REBNY held its first Secrets of Top Brokers and Industry Leaders seminar of the year Tuesday night, titled “Busting Out All Over – New York City Developers Speak.”
The seminar featured guest speakers Yoav Miller of Artimus Developers, Scott Walsh of Forest City Ratner Companies, Daria Salusbury of Related Companies, Kathleen Gargan-Scott of Rockrose Development Corporation, and was moderated by Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants.
REBNY members filled the Mendik Education Center to hear the panel discuss a variety of topics, ranging from the state of housing in New York City, how, where, and when to begin working on new developments, and the effects of foreign investment on today’s market.
According to the speakers, although there is a large amount of uncertainty that accompanies these areas, there are certain strategies to tilt the odds in one’s favor, regardless of a fluctuating market.
“If you try to predict things like interest rates, you might get lucky, but it’s more likely that you’ll be wrong,” explained Miller.
“However, if rates do rise, that isn’t always a bad thing. We always look at supply and demand, which is more important. It plays the bigger factor because it helps the psychology of the market itself, which will always be more important than interest rates.”
The seminar also focused on finding the next emerging market.
In a city which has been redefined by the current and previous housing booms and is seeing more new projects than ever before, difficulties can present themselves in terms of what that means for choosing locations for future developments.
“There’s certainly some luck involved,” said Gargan-Scott.
“You have to try to predict where people are going, and part of doing that is watching what businesses move where.
“We just completed a project in Court Square, which we only started because we saw that a Citibank had moved there back in the 80s.”
“When you think of a new development now, you have a lot of super luxury and high end skew, and there’s a lot more to that,” she continued.
“When you’re thinking about a project way down the road, you also need to think about what to create in terms of amenities.”
The panelists also discussed foreign buyers and common reasons for them to come to New York City, such as education for their children, better quality of life, and a safer market, and the seminar ended following a Q&A session with the audience.
