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The article reports on a study by the brokerage firm Prudential Douglas Elliman which show the average price for an apartment in Manhattan, New York City reached $1.4 million in the last quarter of the year 2007. Average prices were increasing because of the number of apartments selling above $10 million. Other indicators that the sales market in Manhattan is stronger than the U.S. housing market are discussed.

This article examines the apartment shortages and high rents in New York City. The combination is driving college graduates to come up with creative housing solutions. The rental market is as tight as it has been in seven years and is forcing young professionals to seek roommates or to squeeze into spaces so tightly that they violate city codes. Landlords in New York City typically demand that renters make 40 times their monthly rent in annual income which pushes out all but the richest.

The article reports that pet owners are finding they have to pay extra to keep their beloved canines in their apartments. Many building require dogs to undergo an interview, just like their owners do, to determine whether they are calm enough to be a part of the building. Other buildings have size requirements, leading pet owners like Joseph Olshefski to put their dogs on diets to meet weight requirements.

The day after court records revealed that Faye Dunaway would be joining the masses of New Yorkers braving housing court for a landlord-tenant showdown, it was time for the Oscar-winning actress to share her side of the story. Ms. Dunaway, a Florida native, spoke with the inflection of a trained actor and the imperiousness of a seasoned celebrity as she staunchly denied that the landlord of the Upper East Side apartment that she began renting in 1995 had ordered her to leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few weeks, a racial discrimination lawsuit filed against the Dakota by one of its former board presidents has opened the gates of privacy at one of the city's most renowned and tight-lipped apartment buildings. Phrases residents may or may not have uttered in board meetings, and decisions they have made about approving residents, have been pored over by lawyers and blogged about by experts in real estate and finance. But the court documents also include a body of paperwork about the daily operations of the Dakota, including building rules and minutes from co-op board meetings, and they offer something of a treasure chest for nosy New Yorkers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On a recent Thursday morning, Jamella Swift, a Citi Habitats broker, was trying to anticipate every detail that would prevent a buyer from purchasing the two-bedroom condo she was selling in Bedford-Stuyvesant. She put a full-size bed in the bedroom so buyers wouldn't think the room was too small. She dragged in a Lucite coffee table to create the illusion of a larger living space and set up three floor lamps to supplement the recessed lighting. Ms. Swift hoped that the $5,000 she had spent would help her land $395,000 to $425,000 for the apartment. Ms. Swift learned how much details could detract from the value after representing a couple who was ready to buy an apartment for more than $7 million. The apartment had a rainy, musty smell that Ms. Swift thought the selling broker could have fixed by buying a dehumidifier. Ms. Swift's client backed out. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Dakota, one of Manhattan's most exclusive apartment buildings, has struck back at a former co-op board president who accused it of racial discrimination, releasing financial documents that suggested he did not have the resources to buy the apartment he was seeking. The former president, Alphonse Fletcher Jr., who still lives at the Dakota, sued its board this month, claiming he had been denied permission to buy an apartment next door because he was black and because another board member wanted the apartment sold in a package deal with her own. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the 25 years Stephen Paul Ackerman has spent renovating apartments and homes, he has formed a few very strong opinions. He knows what he likes in kitchen faucets (Waterworks brand, in particular), and which paint colors work best in small spaces (try Benjamin Moore's Coastal Fog). He also has learned to politely tune out his clients' gripes and worries about the cost of renovations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Four years ago, Rishi Bhandari and his fiancee put down a deposit on Apartment 3T at 110 Livingston Street, the old Board of Education headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn, which was being converted to condominiums. The price was not exorbitant, $795,000, for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. But just before they were to close, Mr. Bhandari noticed that the living space seemed smaller than he had expected. He returned with a measuring tape, he said, and confirmed his suspicions: the bedrooms, living room and kitchen area covered only 634 square feet, even though the floor plans said they had 743. