In SNY episode #604 entitled “For some clients, the answer to their real estate woes is written in the stars,” Vickey Barron’s repeat client, Robert Lighton, is ready to sell his apartment at 256 West 10^th Street and relocate to Nyack, NY. Vickey is excited to help Robert sell the apartment since she originally helped him purchase it; however, Robert throws Vickey a curve ball when he mentions a precise time to list the apartment as suggested by his astrologist.

Vickey agrees to list the apartment within Robert’s requested timeframe and takes a tour of the reconfigured space. Originally a 3-bedroom apartment, Robert completely renovated the space and converted it into a large 1-bedroom with 9-foot tall solid wood doors, teak wood floors, a redesigned master bathroom and various antique accents.

After touring the apartment and agreeing to list the apartment at $2.825M, Vickey suggests throwing an event for her single clients to mingle and view the space. Robert agrees to the idea as he wants any and every potential buyer to see the property.

Vickey hosts a matchmaking bash in the apartment and is happy to report back to Robert that she received two new offers, one of which was all cash and Robert agrees that it’s a winner. Keep on reading for some exclusive behind-the-scenes information on what didn’t make it into last night’s episode of Selling New York and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling!

1) Vickey plays matchmaker in more ways than one. The SNY cameras captured the success of Vickey’s Love & Real Estate event by showing the mass of people who found their way into the apartment; however, Vickey truly went the extra mile for her single clients. She partnered with celebrity matchmaker Samantha Daniels to pair some of her clients with Vickey’s. On top of that, guests were greeted with custom bracelets made by Brooklyn-based WRecords by Monkey that were color categorized by the neighborhood they lived in. It was the perfect ice breaker and gift for attendees.

2) Party favors, anyone? As an addition to the evening’s festivities, Vickey took the time to publish a mini book on all things “Love and Real Estate,” noting that “When you’re searching for love or real estate, keep these tips in mind.” Here are a view pointers from the book:

If the description online sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
The photos may not represent the real thing.
One that is all dolled up, may not look that way in the morning.

3) If those walls could talk. In the episode, Vickey explained to viewers that Robert’s 1-bedroom apartment was actually a 3-bedroom when he originally bought it. Not only is it rare to find an apartment downsize in bedrooms, but it can also be difficult to sell since there aren’t many apartments to compare it to. Vickey is a firm believer in a customized property’s ability to sell at a premium price and notes that buying Robert’s apartment was the same as buying a piece of art.

4) Working with the stars. Although there was a short scene where Vickey and Robert discussed his astrologer’s suggestions for signing the exclusive agreement, Vickey explains that she and Robert used the same astrologer when selling Robert’s last apartment which was a huge success.

5) Real estate is a numbers game. In addition to an astrologer, numerology played a large part in the pricing and selling of Robert’s apartment. 8 is a lucky number in numerology, so Vickey and Robert priced the apartment at $2.825M. When the numbers are added together they form 17, and….1 + 7 equals 8. And you thought numbers only came into play on the negotiation table.

Mickey Conlon, Tamara Tunie and Tom Postilio

Last week, CORE’s own Tom Postilio and Mickey Conlon, commandeered Feinstein’s at Loews Regency to host their elite clientele for a very exclusive, star-studded event that recalled the Golden Age of the New York nightclub scene. As the tony nightclub counts down its final days at The Regency, Michael Feinstein performed a private concert of his acclaimed Gershwin show, currently one of the hottest tickets in town. Celebrity sightings included Tyne Daly and Tamara Tunie, as well as many familiar faces from Selling New York, and much buzz about Joan Collins, who famously joined Postilio and Conlon in her very first reality TV appearance. Not to be outdone, showbiz veterans Postilio and Conlon joined Feinstein onstage to croon a few holiday tunes and paid tribute to Frank Sinatra for what would have been his 97th birthday.

Photos from the exclusive event can be viewed below:

Michael Feinstein

Welcome to Ten, CORE founder and CEO Shaun Osher’s rapid-fire interview series with prominent CORE figures. Read on to find out how this week’s subject deals with being on the hot seat.

