September 20, 2020

Dear Brune:

Thanks for the article you sent me about Sheldon Adelson and his purchase of the former American embassy residence in Tel Aviv (le monde.fr). 

Your note pushes me to clarify my own view of this situation, as many others have done.  But writing this is important for me. 

As a Jew, I am fearful of the effects of current struggles on my fellows in Israel and of its  humanitarian impacts on the Palestinians and others. However,  I live within the safety (until now) and affluence of the United States and have no business dictating a solution to the parties involved.  To the degree that I have any direct influence (which I do not),  it should be with my own government.

I do not agree with the goals of the settler movement in the West Bank;  to me they and their supporters in Israel and the United States are extremist.  The notion that God gave us Israel, within its present, or at times larger ancient borders, is self-justifying and self-deluding, except in the general sense, which is that God gives and takes away everything and everybody.

The living conditions of the refugee Palestinians and their lack of prospects are untenable and unacceptable. These circumstances may continue for a very long time, but it is wrong that they should. 

That said, if I must choose between defining myself as a Zionist or an anti-Zionist, then I define myself as the former.  I must, although not a religious man, since I believe that Judaism plays an important role in human affairs, and its survival, and that of its adherents, is important to me.   

It has become common on the left to view Zionism as a European colonial enterprise and the Palestinians as victims of the Israelis.  This was actually from good luck or skill born of desperation, since the Israelis might instead have lost their independence or later wars with the surrounding Arab states, and the present narrative of exploiter/victim would now have been very different.  There is also some truth in it, since Zionism in its origins, is a European movement, and most of the early Jewish settlers were European.  Or perhaps more precisely, we had lived in Europe, after leaving ancient Israel, for approximately 2,000 years and intermixed, genetically and culturally, with European populations. 

But Zionism is the necessity of European antisemitism.  However much I love and am fascinated by Europe, our history there was untenable.  The refusal of our ancestors to convert to Christianity, and our refusal/and eventual efforts to assimilate, were not acceptable in Europe.  The Holocaust was simply the last chapter of 2,000 years of non-acceptance. In the context of 19^th century European nationalism, Zionism was survival for a people who no longer had a geographic base.

Following the Holocaust and the Second World War, it was arguably the only solution, and since we had been largely eradicated in Europe, staying there was no longer safe or plausible, and entry to the United States and other countries was effectively closed. 

So many of the survivors came to Israel, and with great difficulty, joining the earlier settlers. The Palestinians feared our arrival in large numbers, eventually resisting the founding of Israel with the support of surrounding Arab states, but they failed.  And they failed again.  And the victims of this failure, in addition to the Israelis who have died, or who now live in a constantly-militarized state,  are the many descendant Palestinians now living in the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon, whose living circumstances are the current focus of attention. 

But whose victims really are the Palestinians?  Are they the victims of the Jews?  Most certainly, since we decided, after centuries of passivity, to protect and secure ourselves, and arguably joined the ranks of the oppressors. Are they the victims of the Arab states, many of whom admitted the most talented and successful Palestinians, but did comparatively little for the remaining refugees (while Israel, post-independence, absorbed approximately 600,000 Jews who were forced out of Islamic countries)?  Are they the victims of their own leadership, fragmented, and unable to negotiate realistically, unable to yield?  Or are they the also the victims of European antisemitism, and frankly European unwillingness to pay the price of its antisemitism?  (Just as we in America refuse to pay for what was done to our native American and black populations.) 

When I hear or read criticism of Israel, I am embarrassed.  Embarrassed and distressed that after two thousand years of reading and thinking and praying in Diaspora, we still define ourselves as Jews by control of a “holy land”, unable to yield or share any of it.  That the Israelis have been unable and or unwilling to invest in Palestinians and integrate them more fully, and at a higher level, into mutual economic (if not political) interdependence.  That we view the Palestinians as inferior or irremediable, instead of simply affirming that we do not wish to be controlled or subjected to them (or anybody else). 

But I am also puzzled at those who cannot understand the satisfaction of a Jewish country in our place of origin, who cannot understand the relief of not having to accommodate a Christian or Muslim majority, and who cannot see the necessity of a safe refuge from those who despise, tolerate or fear us.  And who do not accept that we are no longer willing to be their victims. 

