Both the House and the Senate have passed an extension and an expansion of the homebuyer’s tax credit. The President is expected to sign the bill Friday. Key provisions of the bill are as follows:

* Tax credit of up to $8000 is extended for first-time homebuyers who are in contract to purchase a home by May 1, 2010 and close by July 1;

* A tax credit is also available to homebuyers who have owned their current homes for at least five years of up to $6,500;

* The credit is available for the purchase of principal residences costing up to $800,000 (the prior tax credit did not set a limit on housing price);

* Income limits for claiming the credit are raised to $125,000 for individuals and $225,000 for couples.

The 2009 New York City Halloween Parade was a rainy spectacle with substantial participation despite the weather.  Pictured are two members of the Patrick Lilly Group:  Indiana Soto and Flapper Kriegstein. 

Maybe I’m getting old, but I truly prefer the old parade when it lumbered through the side streets of the West Village.  Gone were the drunks and the massive crowds.  It felt like a small town parade, albeit a town that is hyper liberal.  Instead of one large parade, I suggest we hold many smaller parades for each of our communities where intimacy and ownership reigns.  I like my ‘Boos’ without the Booze.

My nephew turned thirty this month and is a food nut.  He loves eating well and is skinny as a rail; a very thin rail.  This is one of the things I dislike about him.  When we travel together he loves to plan the trip around his meals.  This is a trait I can easily love.  He’d never been to Le Bernardin, so I took him and his boyfriend.

If you are not familiar with the restaurant, you are not a foodie.  Owned by chef Eric Ripert, this temple to seafood, particularly fish, has received top ratings by Michelin and the New York Times for many years.  Located at 155 West 51st Street in a modernist skyscraper, the interior is a warmed-up version of international style which feels appropriate for its location and building type.  It’s not the most beautiful space, but I suspect the intention was to focus on the food and service, which is excellent.

I first went to Le Bernardin a decade ago with a friend.  I remember enjoying the food, it’s updated classic French cooking, but mostly I remember falling in love with Billecarte Salmon Rose Champagne.  It is heaven:  not too sweet, not to dry, with subtle fruit flavors and endless tiny bubbles.  Few restaurants stock it in North America and when they do I always order it.  My association with Billecarte and Le Bernardin is beneficial for both, in my mind.

Upon greeting my guests in the restaurant’s lobby, a young woman quickly came up and assisted dressing me in a well-fitting sports coat to meet the dining room’s dress policy.  It was all done quite elegantly, without attitude or reprimand, which is a sign of the superb service.  I immediately ordered a bottle of Billecarte for our group while we waited for our table.  It pleased me that I was introducing them to my favorite champagne as I was a decade ago.

The meal and service was excellent across the board with a few highlights:  a sublime sea urchin risotto, the perfect cheese plate, and an extraordinary port.  That being said, I left a bit disappointed.  At $1,000 for three and the world’s top ratings, I want to be transformed; I want each course to move me.  That was not the case.  It must be tough to manage the guests’ expectations when they are so high.

On March 23, 1857 Elisha Armstrong Otis’ first practical passsenger elevator was installed at the Haughwout Building at 490 Broadway in SoHo at the corner of Broome Street.  The edifice is a 5 story cast iron building designed by architect John Gaynor to house the Haughwout Emporium, a well known manufacturer and purveyor of cut glass, porcelains, mirrors and chandeliers.  The entire facade is comprised of 92 keystone arches crowned by an entablature of intricate friezes. 

Today the elevator is still operated manually.  Ramon Olivo has been running it for the past decade.  People come from all over the world to take a ride in the relic.

I am happy to say our office of the Corcoran Group is located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of 490 Broadway.

Thanks for the lift Ramon.

I have had a dream for years, actually a fantasy, that I could reduce my personal belongings down to 4 or 5 suitcases. 

August of 2008, Lehman Brothers fell, the Manhattan real estate market skidded to a stop, and I had a team of five whose incomes depended on my production.  Preparing for the worst, I thought this would be a great time to downsize, reducing my living expenses by 50%.  So I packed up my two bedroom, 2 bath loft (1200 square feet), put the majority of my belongings into my brother’s basement in Pennsylvania and moved to a 330 square foot  condo in Hell’s Kitchen.

Well, we are coming up on one year in my studio and I thought you might like to know how the fantasy is doing.

Getting rid of my stuff was the easy part.  I actually didn’t get rid of it, since I could travel to PA. and visit my belongings.  But it is amazing how little I need around me.  I donated 60% of my clothes that I never wear, gave tons of my good stuff out to family and friends for Christmas last year, increased the size of the Staten Island landfill, and kept at my brother’s what I might want to use in a future country home.

Since the space was so small, I furnished the studio with items that could do double duty:  the sofa opens into a bed; the long parsons table functions as a desk, dining table, and altar; the Georgian influenced cabinet holds an assundry of items including the TV, travel supplies, books and photos; and the the coffee table/bench serves both purposes.  I kept some of my favorite art, those pieces that would fit, and had the apartment painted in a soothing taupe/grey.  The place looks pretty good I think and feels like home.