It’s definitely challenging to keep a high level of enthusiasm and energy in the real estate industry, because we are constantly challenged with rejection. After almost two decades in this business, Oliver Brown has a youthful energy that is rare. Here’s his answers to ten questions:

1) How long have you been selling real estate?

I have been selling real estate for 21 years.

2) How did you get into the business?

I was working for Ralph Lauren and decided to change paths. A close friend was working in real estate and arranged an interview. I was hired as an assistant to one of the top-producing brokers in the City. We worked with many famous and influential people. It was a great introduction to New York real estate.

3) What do you attribute your success to?

I think being able to listen to and figure out what people really want is important. I enjoy people and sometimes show them something they haven’t thought of – its instinctual.

4) What was your favorite or most challenging deal?

I sold a large house that Madonna was interested in – we had to move very quickly and ultimately sold the house.

5) You have a strong background in design. How does this help your business?

I see what the space can be; almost like a contractor or architect, which walls can move, how to add symmetry, raising doorways etc.

6) After years in the business, how have you seen the nature of real estate sales evolve?

People do a lot of research on the web. They choose many of the properties before you meet them. One thing that hasn’t changed is how a good broker can match a customer to a property. Offering something beyond pictures and floor plans.

7) What is the one value you admire most in a person?

Integrity. I will work really hard for my customers and I expect loyalty and clear communication in return.

8) What is the most challenging part of your job?

Time management. There is so much to do every day. Brokers are our own micro companies and have to handle communication, advertising, marketing research appointments and showing properties.

9) Where do you see the market going in the next year?

I think the market will go up 10-15%. There is not enough good product especially in the high-end larger properties.

10) Do you have a question for me?

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I love the fact that no day is ever the same. I am constantly challenged with creating solutions while having the flexibility to create something new.

With holiday season in full swing we thought we would put together a selection of our favorite gift destinations throughout the city. Whether you are searching for a host/hostess gift, a present for someone who has it all or a special stocking stuffer, the CORE team has weighed in so you can spend your time toasting the season rather than running around the city.

Lawrence Treglia heads to the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange when he is looking for a beautifully crafted present or handmade children’s gift. Not only will you find one-of-a-kind items but you can feel good about supporting the not-for-profit, volunteer run shop that has been showcasing independent craftspeople since 1854. Another Brooklyn stop Lawrence recommends is the BKLYN Larder.  This “celebration of food” offers an incredible selection of cheese, meat, jams, honey, oils and more utilizing sustainable ingredients. You will be sure to find the perfect holiday gift basket and grab a snack for yourself to keep your shopping momentum going. And for a sweet stocking stuffer, Lawrence  says the London Candy Co. will not disappoint. Nestled on the Upper East Side, this candy shop imports UK confections that are delicious, whimsical and sure to bring out the child in anyone.

For the homeowner with an eye for distinctive home goods, Jennifer Lafferty suggests checking out Global Table. With multiple locations around the city, this is sure to be a convenient stop you won’t leave empty handed. Nest Interiors in Chelsea is another place Jennifer heads to for a great assortment of items for the home décor connoisseur.

Scott Hartman says the Working Class Emporium in Tribeca is your one-stop-shop. With a little bit of everything, you can find goods ranging from antique to boutique with an English flair. An array of curated photography and silver tea sets make for great statement gifts and for smaller items they have unique jewelry, books and scrumptious tea biscuits.

The holidays are full of parties and we all know it’s no walk in the park to play host/hostess. So as a token of appreciation, Tony Sargent recommends picking up a stunning piece from Michael Aram’s selection of hand crafted silverware, bottle holders, cheese plates and more.  And to contribute to the festivities Oliver Brown says jaws are sure to drop when you show up with a Mille Crepe cake from Lady M bakery on the Upper East Side. Layers of light and slightly sweet decadence make for a beautiful piece on the dessert table (although it won’t last long). Or order one ahead of time for a friend who is expecting company for a thoughtful gesture to ease the stress of entertaining.