Europe, and not exclusively Germany, has an enormous debt to pay for what has happened in the Middle East.  (And of course, Europe and the United States, and generally the West, have other debts to pay.)  To every anti-Zionist, may I suggest, as partial solutions, a million dollars–preferably taxed from the rich, but not entirely so–a residence visa and free education for every Palestinian family who would like to resettle in Europe and a serious economic and educational investment in the Palestinian refugee camps.  And from the Arab countries, some of whom are very rich, a greater engagement, not only with Israel, which is economically advantageous, but with the Palestinians, to whom they owe a greater interest and a greater obligation. 

The plight of the Palestinians is arguably imperialist and colonialist.  But let us place the responsibility where it lies, in the context of a history that is still very recent and where there is plenty of blame to share.  As both the descendant of victims and the beneficiary of a privileged life in the United States,  I am willing to welcome a Palestinian neighbor and pay a Palestinian investment tax right now.  Are you?

Larry Sicular

June 1, 2020

At this later time in my life, I have a few favored ways to spend leisure time.  One of them is sitting in my garden, or on my porch, looking at it.  Sometimes,  I do nothing but stare.   At other times, I share it with friends, over drinks or with long conversations.  People visit me at this house, and in the summer the evening light is late.  Sitting in the garden is like having another room, or another series of rooms.

I get up, and first thing in the morning, when I come downstairs, I walk outside to look at the plants; the huge purple lilacs, at least 12’ tall, that were here when I moved in; the other lilacs that I added; nine apple trees which we pruned this winter and that flowered last week. 

Many afternoons, I spend an hour or so pruning overgrown shrubs.  This morning, before breakfast, I worked on restoring an overgrown hedge.  The gardener and I cut it back sharply before winter, but it was still filled with dead branches.  It doesn’t look good yet, and I am learning my way forward, but it now has sunlight in its center, and there is already new growth from the ground up.  

Would it be such a limitation to spend my life visiting friends, reading books, and taking care of this garden?  Is it the need for money or the need for something else that takes me out of here?   Why isn’t this enough?   Why can’t this be enough for all of us?

The answers are obvious.  Not everyone gets to have a garden.  Not everyone respects other people’s gardens.  Everyone who has one wants to keep it;  not everyone is satisfied with the garden they have. 

May 16, 2020

To the Editors of the New York Times

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am writing in response to two articles in your paper by different writers, both dated May 12.

Both discuss/report on the impacts of Covid 19 on city real estate markets, yet they contradict one another.   

Carol Galante, in “Now is the Time to Embrace Density”, (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/opinion/sunday/urban-density-inequality-coronavirus.html) argues that the economic recovery will favor the same cities that prospered before the pandemic, including New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Boston, all driven by innovation, technology and biotech.  She refers to a “short-term” reactionary impulse to blame density for the spread of the coronavirus . . . “   And she advocates for less restrictive zoning and less complex and arbitrary building approval processes,  permitting and encouraging higher density and more affordable housing. 

Matthew Haag’s reporting in “Manhattan Faces a Reckoning if Working from Home Becomes the Norm” questions Ms. Galante’s premise.  (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/nyregion/coronavirus-work-from-home.html) He states that several of the city’s largest and most prominent employers, including Barclays, JP Morgan,  Morgan Stanley, Nielson,  Facebook, Google and Twitter are now operating with employees at home.  The first four have decided that this change may be long-term or permanent.  All are reacting to Covid 19, the negative consequences of density, and the realization that they may no longer need corporate offices in order to operate.  “Entire economies were molded around the vast flow of people to and from offices . . . “ he writes, yet these economies may no longer be there. 

Mr. Haag’s reporting certainly does not support the near-term revival of downtowns in cities like New York (or San Francisco or Seattle).  Yet the relative demise of our densest cities, if it does become long term or permanent, can be viewed as an opportunity to affordable housing advocates like Ms. Galante.

