SUNDAY OPEN HOUSE

There is an Open House tomorrow, Sunday May 10th, from 3-4 PM - this is later than the usual Noon - 1 PM times. I think it's a good idea to have it a little later in the day.

Check the CORCORAN website for current availability.

I'M TRYING TO HEAR THE CLOSING BELLS

After so many people waited so long for this building to get finished (over a year!), you would think there would be a flurry of closing activity now that 34 Crooke has a CO and hot water. In reality, not much is happening. In fact, you can almost hear crickets chirping rather than closing bells and moving trucks. I'm not sure why this is but I do know that the slower than molasses response times from the developer and their attorney certainly don't help matters and from the e-mails I've gotten over the last 6 months I know this isn't just our problem.

There are a few weird things I can't figure out - like why does StreetEasy.com only list 11 out of the 23 apartments? The Corcoran site also only lists 11 apartments BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME ONES! This makes a total of 22 apartments (um, we're missing one... )

There was an interesting article in the NY Times on Friday about blogs influencing real estate sales. Hmm, rather appropriate for 34Crooke.com, no? This prompted some interesting discussions on Brownstoner.

Speaking of interesting articles, here's a piece from December in the Wall Street Journal that you might have missed. The developer of 34 Crooke is quoted as saying:

For apartment shoppers in New York City, real-estate development company ORE International LLC offers buyers 10 personal-training sessions at any of its developments with gyms. Additionally, new owners will receive a $500 American Express gift card for the holidays and a romantic getaway to the Old Drovers Inn, a historic upstate New York bed and breakfast. Finally, for a project near Prospect Park in Brooklyn, buyers receive free bicycles, says Boaz Gilad, ORE International's president. "The thought was that all the developers are giving discounts, but we wanted to be attractive, special and sexy," he says.

Interesting, we certainly never heard about any AMEX gift cards or free bikes. We'd be happy if they just return phone calls...