Hopefully this gift map of New York City will lessen the burden of holiday shopping and give you ideas for meaningful, unique presents for those you care about. Cheers to a wonderful season!!

The tributes keep pouring in for Ralph Walker, the late trailblazing architect who is back in the news thanks to Walker Tower, the 50-unit luxury condominium developed by JDS Development Group and Property Markets Group. Walker Tower is being fashioned from one of Walker’s signature pre-war Art Deco skyscrapers in Chelsea, built at 212 West 18th Street in the late 1920s. Already the subject of an architectural exhibition held at Walker Tower last spring and a career-spanning biography published in September by Rizzoli, Ralph Walker is now receiving the documentary treatment. The short film above provides a great summary of Walker’s greatest works and his impact on the New York skyline, while also providing a guided glimpse inside Walker Tower.

The film is a great companion to last week’s Wall Street Journal feature story by Josh Barbanel, headlined “In Manhattan, Downtown Looks Up,” in which Walker Tower is held up as a shining example of what wealthy buyers are looking for in today’s real estate market: Spacious and meticulously finished Manhattan homes that blend traditional Uptown sensibility with a trendy Downtown location. Ralph Walker’s pioneering Art Deco style is an important part of that appeal.

In this week’s episode of “Selling New York,” CORE broker Adrian Noriega is tasked with selling a colorfully designed and meticulously clean apartment in the Flatiron District. Although the apartment is picture perfect, Adrian’s seller, Phoebe, requests that no open houses be held. Faced with the challenge of getting potential buyers in the door through different marketing strategies, Adrian is up for the task of trying to get his client’s property sold at a premium price.

After agreeing to no open houses, Adrian gets to work on showing the apartment and makes sure that all guests take off their shoes, put on surgical booties to keep the apartment looking pristine, and even takes guests’ coffee at the door to avoid any messes. Although some buyers weren’t interested in the apartment’s views or the color-saturated living room with mod furniture, others absolutely loved the design aesthetic.

Weeks later, Adrian takes a ride to Phoebe’s home in New Jersey for an update on his progress with showings and happily presents an all-cash offer for $3.1M. Phoebe is pleased about the offer; however, Adrian suggests that he can get an even higher offer if Phoebe agrees to an open house. With some hesitation, she agrees to one open house and trusts Adrian’s expertise.

The open house goes well – with booties and all – and Adrian happily presents a higher offer to Phoebe. After all is said and done, the apartment sells for $3.375M, well over its original asking of $3.295M. Keep on reading for some exclusive behind-the-scenes information on what didn’t make it into last night’s episode of “Selling New York” and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling!

1) Selling New York seals the deal. Adrian met Phoebe at the right place, at the right time…in CORE’s Chelsea office. It turns out that Phoebe saw an episode of SNY and felt that CORE could represent her apartment in the right way. Adrian happened to receive the call and well, the rest is history.

2) Stage fright? Not quite. Throughout the episode viewers see Adrian asking guests to take off their shoes and sometimes put on booties to keep the apartment in ship shape. Adrian admits that everything went smoothly during his showings expect for when a couple brought coffee into the apartment. He plays it cool in the episode, but Adrian admits that taking people’s coffee made him beyond nervous since he didn’t want to messy anything in the apartment.

3) Hard work pays off. After achieving the highest resale price for a unit of its size at 15 West 20^th Street, Adrian’s success caught the eye of another resident of the building. Within a week of Adrian listing the new exclusive, he received an offer for the full asking price and is currently in talks with another resident in the building who is looking to sell.

4) A TV worthy trophy. Not only was Phoebe’s apartment featured in this episode of SNY and The Wall Street Journal, but Adrian had the opportunity to show off the high-design space with Beth Stern for an episode of Mom Caves.

5) Color conquers. Adrian explained that when listing a property, most agents love showing off neutral palettes because potential buyers respond well to them. But in this case, the apartment’s colorful living and dining spaces actually played a large part in people putting offers down for the apartment. Adrian mentioned that even when potential buyers weren’t crazy about those spaces, there were always accents to the apartment that they loved.

