Giving Thanks 2012

This year there will be 39 hungry attendees at our house for Thanksgiving. As we move furniture around and I roll endless pie crusts, I am inspired by the holiday, as every year, to ruminate on what I feel grateful for. As I noted in this blog last year, part of our holiday tradition (and one that will clearly take a while this year) is that we go around the tables and each person takes a moment to give thanks for whatever is good in his or her own life. So in that mode I want to share my professional gratitude list for 2012 here:

– I remain profoundly grateful for the continued recovery and vibrancy of the New York real estate market. Relatively low inventory, remarkable absorption rates for newly constructed or converted apartments, and buyers with a renewed sense of purpose about purchasing in the city have driven 2012 to be a banner year for our industry.

– I am grateful that the election is over. Now we can all get on with the rest of our lives and the President and Congress can, with any luck, get on with the business of trying to steer the ship of state through the parlous waters which surround it.

– I am proud and gratified by the way so many New Yorkers responded to the epic and in many cases disastrous proportions of Hurricane Sandy. In my offices alone we collected thousands of dollars worth of supplies for distribution, and many agents and staff members traveled to the hardest hit areas to help out. From all over the city and the Northeast, aid and helping hands have poured in, eager to do whatever they could to alleviate the suffering of the many people who lost their homes, their possessions, heat, power, access…creating a wave of refugees within our own municipal borders.

– Equally impressive is the way our industry has risen to the occasion: owners of all sizes and types of buildings have made vacant apartments available to those whose homes are no longer habitable. I am always proud to be a New Yorker, but I am particularly so when our reputation for standoffishness and indifference to the plight of others is put to the test and disproved. New Yorkers are, in my experience, both friendly and generous – quod erat demonstrandum (“which had to be demonstrated”).

– I am grateful that developers are once again as active as they can be in Manhattan. With so little inventory, and with the anticipated tax changes already impacting sellers’ decisions about whether listing their homes makes financial sense, we need all the new construction we can get. Newly constructed properties all over the city, from Walker Tower on West 18th Street to the two new condos on East 79th, are selling briskly, with buyers lined up to enjoy high quality new construction in top locations, some of which, like the Macklowe conversion at 737 Park, are in locations heretofore available only to co-op purchasers.

The country and our city face considerable economic challenges in the near term. Nonetheless, it has been an exciting and successful year in the residential real estate business. I am grateful that the homes we sell continue to represent a stable investment and, for many, a reliable hedge against untoward events as we move towards the new year.