The appeal of our international, gateway cities has been understood as a given over the past generation.  The revival of some of our downtowns, including New York since the 1980’s, has been attributed to their architecture, cultural offerings, walkability and mass transit, their appeal to the young “creative class” and thus to their employers.  But the revival of these cities has evolved past effectiveness and efficiency because so few of our cities have profited from it.   Alongside New York, Boston and San Francisco, which have become unreasonably expensive,  are cities such as New Haven, Baltimore, Hartford and Detroit and Providence, that have not profited, or could profit even more.  These cities, more specifically their inner cities, now symbolize emptiness,  poverty and neglect,  which affluent Americans are determined to avoid, but they were once vibrant, and they offer urbanity and density—with affordable historic housing stock, potential development, cultural infrastructure and existing train lines–all at much more reasonable cost than Boston or New York. 

The price of expensive housing is not only a burden on the poor, but also on everyone but the very rich.  Middle income and even affluent households accept tight, often unattractive apartments, even for millions of dollars in places like Manhattan, as the price of access to good jobs and an interesting city, and in order to avoid a long commute.  I know this—I sell and appraise them.    

There must be a better way,  in a world where urbanity is valued,  but where technology makes it functionally unnecessary.  I’m not yet sure how, but I am hoping that younger people will look beyond the few favored cities, suburbs, the exurbs, and the countryside, to our older, neglected

cities and even to small towns such as Stamford, New York (where I am presently sheltering from the pandemic, and where large, formerly desirable houses still sell for less than $200,000).  

Hopefully employers will take the initiative or follow them.  Even public investments, if we can ever afford these again, may occur.  It is much cheaper to bring education, jobs, development, affordable housing, and culture to Newburgh, New Haven and Hartford, if Americans are ever willing to do that, than it is to find and develop, buy or rent, additional affordable housing in New York City.  Ours is still a large country, with enormous untapped space.  Life in many of our neglected, older towns and cities is potentially interesting and humane, and can avoid the very expensive, and at-present, unhealthy, densities of San Francisco and New York. 

Larry Sicular

NYC and Stamford, New York

Sunday, March 22, 2020

How will the Manhattan housing market be affected by the Covid 19 pandemic?  What are the short and the longer-term effects?  This is an attempt to address these questions.  Let us begin with the belief that we have the tools and the will with which to manage this crisis, however awkwardly and imperfectly.  

Short term: what is happening now?

Right now, there are no statistics on transactions.  If this crisis is like the last one, deals that were pending are concluding, being renegotiated or aborted, but it is likely that the volume of new deals has collapsed.  Indeed, on Friday, March 20, the governor ordered a city-wide lock down.  Showing real estate is not an essential service.

Many, both buyers and sellers can choose when to act, and until circumstances normalize, relatively few will choose to do so.  Most owners do not want or need to sell in a crisis, and excepting the opportunistic, most are too distracted or terrified to buy.

Does this means that prices are lower?  In a circumstance where there is no market, which is now the case for most properties, there is no answer.  If I had to sell my cooperative apartment today, sight unseen, on-line, I would likely have to accept a severe discount.  Temporarily, my most cherished asset is worth very little. 

The Manhattan housing market does not react to crises in the same way as the stock market.  It is much less liquid; prices do not measurably change on a daily basis—indeed it is sometimes difficult to discern trends in the quarterly data.  Some sellers will drop their prices, anticipating a difficult environment for a very long time, but in a wealthy market, where few are under duress, there may be relatively few “good deals” in the near term, and a lower asking price may be no more than acceptance of last year’s market reality.

Sellers, like the rest of us, have read that a vaccine will be found in the next year-to-18 months.  Most/many of them will decide to wait, or stay in place, until the market revives.  Until a new “normal” is achieved, either by the success of our current social-distance and “lock-down” protocols, a medical breakthrough (or series of them), or an acceptance of some  frequency of illness and death, there may be no significant revival in sales volume.

The coming months

As this crisis persists, even at a less panicked level, sellers will begin to adjust to a “new normal”. Some, perhaps few at first, will start dropping their prices, choosing to “move-on”, for reasons practical or financial, in an attempt to attract the few buyers who are in in the market.  These buyers will step in as they see real opportunities, and this will lead the market “down”, restoring liquidity. Prices may drop in increments, that is not all at once. Our market may not see significantly lower prices for some weeks or months, or even a year, but, eventually, the rest of the market will follow until the crisis abates and sale volume is restored.  

