest neighborhoods, rich in history and turn of the century row house architecture.  Some of the borough’s affluent families of the late 19th and early 20th centuries built magnificent townhouses that featured treatments and details meant to rival their neighbors. Today’s home buyers are eager to [...]

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?

How do you avoid the subject of politics in any discussion regarding real estate in New York City. Take a look around you. In the last 5 years we’ve seen an enormous amount of luxury condominium development concentrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Should we bail out real estate developers who made bad business decisions?

There are millions of blogs on the Internet offering news from the proverbial FRONT, where the cause is waged by the experienced “insider” who has taken on the mantle of “Citizen Journalist”. While it’s just a thought, the above more or less outlines the reason why so many people engage in this effort.  The purpose; [...]

The investigative news report at the end of this post by Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC News, chronicles the experiences of elderly homeowners faced with the peril of losing their homes. In their attempts to stave off the threat of foreclosure, each homeowner makes earnest attempts to reach the appropriate staff within their [...]