Balm for Nervous Buyers

by jill ~ November 17, 2008

As consumers (and as told by the news media), we’ve been bracing for the downfall of the real estate market for two years.  I believe it is part media-driven hysteria and part cold hard facts - what started with fears of the bubble bursting has now resulted in the demise of multiple banks, a credit crisis and now full-scale fears of The Great Depression Part 2. But will New York City real estate really be affected in the long term?

At last week’s homebuyer seminar hosted by our client Halstead Property Development Marketing, The New York Observer and Wells Fargo, Stephen Kliegerman, HPDM’s executive director, told a jam-packed room of nearly 200 New Yorkers that it would be nearly impossible for the value of New York real estate to fall over the long term. Check out the segment on New York 1 News here.

Kliegerman made the case for a still-strong New York real estate market, but real estate developers are hearing the fears from homebuyers everyday.  A buyer for one of Halstead’s developments recently said that he wouldn’t buy now because he thought prices would decrease over the next year.  In direct response to this, Halstead came up with a “buyer price protection policy” - essentially ensuring that if the price does decreases in the future and you purchase now, you’ll get the lower price.

The idea was explained succinctly in this New York Times story in Sunday’s paper, “Balm for Nervous Buyers” and can also be heard in a WNYC Radio segment here.

Balm for Nervous Buyers includes two of our clients who are offering the price protection guarantee: One Sunset Park in Brooklyn and +aRt (540 West 28^th Street) in West Chelsea. 

Developers are taking these kinds of initiatives to show that they are hearing the concerns of consumers and responding to them in helpful and real ways.  

For more information, please contact: jill@mediashoppr.com