Something like this happened during the financial crisis of 2008, of which the bellwether was the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September.  At the end of this post is a table of Manhattan cooperative and condominium price averages beginning in 2005. These indicate that:

-Average and median prices peaked in the first and second quarters of 2008 and began to fall in the 3^rd quarter.  

-But prices, on average, did not hit bottom until the 2^nd and 3^rd quarters of 2009, and a sustained recovery did not begin until the 3^rd quarter of 2010.  (Regarding sale volume, the quarterly peak was earlier, in the second and third quarters of 2007; it dropped to its lowest levels in the 1^st and 2^nd quarters of 2009.)

-Average prices did not recover to early 2008 levels until the beginning of 2014.   

As I remember it, from the observation of individual transactions, these averages hid varying and sometimes substantial value declines for certain types of apartments.  There was a shift to more desirable apartments, to “quality”, in the weaker market.  Less desirable apartments—unrenovated,  poorly located, without daylight, or with high monthly maintenance charges—became more difficult to sell. 

Some version of this scenario may happen in this crisis.  Covid 19 is much more dramatic and personal; many people are suddenly without work, and there may be many deaths. But there will be medicines and a vaccine, so the worst effects will have a much-too-long, but limited, time frame.  The market may snap back quickly, once a reliable vaccine is available. 

For now the market may slow substantially.  In some weeks, we will be back to work and back on the streets, but the medical crisis will still not have been fully resolved.  Prices and sale volume are likely to suffer, until a lasting medical solution is found and the economy revives.

Looking back and to the longer term

When the market does revive, and it will, it may not immediately return to its earlier prices and habits. By earlier prices, I mean those that prevailed in late 2019 and the first eight or ten weeks of 2020.  Habits are a bit different; they are the pattern of preferences that dictate how the market determines relative value.

Most of the time, we think about prices—are they going up or down?  But there are equally interesting changes in the pattern of preferences. 

Over the past forty years the major changes in this market have been a function of increased wealth and its dispersion within Manhattan. 

Manhattan is a much richer place than it was when I first moved here, after college in 1975.  There is a lot more wealth, and wealthy buyers now choose different locations and different types of housing.  Whereas in the suburban era, following the Second World War, wealthy New Yorkers retreated primarily to the Upper East Side, or to smaller enclaves on the East River or in Greenwich Village, an expansion began in the 1980’s—to the Upper West Side, to brownstone Brooklyn, and perhaps most significantly, to Downtown.  This trend has continued with the revival of Harlem, the recent new towers in the financial district and north of Madison Square Park, and most prominently with the “super-talls” along Central Park South and West 57^th Street.  

With the geographic expansion came new types of housing: the loft and the condominium.

At first the lofts were taken over by artists, and the condominium units were smaller and architecturally banal, often pied-a-terre.  Now these housing types have expanded in size, in height, in design, and in luxury.  Virtually everything new or converted is a condominium; the most expensive new apartments are in the newest high-rise condominium towers.  The Upper East Side and pre-war cooperatives, while still very fine, have lost relative value and prestige. 

Will Covid 19 change these trends?   There have been articles on social distancing as the new “normal”, on the possibly increased frequency of viruses and, consequently, the relatively lesser desirability of high-density living.  I believe that these changes are temporary, once a cure has been found.  Note the very temporary impact of 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy, even Downtown which was attacked and the most prone to flooding. People will go back to work; they will want to be together, and the economy will revive, whatever the damage.  Prices will go down, perhaps substantially, and then they will go back up.

I am 66 years old.  Among those who are important to me, a number are at risk.  So I  brace myself against  possible illness or loss.  At this time of life, dying is acceptable, but losing someone who matters—a hurt that would heal but not recover.      

My great-grandmother, and one of her children, died in New York during the great flu epidemic of 1918.  My father never knew her and never spoke about her, although he did speak about her husband and her successful, wealthy brothers and the support they continued to give his family. (They clearly did not forget her.)  I have only her name, Clara Picker, and a photograph of her with her family, dated 1899.  Like my father then, most of the world is younger now and fortunately will move-on and recover. 

