New York Real Estate Stars Weigh In on Housing Recovery

CNBC Online

By: Elizabeth Schulze | CNBC Producer
June 26, 2013

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Landmark Housing Report Today

Is the housing recovery real? Ryan Serhant, Nest Seekers; Fredrik Eklund, Bravo's "Million Dollar Listing New York"; and Don Peeble, The Peebles Corporation, discuss.

Fredrik Eklund and Ryan Serhant have given America a glimpse of the best and worst of New York's luxury housing market.

But the two real estate stars from Bravo's hit show "Million Dollar Listing" are only looking up on the housing recovery in response to Tuesday's positive housing data.

"We're coming off a really bad market," Eklund, a real estate agent for Douglas Elliman, said on CNBC's "The Kudlow Report."

"When we're looking at these numbers jumping back up, all we can agree on is that you can only see the bottom of the market in the back mirror. And all of these people on the sidelines are jumping in at the same time, and that's why we're having an uncomfortable market." 

Eklund said this uncomfortable market can make for uncomfortable bidding and buying with competition as tough as ever.

"There's a ferocious appetite right now for apartments all over the country," he said. "You have a 15 million buyer in New York and can't find anything. It's chaotic out there right now. You can hardly get a parking lot for a million bucks these days."

"In Manhattan there's bidding wars everywhere and you have to be prepared as a buyer to come in with your best and final the moment you see it," said Serhant, an agent at Nest Seekers.

Even though the Federal Reserve's money tapering plan could drive interest rates higher, rates will still be low, Serhant said.

Ultimately, Eklund said, people will rush into the housing market because they fear higher prices, not higher interest rates.

"The buyer's buying today because everyone agrees that the prices will go up in the future," Eklund said. "Money is basically free. Developers are fighting over the few lots of land to build on in New York. Everyone agrees that there isn't enough."

The real estate experts agreed the fundamental issue in the New York's housing market is a lack of supply.

"You've got to look at this market and what happened in 2008 when we really went underwater," real estate mogul Don Peebles said. "We're totally supply constrained."

The supply constraints are especially evident in gateway cities like New York, Washington, D.C., Miami, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, said Peebles, president and chairman of the Peebles Corp., which manages a multibillion dollar real estate portfolio. However, he doesn't fear a housing bubble yet.

"New York is a gateway global city," Peebles said. "It's one of the top 10 global cities in the world, but it's underpriced compared to other global cities."

"New York is just catching up," Serhant agreed. "It's about time that New York and the United States played at a level that where the rest of the world is playing."

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