The Apple Peeled
The Apple Peeled is our proprietary, long-running newsletter delivered once-per-month right to your inbox. We gather everything you need to know about real estate and other worldly happenings that may affect the market and report them in an easy-to-digest format. In this everchanging world we’re in, there’s nothing quite like keeping our buyers and sellers armed with timely information that can dictate whether or not transacting right now makes sense for them.
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Latest articles
What Happened in Real Estate in April 2022
Across the board, real estate markets are proving to be vulnerable to the rising interest rates. In Westchester, Miami, and even areas of New York City, the red-hot demand showed signs of cooling throughout April. And just as mortgage rates took some of the edge off the competition, the seasonal...
April 2022 State of the Mortgage Market
MOLINGO: Mortgage Lingo with Michele Hammond, Carbon Team at CrossCountry Mortgage Rates are up, so business must be slow, right? WRONG! There is a misconception that higher rates have caused the market to slow down, and while that may be true in some other areas of the country, I definitely do...
Ask the Experts + At the Core
Archives
What Happened in Real Estate in April 2022
Across the board, real estate markets are proving to be vulnerable to the rising interest rates. In Westchester, Miami, and even areas of New York City, the red-hot demand showed signs of cooling throughout April. And just as mortgage rates took some of the edge off the competition, the seasonal...
What Happened in Real Estate in March 2022
March was a banner month in New York City. Across all residential property types, contract signings in Manhattan and Brooklyn increased – a first for Manhattan since 2022 began. Townhouses were highly desirable in Brooklyn and topped the list of priciest sales for the month. The median sale price...
State of the Mortgage Market
MOLINGO: Mortgage Lingo with Michele Hammond, Carbon Team at CrossCountry Mortgage It came as no surprise that the Federal Reserve approved a .25 percentage rate increase at their mid-March meeting. The rate increase (the first since Dec 2018) is just the beginning of a consistent hike, with many...
What Happened in New York City Real Estate in February 2022
As the country endures record inflation and the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, surprisingly – or not – the New York real estate market seems relatively unphased from the trajectory it’s been on since pandemic recovery began. February is being categorized by unprecedented demand, despite...
What Happened in New York City Real Estate So Far in 2022
Despite the surging of the latest Covid variant, the beginning of the year continued to show staggering movement when it came to real estate transactions. In January, contract signings were more than double what they were before the pandemic began. February continued the trend, with one week even...
Why did rates go up in Jan 2022? What is the outlook for the rest of the year?
MOLINGO: Mortgage Lingo with Michele Hammond, Carbon Team at CrossCountry Mortgage Many economists expected rates to rise in 2022, but very few thought it would happen so quickly. 30 yr fixed rates hit the highest level since March 2020 (pre Pandemic), and we also saw the largest one-month jump...
A Team United by Passion: E|A Reflects on 2021
“It’s not all about the money,” Marie Espinal says on our final call of the year. “That’s not the only way to measure success.” It’s something she was told her whole life: Follow your passion, do things that excite you, and the money will come. And that’s exactly how she and Jeff Adler constructed...
Your Ready-to-Sell To-Do List
As we gear up for what is shaping up to be a strong 2022 selling season, we've been getting many inquiries of ways our buyers can start the process of getting their homes in the right shape to sell so there's less work, and ultimately less to stress about later on when that time comes. We wish...
October 2021 in NYC Real Estate
Ten months into 2021, the number of real estate transactions in Manhattan continued to rise across all property types. At the same time, the number of listings rose again for the second consecutive month. While all types of properties showed annual gains this month, condos have been leading the...
The History & Evolution of E|A
Marie Espinal and Jeff Adler have been on a long professional journey together, where throughout it all, one thing remains constant: their drive to improve the industry for the benefit of the client. This fall, amidst the unpredictable markets of a world navigating the recovery of an unprecedented...
September 2021 in NYC Real Estate
Has Miami dethroned New York as the most expensive housing market in the nation? Not quite, but it has surpassed Los Angeles to claim second position and is nipping at our heels, according to RealtyHop’s latest data, which factors median home prices against median incomes to form the rankings....
James Stanley NY Improves The Industry
Real estate and construction go hand in hand, which is why ESPINAL|ADLER maintains a long-term relationship with James Stanley and his design/build firm James Stanley NY. With a background in engineering, design, and architecture and decades of hands-on experience, James knows the industry—and has...
August 2021 in NYC Real Estate
August was a roller coaster of a month, but the good news is we’re heading back towards equilibrium. Of course, data suggests we can count on Manhattan to break the mold with its unwavering allure regardless of what’s happening in the rest of New York or the nation. Manhattan’s signed contract...
15-year vs. 30-year Mortgages
This month we're featuring an easy-to-digest audio format for our Molingo (mortgage lingo) section of The Apple Peeled. This month's conversation features a conversation with Matt Jablonski and Marie Espinal, where they discuss financial situations when it may make more sense to go with 30-year...
All about Appraisals
This month we're shifting to an easy-to-digest audio format for our Molingo (Mortgage Lingo) section of The Apple Peeled. This month's conversation features Q+A with Al Rapoport, SVP at Cross Country Mortgage, on everything you need to know about appraisals, and what to do when appraisals come in...
July 2021 in NYC Real Estate
New York is back, baby! And if you’ve been toying with the idea, now is the time to buy. The demand stream in the market is steady, which means you’ll have some competition, but there is inventory out there and mortgage rates won’t stay this low forever. All of this demand (some experts are saying...
A Deeper Dive into 108 Leonard
We are thrilled to announce that ESPINAL|ADLER is now the exclusive broker for 108 Leonard, the stunning 167-home luxury residence born from McKim Mead & White’s landmarked Clock Tower Building in the heart of Tribeca. Using the synergy between Jeff Adler’s qualitative nature and Marie...
Post-Pandemic with Inez Gomez
Don’t let her short tenure as a licensed real estate salesperson fool you into thinking Inez Gomez doesn’t know the ins and outs of New York real estate. With more than 16 years of mortgage banking under her belt, this NYC native knows homes and she knows finance. In this Ask The Experts...
June 2021 in NYC Real Estate
Can you believe it? The year following the largest disruption of our lifetime is just half over, and the resurgence we’ve seen in the City has been nothing short of phenomenal. Not to mention a huge relief. The one thing it’s not? A surprise, in the least bit. Perseverance is the standard...
Are FHA Loans Appropriate in NYC?
In this space I often try to provide a perspective that would be difficult to find published anywhere else, mostly because the subject of mortgage finance just isn’t stimulating enough to attract an audience. For most people, it’s a boring subject that you only really care about 4-6x in your life...
Can You Hear Me Now?
The average real estate agent has more conversation partners per year than non-agents. That must be true. Last week, we averaged over 157 conversations per day, give or take. Some were routine arrangement-making conversations, but other conversations were more complex and required advanced...
Timing the Market in Westchester
The math says homeowners in suburbs like Westchester County have all the leverage and they might earn a small fortune if they sold their home now. But some people haven’t had time to figure out where they’d go if they sold. Fortune favors the bold. What’s bold? Timing the market perfectly and...
Property Searching with Preston Maguire
Team members never know the questions in advance, and they’re never told that they’re being interviewed until the moment of the interview. Once asked, they are given up to 60 seconds to think about and answer each question. These are their candid answers, surely the closest any real estate...
Concessions and Club Sandwiches
There are a lot of layers in every mortgage transaction. It’s at least a club sandwich. The seller’s concession is one of them. Maybe it’s the bacon. Since sandwich humor can only take me so far, let’s get back to basics. The seller’s concession is a very effective tool that can help put a lot of...