the cityhammer blog

Photo by neotint

Its official: Ikea has landed in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The Observer's The Real Estate has the story. The emergence of the big box retailer as a Brooklyn fixture has and will be a controversial topic for a long time to come. Unless you are the landlord they are paying the lease to. Or you absolutely love putting together furniture with instructions in Scandinavian. The naysayers will snipe, but we predict the store will be packed.
Ikea Opens in Brooklyn / New York furniture assemblers

Labels: Brooklyn Blog, Furniture NY, Ikea, Refrigerator Repair NY, Upper West Side

Photo by Tony the Misfit

The team at Real LI, the real estate blog for Newsday, has the scoop on a designer showdown happening in Montauk at the new Panoramic View Residences. The contest, co-sponsored and organized by Traditional Home Magazine and the New York School of Interior Design, will give three extremely lucky interior design students the chance to spend their internships out east decorating luxury villas. Newsday says there'll be a TV show later this year with the results.
Oceans 3: Showhouse Showdown

Everyone wants a home office, but lots of us are constrained by the space available, especially in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Remodelista's got a wall-mounted desk that just might hold a solution. Designed by MASH Studios, the desk comes in both English Walnut or European Birch Plywood, each with its own unique finish. Great pic's available, too.
Wall-Mounted Desk

They're finally here! What is? UrbanDigs' fabled charts have hit the web after a long and arduous journey to the internet. The amount of depth and data in these charts should give real estate pro's and geeks alike plenty to play with for a long time to come. You can see charts built with data such as:

NEW LISTINGS/CONTRACTS SIGNED
PRICE REDUCTIONS
TOTAL INVENTORY

This is more transparency that prospective buyers and sellers are getting anywhere on the internet and could prove to be an indispensable tool in the hunt for the truth in New York real estate. Rock on, Noah. Congrats!
Oooooh Mama! Did Someone Say Charts?

Labels: Furniture NY, Interior Decorators, Interior Designers, NY Real Estate Blogs

No Pandas Were Harmed in the Making of This Furniture

The Wall Street Journal's Kelli B Grant rounds up a list of retailers offering enormous clearance sales on furniture over the next few weeks. The reasons why, according to WSJ, are primarily due to the weak housing market.

"Furniture is a purchase that can easily be postponed," explains Stefan Wille, president of Aktrin Furniture Information Center, an Ontario-based market researcher. "If you have a fridge that breaks, you have to replace it. But if your table has a scratch on it, you can live with it for a while and replace it when times are better."

Some of the advice is to go for middle-of-the-road product, as custom furniture and high end merchandise has actually held up. They also recommend hitting the overstock stores like Tuesday Morning, looking for liquidation (bankruptcy) sales at Linens n' Things, negotiating with sales people and buying direct.

Some of the most promising sales include:

Manufacturer Thomasville holds its Memorial Day sale May 15 through June 2, offering up to 70% off. Through May 18, Macy's is slashing prices on select items, with discounts of up to 75%. And Pier 1 Imports is offering clearance discounts of up to 75% through June 22.

But don't get too excited as this glut of cheap furniture will probably come to an end very soon, thanks to new policies in China.

China is the largest supplier of wood and leather furniture to the world's markets and their ability to keep pumping the stuff out has been severely hampered by incredibly high crude oil prices. Cushion foam is made with petroleum, and then there are the shipping costs to consider.

Other factors affecting their exporting of furniture are a lower amount of tax incentives on "low tech" products like furniture, as the government finally moves to revalue it's currency against the US dollar. They are also shutting down many factories in order to improve the air quality for the Beijing Olympics this year. China has 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities and it may be too little too late, but its all about image this summer so a lot of manufacturing will grind to a halt.

So go out and grab that piece of furniture you've been putting off while their giving it away.

Click here for custom furniture designers in New York

Read the full article here: Furniture Retailers Slash Prices

Labels: Furniture Designers in New York, Furniture NY, Wall Street Journal