Lockhart Steele and Shaun Osher in September 2008

In honor of the new internet tradition (yes, an oxymoron), I thought I’d replay my interview with Lockhart Steele, creator and founder of Curbed, from more than four years ago. I interviewed Lockhart over lunch when Curbed was just in its infancy, and it was an entertaining meal, to say the least. Curbed has come a long way, now with a global reach of over 2 million global readers, (and so have we).

I hope you enjoy this the second time around.

LEADING THE REVOLUTION – ONLINE

The world at large is flattening and our mechanisms of communication have evolved. Not since the Alexander Graham Bell era, more than 130 years ago, have we seen this extent of innovation. The internet has allowed pioneers to navigate through unchartered territories. Lockhart Steele is one of those pioneers. In a few short years he has created Curbed.com, which has become one of the leading industry (and non-industry) related blogs. Love it or hate it, you can’t ignore it. I sat down with Lockhart in West Soho and discussed his creation, opinions and vision.

THE INTERVIEW:

Shaun: Where did you grow up?

Lockhart: I’m a Massachusetts native.

Shaun: Did you go to journalism school?

Lockhart: I didn’t actually. I went to Brown. I’m a little older than I look. I’m actually 34. I graduated in 1996. I moved to New York immediately, so this is my 12th year here. I’m almost being accepted as a New Yorker.

Shaun: Why did you start Curbed?

Lockhart: Well, I’m a journalist by trade. I used to work in magazines and I love to write. At my core I’m a writer and I started writing on the web. I had my own personal website back in 2001. I live on the Lower East Side at Rivington and Ludlow Streets and I started writing about the neighborhood in 2001. It was right in that period of very fast transformation. 71 Clinton Fresh Foods opened, Schiller’s was just opening and the whole neighborhood was really changing. Everyday there was a new bar, a new restaurant. Lots were being sold, buildings were going up, and I started writing about this because it fascinated me. What I found was that people in my neighborhood discovered the site and started reading it. Because the stuff I was writing about was too minor to ever appear in NY Times even on the bottom of page B7. It’s just the stuff that is happening in your block is fascinating to you. It might not be with the bigger media. So I did it for a few years and I had the idea that it would be fun, the way I chronicled the changing of that neighborhood, to do for all of New York.

Shaun: When did you start Curbed?

Lockhart: I started Curbed in spring 2004. First and foremost my inspiration for the whole site was really to chronicle neighborhoods, and of course so much of what happens to neighborhoods in New York is tied to real estate. First and foremost, Curbed is about the neighborhoods of New York and telling the stories of the neighborhoods of New York. I am now in Los Angeles, San Francisco as well. Each of these cities is neighborhood driven. We tell the stories of how these cities are evolving and changing and what are they in the process of becoming?

Shaun: So it’s not only real estate related?

Lockhart: Some of my favorite stories on Curbed are the really stupid ones. Like, there’s a guy selling meat from the back of the truck in Park Slope. You know there are certain stories that make the site fun. People love to debate absurdities about neighborhoods. There’s so much happening in the real estate world in New York that obviously there’s a lot for us to write about and the site does end up being a lot about real estate. We have 2 full time writers who do most of the writing on the site and they’re both really funny, brilliant guys.

Shaun: Who goes on your site?

Lockhart: I think real estate for a lot of people is intimidating and scary, especially for those who have never bought a place before in New York, or if you’re renting. Curbed’s typical reader is actually about 15% from the industry. So 85% of our readers are Wall Street guys, lawyers, media people, people that sit at that their desk all day with a computer in front of them. People take a break from their job and they’re fascinated. A lot about what we try to do is write about real estate from a perspective of assuming that you don’t know what F.A.R. is, or that you don’t know what a 421a exemption is. Those are the kind of things we try not to talk a lot about on the site. If you’re just an average New Yorker, you don’t care about that. You care about why a developer can build a tall tower next to me. New Yorkers are smart, so we can be smart and we can be funny. We don’t want to bore them with a lot of the gory details, which is very appropriate for a trade magazine like The Real Deal to really dig in because it’s being read by brokers and people, this is their business. Curbed is foremost entertaining. People read it because they find it amusing. They love architecture and they want to see what’s going to be built next door to them.

