Dottie Herman

The only thing more exciting than today’s news about the upcoming sale of Bob Guccione’s townhouse (or about Sharon Baum's Vespa), is Prudential Douglas Elliman’s annual awards ceremony, taking place right this moment, until noon, at Cipriani 42nd Street.

It’s the stuff real estate dreams are made of! Annual broker awards, especially at a monolith like Elliman, are about money, status, competitiveness, salesmanship, hierarchy, and of course, self-celebration.

Yet Elliman, it turns out, does not appreciate it when real estate reporters try to attend. After a series of e-mails and phone calls last night with Elliman’s public relations team, I was turned away at the softly red-lit entrance to the 65-foot-high, 87-year-old ballroom today at 9:12 a.m.—first by one well-dressed woman, then a second nice woman and suited man came over too.  read more »

After double digit increases following the 2nd Quarter of 2005, there were headlines forecasting an immediate real estate collapse. And while that hasn't happened, the relatively small increases or decreases --depending on which market report you're looking at--show a more stable, if not cooling, market.

Today, three major brokerages released their market reports. Similar to last quarter, the results differ here and there. In both the Corcoran Group and Brown Harris Stevens reports, the average sales price for all Manhattan apartments (both condos and co-ops) dropped 5 percent. However, the Prudential Douglas Elliman report--prepared by Miller Samuel--showed an increase of 6.6 percent. And in that report, the average apartment has hit a new record price: $1.386 million.  read more »

But one significant area of concern could be the increased inventory of condos.

While we still love the last issue of Haute Living, there is already a new one out. This issue features some of the most powerful women in Manhattan real estate.

Find out all you've ever wanted to know about Pam Liebman, Dottie Herman, Louise Sunshine, and Elizabeth Stribling, who provides this story about breaking into the industry.

I was at a party in Newport, Rhode Island and I told my escort that I was looking for a job…but that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. He asked if I had ever thought about real estate. Just an off-chance question, but afterwards…when I looked at the New York Times and read all the ads for duplexes and townhouses, it so sounded terribly glamorous that I decided to sell in real estate. I learned pretty quickly because I had a genuine knack for negotiation.

And what about each woman's forecast for 2006? Not surprisingly, they're quite optimistic.  read more »

- Michael Calderone

At midnight on Feb.  read more »

OnOct. 18, Michael Shvo, the top-grossing broker for Prudential Douglas Elliman  read more »