In Sunrise Check Cashing and Payroll, Inc. v. Town of Hempstead, the State's Highest Court ruled that "a zoning measure that prohibits check cashing establishments in a town's business district is invalid, because it violates the principle that zoning is concerned with the use of land, not with the identity of the user". 


While the Court does state that adult entertainment and pawnshops can be regulated based upon their negative secondary effects on the surrounding communities, check cashing is not a similar category. The court did therefore provide for the possibility that adverse secondary effects could justify zoning, but said that such effects were not proven in this case regardless. 

Lieb School will be closed through April 1, 2013 in honor of the above holidays.

Registration and Enrollment may both occur during our closure by going to Lieb School's website.

New York's highest Court ruled on March 21, 2013 on an issue that matters to all real estate professionals - PAY ATTENTION

In White v. Farrell,  the Court answered the issue of "the measure of a seller's damages for a buyer's breach of a contract to sell real property".

The Court ruled: "the measure of damages is the difference, if any, between the contract price and the fair market value of the property at the time of the breach".

PAY ATTENTION: The Court expressly set the time for damages at the time of breach, not at the time of resale. Additionally, the Court said that the degree that the resale price should play on a determination of damages is determined by how long after the breach that the property was resold. 

New York now expressly utilizes the Time-of-the-breach rule as the measure of damages. While its excellent that the law is now clear, be mindful that ascertaining the fair market value at the time of the breach is a question of fact for a jury, unless the property was immediately sold at arms length at the time of the breach. Therefore, in this situation, both the seller and the buyer will want to retain expert appraisers to demonstrate their position with respect to fair market value at the time of the breach.

Alternatively, its suggested that a liquidated damages clause is utilized and avoids this dispute altogether - so - make sure that the contract of sale is drafted properly and spells out the damage in the case of breach. 

In Saturday's New York Times, Floyd Norris, wrote an article entitled Off the Charts, Housing, Ailing for Years, Starts to Recuperate. The article addresses a Census Bureau report that single-family housing starts rose to the highlest level seen since 2008, which is terrific news especially when reflecting on the Great Recession and where the real etate industry has been during the last few years when every other sector started to show a rebound.

To visit the Census Bureau's website on New Residential Construction data, click here. This website is a great resource for Real Estate Professionals because you can analyze data from permits filed all the way through the characteristics of new homes such as the number of bathrooms to the number of fireplaces to even the materials of secondary walls. It also provides data on the all important topic of housing financing.

Yet, back to the article, the key for Real Estate Professionals should move away from the quantitive numbers or illustrative charts, both of which are important, but instead the focus should be that there is just another news article talking positvely about housing. This is particularly important to Real Estate Professionals because housing purchases, new construction and rennovations all deal with trends and emotion. The talk is positive - lets go ride the wave with positive energy and keep housing moving up.

Last week, at the Long Island Commercial Real Estate Expo, we presented our course Storm Front to a packed room of real estate professionals.

Some students asked that I share the links from the Powerpoint Deck future reference.

So, here goes:

1) Participating Community List for National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) can be found by clicking here
2) NFIP Summary of Coverage can be found by clicking here
3) Cost of Flooding can be found by clicking here
4) 2010 Annual Performance Report of Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) can be found by clicking here
5) FEMA's Building Science & Rebuilding Building Code Resources can be found by clicking here

For all those who attended, I hope you enjoyed the class and the Expo. We, at Lieb School, had a terrific time and were glad to participate.

4 Important Data Points will be out this week according to Mamta Badkar at Business Insider supporting the rise in Housing!

To read the article, "There Are 4 Big Pieces of Housing Data Coming Out This Week", click here.

This is fabulous news for all Real Estate Professionals. With the rebound in housing, more transactions, new builds and investment in everything real estate will be occurring.

Lets get ready to finally ride the wave up in housing and compound this positive data with a lot of hustle and hard work to keep the momentum going.

Buyers and Sellers of real estate should always hire a real estate agent who is familiar with the local municipal Code concerning their property.

Guess what?

In the Village of Quogue, as of July 2013, transacting parties will be required to have a new Certificate of Occupancy issued within 3 months either before or after the change of ownership.

This rules is a result of the Village of Quogue amending its Village Code, which happens all too often in many municipalities to be able to keep track of them all. Now, Chapter 196 of the Village Code has been amended by adding new subsection "F" to section 196-61, which can be read by clicking here.

So, the reason that you need a real estate agent familiar with the local municipal Code is evidenced by the fact that I only learned about this new Code section from my friend, Ed Kurosz, of the Corcoran Group.

Thanks Ed from all of the Real Estate Professionals who read this blog to stay in the loop about real estate happenings within Downstate New York.

It depends where your pipes are clogged.

In Manhattan and the Bronx you have to pay.

In Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island, as well as Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester Counties you don't have to pay.

We live in a crazy world, don't we?