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Carlos Cruz isn't one to boast about his influence. But he is a man worth knowing at the Park Plaza, a 446-unit co-op in Rego Park, Queens. He knows when apartments become available as elderly residents die and beckons people walking by to visit the open houses. He fields questions about the building and helps calm prospective buyers before their board interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Imagine the stench of a refrigerator crammed with rotting carrots and lettuce. Throw in the earthy smell of dirt, half a dozen pairs of teenage boys' worn-out sneakers and some stinky, stinky cheese. Now you're starting to imagine what it smells like in the lobby of one Far West Side luxury condominium building, thanks to the shop that moved in last summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It wasn't just the swinging chair, strung from the ceiling, that was distracting. When apartment hunters stepped into the third-floor studio for sale at 650 Avenue of the Americas, they found a white leather circular bed with red pillows and a hanging L.E.D. lamp with colors shifting from green to blue. Some said it reminded them of the film ''2001: A Space Odyssey.'' ''They would laugh,'' said one of the listing brokers for the building, John Gomes. This was the model apartment for a condominium conversion project, and it was not selling itself, much less helping to sell other apartments in the same building as it was intended to do. Mr. Gomes, of CORE Marketing Group, who took over listings in this Flatiron district building in April, stopped showing the model after roughly six viewings. ''I quickly realized that it hurt more than it helped.'' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a parade of slovenly dressed 20-somethings passed through the entrance of a downtown Manhattan apartment building on a weekday afternoon, these seemingly savvy New Yorkers did not seem to notice they were the subjects of a photo shoot. That is because this shoot was covertly orchestrated by their landlord, who had hired a private investigator to root out illegal tenants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Blesso feels as though he has made plenty of compromises to try to sell his Morningside Heights apartment. Before every open house over the past five months, he has hidden away his toaster, cocktail shaker, vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, remote controls, shaving cream and loofah, and even taken his towel off the towel rack. ''I had to hide every example that I am a human,'' he said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Darren Sukenik has some basic requests of people who come to his open houses. They should make enough money and have sufficient assets to afford the apartments he is selling, which often go for several million dollars. They should be serious about buying a home and not just gawking. Most people have no problem with those requests. But the one that stops some of them at the door is a simple one: that they kindly remove their shoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoff Lynch, 40, and his bride, Carmela Rea, 38, don't consider themselves average. Nor does Ali Yenal, 38, think of himself that way. Maybe they aren't. But their apartments are. And both apartments cost well over a million dollars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New York City apartment buildings are often a menagerie of types, including old-timers who remember precisely who lived in each apartment 25 years ago, midlifers preoccupied with their families, and residents so new that they still find the clanging radiators and groaning midcentury elevators charming. But one outgrowth of the real estate construction boom are buildings where everyone is new and moving in at similar stages of life. The residents are often young, but at one small building on Sackett Street in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn, a large percentage of them are really young: Four of the six buyers had five babies among them when they went to contract in the fall and closed in April. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Some New Yorkers -- no matter how uncreative their jobs and lives may be -- love to mention how they live in neighborhoods once romantically settled by poets, painters and musicians. Developers often talk up these histories when selling apartments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments carry mythic significance to New Yorkers starved for space. These are the high-ceiling homes featured in Woody Allen movies, the places secured by celebrities like Carly Simon, Cyndi Lauper and Ed Koch. They are the reason that Monica on ''Friends'' was able to afford her apartment on a chef's salary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Less than two weeks after St. Vincent's Hospital Manhattanfiled for bankruptcy, the hospital is officially putting on the market the first of many buildings in its valuable Greenwich Village real estate portfolio. Grubb & Ellis, a brokerage, is expected to release the marketing materials on Monday morning to sell the property at 555 Avenue of the Americas, which is known as Staff House. The property, near 15th Street, is a 180,000-square-foot building with 178 apartments, a 90-car parking garage and potential store space along the avenue. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As officials and physicians plod through the logistics and heartache of closing one of the city's major hospitals, preservationists and developers are preoccupied with another issue: Will the St. Vincent's Hospital campus be turned into luxury apartment buildings? During the last building boom, St. Vincent's executives tried to pull out of financial trouble by making a deal with the Rudin Management Company, a prominent developer. Under the deal, Rudin was to buy most of the St. Vincent's campus, at 12th Street and Seventh Avenue, for $300 million. It planned to renovate four hospital buildings and demolish four others and build luxury town homes and apartment buildings on their sites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While Paul Mutimear arrived in New York from London in 1987 with dreams of rock 'n' roll fame, these days he makes his living helping people decide between Drop Dead Gorgeous and Bed of Roses (both shades of red). Mr. Mutimear, 59, has been a paint guru for 23 years, first as a contractor specializing in decorative finishes for clients including Bobby Flay. For the last three years, he has worked as a senior color consultant for the Janovic home-design chain, most recently at the store at 888 Lexington Avenue on the Upper East Side, offering advice to high-strung customers choosing colors for their apartments. How he got into painting: I'm a rock guitar player and songwriter. I basically needed to get a job to make a living. I came here with a singer from Britain in the '80s trying to cash in on the second wave of the British invasion. We got management and a publishing deal. We fell out. I moved into record production for a while and songwriting. But I never really made a career of it. The painting thing kind of took off. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Hello Living condo project in Brooklyn was marketed as an urban utopia, a collection of low-rise apartments designed for young families without large inheritances or bonuses. More than three dozen of them closed on apartments, enticed by the modern designs set among the brick walk-ups of Prospect Heights and by amenities like a pool, a gym and a children's playroom that have all become the standard in higher-priced buildings. One resident called his building a ''luxury urban kibbutz'' where residents have a baby-sitting co-op and watch ''Lost'' episodes in the screening room. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Foreign investors were a major force in New York's real estate boom of the last decade, with families and companies from Dubai to Australia swallowing weekend apartments and Midtown office towers. In 2007, the roster of international investors came to include a British firm, Dawnay Day, whose executives had a splashy reputation for spending millions on fine art and yachts. It was then, after a meeting with a New York landlord at an art show in Miami, that the British firm plunked down $225 million for 47 rental buildings, most of them in East Harlem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Through the real estate boom, few new developers filled the city with luxury condominiums as fast as Shaya Boymelgreen. He turned Wall Street corner offices into minimalist bachelor lairs, built TriBeCa apartments snapped up by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and crowded the edges of Park Slope, Brooklyn, with condos. But Mr. Boymelgreen, 58, has since retreated mightily from the limelight as his fortune has reversed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the feudal world of Bronx real estate, where a handful of landlords claim ownership to its skyline of cramped apartments, Jacob Selechnik is most certainly royalty. He has been buying buildings in the city's poorest borough for nearly 50 years, amassing an empire that reached a peak of more than 7,000 apartments. Brokers estimate his net worth at more than half a billion dollars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tenants and landlords spent much of Thursday struggling to figure out what the state high court's ruling on the future of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village meant for all types of New Yorkers. Real estate moguls feared the news would cripple their industry, and tenants worried about their rents. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As a rising number of half-finished and half-empty condo projects clutter the skyline, state and city officials have begun developing programs to turn hundreds of these apartments into moderate-income housing. But those efforts have proved far from easy. With budgets tighter than ever, there are few financial incentives to entice developers and lenders. And there are the practical challenges of selling apartments to buyers for far less than what their neighbors paid, not least among them possible complications for market-rent buyers, whose mortgages often depend on the building's financial status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

OWNERS of one-bedroom apartments in Manhattan may be surprised if they put their homes up for sale anytime soon. Price appreciation for one-bedrooms -- long a bastion for singles and newly married couples who want to stay in Manhattan and live close to work -- is sluggish compared with other types of apartments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ALMOST overnight, investment bankers and others on Wall Street have gone from being Manhattan's most aggressive apartment buyers to real estate pariahs. As financial services companies continue to cut jobs and bleed billions of dollars, their employees have far less cash to spend on high-priced apartments, and very little optimism about taking a risk right now anyway. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

NEW YORK CITY real estate has become a shadow of its frenzied former self in recent months, as buyers and sellers take a more deliberate approach to reaching deals. Some sellers have pulled their apartments off the market for now, in the hopes that they will have better luck in the traditionally more robust spring season, which typically begins in April. Others have pulled out altogether, thinking it would be better to wait for a year or more to get the price they want. Sellers who really need to sell now are finding that they have to work a lot harder to attract buyers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports that the Apthorp apartment building in Manhattan, New York City has been sold to a landlord. Maurice Mann signed a contract in November 2006 to buy the building for more than $425 million. The building consists of 163 apartments and retail space on the ground floor. Mann says that he is planning to keep it exactly the way it is.