Shaun: Where do you get your stories from?

Lockhart: We get our stories from three places. One of course we’re always keeping an eye on, is what everyone else is writing about. A lot of what we do is link. We want to make Curbed the place where if there’s a story about the New York real estate world published anywhere, we’re going to find the link to it. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the Dubai Daily Paper or if it’s on an architecture website or if it’s anywhere else. But the thing that makes the site, the second place we get our information, is our editors doing their own reporting. The third place, that’s probably the most interesting, is the relationship we have with our own readers, which is pretty crazy. We have readers who send us hundreds of emails a day.

Shaun: And how do you filter everything?

Lockhart: The way it works is: a typical kind of email we would get is “Hey Curbed, I was just walking down 11th Avenue in Chelsea and I was checking out the progress on three new developments and here are some photos I took”. And what’s amazing is these are people we don’t know who are so fascinated by the way New York is evolving. They love their city and they will take the time to take these photos and write us an email. A lot of the stuff we get is questions which become the stories for our editors to investigate. A lot of them are really great and our readers are doing the reporting for us. So our editor’s job is to track all this information, sift through and decide what we think the readers want to read today. You have to have a big bullshit filter and it’s surprising people always ask me; “How are you sure you’re getting this stuff right?” and I say we certainly make our share of screw ups (laughs). There is no question about that.

Shaun: So, how do you control the quality?

Lockhart: Blogging is a different way of doing journalism. I used to be a reporter and when I was going to do a story, I would make ten phone calls and I’d write 1,000 words and it would probably be published in the New York Times (or whatever) and that’s the end of the story. If I got something wrong, then I’d run a tiny correction on the bottom of the page a week later. The way we do it on Curbed, you get a little story tip from a reader, we hear this happened; we kind of throw it out there. We make sure if it’s something obvious or scandalous or it seems like it’s probably too good to be true we always check that stuff out. That’s what I mean about having a good bullshit filter. We have the fundamental assumption at Curbed that our readers know more than we do.

Shaun: So you think that’s a filter in and of itself?

Lockhart: Our readers know more about real estate than we do. We want to bring that knowledge out in to the open. That’s what the comments section on Curbed is. It can get crazy at times, but it’s the internet. People go off the handle, but I think more often than not the information that pops up in the comments is from people who know. Some of them will pop up and write a two paragraph comment about the entire history of the property. Obscure information that you would only know if you had developed that property or if you were so plugged into to it that you would know these crazy details. We’re never going to know that.

Shaun: I guess the genius of it is that you’re able to harness the power of all your readers.

Lockhart: That’s it. What makes us great are the readers sending us these tips and commenting. You know, a lot of ways we’re a conduit for the reader. We don’t know what we are going to write about tomorrow.

Shaun: Which I guess it’s a double edged sword, because you do have readers who have an agenda.

Lockhart: Of course.

Shaun: I guess that’s the entertainment factor.

Lockhart: Absolutely. As long as we’re always clear on what information comes from the readers, what information we’ve vetted and what information we are putting out there essentially unvetted, and we try to be good about that. Like I said, I assume people that read our site have a functioning brain. And they also have the ability. I think more often than not we get it right. That’s the power of this medium. It let’s information rise up.

Shaun: According to Quantcast, you get 2.5 million paged viewers per month.

Lockhart: That’s on Curbed New York.

Shaun: And over 800,000 unique visitors.

Lockhart: That’s right.

Shaun: What do you attribute that traffic to? I don’t think you do any marketing?

Lockhart: We never started any marketing.

Shaun: That’s amazing.

Lockhart: It’s pretty crazy. It blows my mind to be honest with you. I mean this is something I started as a hobby and it’s just grown. Now I run it as a business. But four years ago I literally started this thing because I thought it was going to be fun.

Shaun: So how good of a business is it?