It will be a year this December in my tiny studio and overall it has been a success.  It has been an easy process, mostly due to my house cleaner, Lela, who is a saint and comes once a week to clean, iron, and dump out kitty litter.  Jeep, my cat, never has a room to get away from me which may explain why he likes to spend so much time drinking water out of the toilet.

So where do you put the kitty litter box in such a small space when the bathroom and kitchen have no floor space to spare?  In a side table, of course.  I had two Ikea tables that are square boxes on wheels that are without fronts and backs.  I then bought a 4″ deep tray that fits the space.  To hide the offending sight, I placed an easel that a deceased client left to me with a very old photograph on cardboard of a young child in an elaborate wood frame I found at a flea market.  Jeep has plenty of room to enter and do his stuff and the back of the photograph acts as a barrier to flying kitty litter.

I thought I could be the type of person who puts his bed away in the morning and sets it up every night.  I’m not.  The only time the bed gets put up is when Lela comes on Tuesdays to clean or by some uncommon circumstance I have a guest over.  Frankly, two people in the apartment feels crowded.

So, if you like living alone, studio living is not that bad.  Next time, I’ll get an alcove so I won’t feel bad about not making my bed.

In the last two months three of my clients have been in bidding wars which is fascinating, since we are technically in a buyer’s market.

Today, one of my sellers received four offers over ask on a $1,500,000 loft in Chelsea (click on the photo to see the full listing).

Two of my buyers were also in a bidding war recently, with one winning the negotiations. 

It seems there is high demand for Manhattan properties when you get the price right.

I have a great client who is looking for a small two bedroom in Harlem for under $350,000 and wants to finance 100% of the purchase price with a VA loan.  Now I’ve done over a thousand deals in my 25 years of selling real estate in Manhattan and I’ve never done a VA loan nor have I done 100% financing.  This is all new to me.

We found a great place, negotiated a deal, and are trying to satisfy the VA requirements, which are basically FHA approved housing.  It is complicated and frankly my client knows more about this topic then the so called ‘experts’ seem to know.  We are moving along, but slowly and that is my problem.  My client takes forever to get to his point in a conversation and I go way too fast for his liking I am sure.  He’s a great guy and we seem to have fallen into an acceptable pattern where I listen longer than I normally would and he graciously allows me to cut him off before he says everything he wants.  Clearly, we go through life at different speeds. 

One option is for me to slow down to his speed, he is the client.  My sister’s ex-husband took forever to get to a point or tell his story and I tried and tried and couldn’t stop myself from interupting him and telling him the end of his story.  Ultimately we have rudeness on one hand (me) and boredom on the other (also me).  So this is all about me and not the client.  I know not interupting others is a good thing, but boy, what a challenge.  I’ll give it a go….I think.

Yesterday I was out showing $10,000,000 properties on Fifth Avenue and today I am talking VA loans.  I love my job.  I might not see the entire spectrum of humanity, but at least I encounter the range of mankind with good credit scores.

The luxury real estate market in Manhattan has been very slow since the Lehman Brothers failure in August of 2008.  Recently it has picked-up.

I had a new client in this week from Europe who runs a major banking firm and wanted to look at apartments with views on Fifth and Park Avenues.  Since the views are better on Fifth and we only had a few hours, we focused the search there.

We looked around the $10,000,000 price range and saw some amazing apartments.  I show apartments with stunning views all the time, but a high floor on Fifth Avenue is the best.  The contrast between Central Park and the rest of the city is dynamic, unlike any urban center in the world. 

We saw gorgeous apartments, tacky ones,  great layouts, and some not so great.  It is nice to know for those of us who cannot afford one of these apartments that even at $10,000,000 my buyer will have to make compromises on his purchase.  Either he will get the view with 3 bedrooms, and a terrace, but the apartment needs a renovation or he will get his desired wishes and sacrifice a bedroom.

Everything about these apartments are exclusive.  Many require 50% of the purchase price down or more.  Showings in most of the buildings are limited from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.  Some have priavate dining rooms for their owners.

I wish I could take all of you in, but let’s face it, if you don’t have the dollars we are not getting past the front door.  It is fun at times, selling real estate in Manhattan.

I just saw the movie ‘Julie and Julia’.  It was great and Streep was amazing as usual.  One thing that interested me was how much fun Julie’s blog was.  It was so very personal with her daily struggles and victories.  Then it hit me, yes, my blog is very, very boring which is one reason why it takes me  forever to get a new entry posted.

So that is changing today.  From now on this blog will be about my life in New York City real estate.  If you like the factual data, sign up for my Newsletter:  http://www.patricklillygroup.com/Newsletter and click on ‘subscribe to this newsletter’.

Things are going to get personal around here.

It is a bit of a strange market lately.  We are seeing bidding wars on Greenwich Village 5th floor walk-ups and luxury Park Avenue apartments going for weeks with no showings.  It seems the rich are a bit leary of moving in this economy, whereas first time buyers are taking advantage of the lower prices, low interest rates, and tax advantages.

Properties under $1,250,000 in Manhattan are moving briskly if priced well; it’s a bit slower under $2,000,000; and somewhat lethargic as prices go up.

What do I make of this?  Those with more faith in the economy are either younger or less wealthy.  There may be a correlation between Obama supporters vs. opponents going on here.