It is interesting to contrast our reactions to Covid 19 with our reactions to the climate crisis. Climate is a  longer term issue and much more likely to impact our habits.  We will face enormous costs as we face more frequent storms, coastal flooding and fires; and these costs may require much higher taxes, in order to protect ourselves from worse.  Eventually, our coast lines will be abandoned.  Some centuries from now, there will be no Manhattan housing market.  Consider the impact that a reduction in tax-deduction benefits has had on our housing market, before this crisis, and then consider the much greater impact of this issue, over the longer term. 

Covid 19 is a short-term crisis, and better protecting ourselves against pandemics is a relatively modest investment.  I believe that we will finally have the will to make that investment.  Perhaps we will even now find the will to better protect ourselves against the climate crisis.  For now, the pandemic need not fundamentally alter our housing market.

Quarterly Average and Median Cooperative and Condominium Closed Prices for Manhattan as of February 29, 2020 Source: Brown Harris Stevens Analytics

Quarter	Sales	Average Price	Median Price
1Q05	4,085	$1,002,412	$611,020
2Q05	5,063	$1,065,594	$639,706
3Q05	4,454	$1,045,120	$660,310
4Q05	3,474	$994,414	$650,350
1Q06	4,018	$1,068,926	$659,028
2Q06	4,901	$1,105,784	$704,125
3Q06	4,594	$1,056,386	$719,136
4Q06	4,030	$1,089,872	$735,420
1Q07	4,555	$1,157,155	$755,602
2Q07	5,643	$1,251,087	$812,304
3Q07	5,293	$1,302,835	$819,452
4Q07	3,858	$1,401,417	$843,572
1Q08	4,033	$1,644,561	$893,178
2Q08	4,473	$1,554,369	$936,660
3Q08	4,511	$1,361,652	$862,965
4Q08	2,985	$1,441,317	$885,126
1Q09	1,678	$1,437,961	$876,691
2Q09	2,129	$1,269,034	$782,444
3Q09	3,237	$1,241,250	$762,464
4Q09	3,546	$1,300,029	$766,910
1Q10	3,145	$1,301,359	$777,853
2Q10	3,959	$1,282,673	$763,384
3Q10	3,350	$1,349,585	$840,141
4Q10	2,907	$1,414,235	$825,094
1Q11	2,691	$1,339,395	$781,355
2Q11	3,616	$1,333,702	$808,975
3Q11	3,401	$1,376,471	$828,749
4Q11	2,664	$1,305,342	$743,161
1Q12	2,728	$1,394,611	$780,746
2Q12	3,703	$1,399,519	$831,961
3Q12	3,883	$1,313,019	$825,670
4Q12	3,751	$1,532,943	$829,375
1Q13	2,816	$1,287,682	$774,961
2Q13	4,338	$1,381,696	$835,332
3Q13	4,787	$1,386,628	$849,923
4Q13	3,911	$1,551,722	$844,354
1Q14	3,257	$1,654,217	$874,364
2Q14	3,937	$1,613,734	$877,930
3Q14	4,240	$1,609,840	$873,874
4Q14	3,498	$1,698,899	$933,223
1Q15	3,115	$1,782,724	$926,130
2Q15	3,825	$1,736,065	$949,503
3Q15	4,368	$1,647,370	$948,792
4Q15	3,678	$1,883,615	$1,058,615
1Q16	3,429	$2,029,220	$1,083,307
2Q16	3,646	$1,981,731	$1,066,549
3Q16	3,643	$1,981,249	$998,540
4Q16	3,059	$1,978,913	$994,300
1Q17	3,158	$2,076,993	$1,056,228
2Q17	3,685	$2,100,282	$1,163,360
3Q17	3,663	$1,900,175	$1,138,388
4Q17	3,059	$1,907,094	$1,080,570
1Q18	2,677	$1,902,772	$1,098,399
2Q18	3,157	$2,042,621	$1,092,376
3Q18	3,204	$1,904,114	$1,096,944
4Q18	2,722	$2,063,797	$1,047,295
1Q19	2,508	$2,044,137	$1,116,118
2Q19	3,668	$2,434,159	$1,360,167
3Q19	2,927	$1,705,845	$998,961
4Q19	2,703	$1,898,000	$1,028,052
1Q20	1,604	$1,854,341	$1,132,750