Lockhart: In the last year and a half I decided, like, oh shit! I should quit my job and do this.

Shaun: What were you doing at the time?

Lockhart: I was a magazine guy then I used to run the website, Gawker. I was the managing editor at Gawker media. I didn’t do any of the writing over there, but I was mostly responsible hiring all the writers. Gawker turned itself into a wonderful business. Nick Denton who runs the show over there is an incredibly smart guy. And I learned a lot about web publishing and how to turn a highly trafficked site into something that can actually make some money. It was only a year and a half ago that developers, a lot of developers, were discovering Curbed. And we started getting emails, Hey, can I advertise with you? Sure. And suddenly the site was making some money.

Shaun: Has anyone ever offered to buy the company?

Lockhart: We have had someone, but not that big. My mom has offered $20 for the whole enchilada. The summer of 2007 I started this full time and we built a team and we took a little bit of investment money last summer and this year we finally feel like we are set up now. 2007 was about turning what was a hobby into a business and now 2008 is a lot about getting out there in front of the industry in New York. I went to L.A. for two weeks. Curbed L.A. is not as big as New York. It’s about half the size.

Shaun: You have San Francisco, L.A. Is Miami one of the target cities? Are there any other cities?

Lockhart: We want to do Chicago next, because it’s another great neighborhood city. People in Chicago are obsessed with their neighborhoods. You know Miami, I love Miami. I think what we are going to do there is what we’ve been doing this site in the Hamptons in the summer, called The Beach. I think we’re going to re-do it – we haven’t even announced this – but you can put the information out there. We’re going to do a new version of it and launch it on Memorial Day. Cover the Hamptons really obsessively in the summer and then in the winter it’s going to be sort of like high end resort spots. Aspen, South Beach, Hamptons, you know kind of like Jason Binn’s magazines.

Shaun: Do you think blogs and online media is killing print?

Lockhart: I don’t think it’s killing print. So much of what we do is symbiotic with print. If we didn’t have all these print things to link to I think Curbed would be very diminished. I see the two of them kind of merging. I think print is dying on its own.

Shaun: Why?

Lockhart: It costs a lot of money to buy paper to run these giant presses. Then you print this thing and then it has to be delivered all over town. You have to put it in the mail and spend postage money. To get a new magazine for profitability you have to be making from 3 or 4 million bucks a year to cover your cost of printing and marketing. On the web we spend 5 grand a year on our servers. We’ve compressed that entire thing to 5 grand, which means we can run a lot leaner. Curbed is a small business obviously, but we run really lean. We’re sort of at that hungry boot strapping stage of any business. I’m sure you’ve been there.

Shaun: Yes I have.

Lockhart: You’re obsessed about your expenses. You’re obsessed that every penny really matters. You can’t eat lunch at fancy places like Giorgione 508.

Shaun: In order to have credibility in journalism, you have to be impartial. Once you bring advertising into that equation does it change? If a developer is paying you $10,000 to run a banner ad is there a conflict of interest?

Lockhart: I think there is. You can say the same things about magazines and news papers. Any media that accepts advertising has the potential conflict of interest if you don’t build your company the right way. We’re obsessed with making sure our editors have the right to write whatever they want. The first magazine I ever worked for was run by an entrepreneur who made a lot of money in the business. He said you serve your readers first and if your readers start to feel we’re pulling punches or that we’re favoring one guy over the other guy, readers are going to be like, “Fuck you Curbed.” We’ve had some big developments advertising on Curbed where we’ve gotten emails from someone moving in complaining, “Hey, the roof leaks here,” and we run that. I’m happy so far that the developers that have advertised with us kind of get that. Blogs are happening.

Shaun: You’ve grown exponentially very quickly. Where do you see yourself in two years?

Lockhart: I think a lot of what we have to do right now is expand what we started. I don’t think we’re going to see Curbed in twenty cities. We want to focus on the big cities where there’s enough going on everyday to warrant a daily news segment.

Shaun: Are you interested in venturing out internationally?

Lockhart: I think Sydney we’d love to do. That could be a couple of years out. I’m a news guy. If we could afford twice as many editors right now, I have tons of ideas of things we could be doing.

Shaun: What daily news do you read, watch or listen to?

Lockhart: I’m a newspaper guy. I’m the one that buys newspapers. I read The Post and The Times religiously every day. I can’t start my day without a newspaper. I use a piece of software that lets me follow about 400 blogs everyday if you can believe that.

Shaun: How do you think the web has revolutionized our world? We are clearly in a revolution as powerful in my opinion as the industrial revolution?

Lockhart: First of all I think it’s a hell of a lot of fun. In my world the web has brought so many people together. I met so many friends through it. I chafe at the idea when people say oh, the web is making us all hide in our rooms alone. I think it’s helping us be more social than ever.

Shaun: What’s next?

Lockhart: Here’s what I would really like Curbed to do next. I have a vision for the next few years. I don’t know exactly how we can do this, but something we’re thinking a lot about is finding ways to let people interact with each other on the site more than they do now. Right now we’re kind of topped out. We’re kind of old media in that we have writers that do all the writing and fact tracking, which is fine. I don’t want to lose that. What I can see is the site getting deeper. What if we can create some better tools?

Shaun: I look forward to seeing it.

The best companies are those that don’t need to be rebranded. Coke, Nike, 3M, Virgin, and Apple all have the same brand ideology and the consistency in their message. A company, product, or building’s marketing campaign needs to be rebranded only when something is wrong.  And there seems to be a lot of this going around right now……

Older companies are trying to become young and hip.

Gorilla franchise companies are trying to disassociate with their parent franchise.

Established specialist companies are trying to reinvent themselves into full service all-things-to-everyone companies.

At CORE, we’ve been instrumental in rebranding and marketing many projects recently, and our main challenge when we do this is always to identify the product accurately, and reflect that in our message to the buyer.

- Shaun Osher is the CEO and Founder of CORE

The CORE Agent verdict: When windows don’t provide views, create a visually pleasing scene inside.

Agents are often tasked with finding a beautiful apartment with views, but not every home comes with stunning vistas. A lack of views can be a major obstacle when selling an apartment but there are ways to draw the attention away from what’s missing and focus on the positives of the space.

An eye-catching ceiling light elongates the space and draws attention inward.

Patrick Mills suggests “making the interior living space the center of attention.” With out natural light an apartment can feel dark and uninviting but if you can think creatively there are ways to brighten a space. Patrick stresses the importance of a cultivating a fun and welcoming atmosphere, “whether it’s using interesting lighting choices or adding candles, there are always way to make viewless properties seem brighter and more energetic.”

Beyond supplementing light, a few strategically placed pieces can make all the difference. John Harrison recommends “using the right combination of focused art and mirrors to transform a space from a dull, dark room into a vibrant and curated atmosphere.” Providing objects to draw visual focus will take attention away from any viewless windows.

Don’t be discouraged by an apartment that doesn’t offer park views, bring the focus back into the space and create a warm and appealing environment. Carefully placed lighting choices and wall accents can transform the flow and appeal of a room.

“Race to the Top (Price) at a Tony Address”
The Wall Street Journal

A profile on 15 Central Park West’s continuously soaring and record-breaking resale and closing prices featured Emily Beare on the pricing of her $95M exclusive, which stretches across 6,000-square feet and offers panoramic views of Central Park and the Hudson River.

“93 Worth Launches, with Revised Price-Tags”
The Real Deal

The launch of sales at CORE’s new development 93 Worth was featured in various outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Curbed, and Tribeca Citizen. Visit 93 Worth’s website for more information on this building’s residences and amenities.

“On the Market”
The New York Times

Doug Bowen and Winchester Brown’s exclusive at 357 West 29th Street was featured for its tall windows, full renovation and ample storage space.

“Stuck in Limbo: How Fiscal Policy Negotiations in D.C. are Impacting NYC’s Housing Market”
The Real Deal

In the December issue’s Manhattan Residential Market Report, Michael Graves comments on the fiscal cliff and Manhattan’s current real estate market.