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To view, click or mouse over the above tabs. Updated every Thursday for the previous week.
For The Week
Ending 04/25/2008
Manhattan
Purchase Index: 21
Was: 26
 519%
52 Week High: 172
52 Week Low: 44
For The Week
Ending 04/25/2008
Manhattan
Refinance Index: 10
Was: 15
5 33%
52 Week High: 84
52 Week Low: 9
For The Week
Ending 04/25/2008
30-Year Fixed Rate
At: 6.01%
Previous Week: 6.04%
52 Week High: 6.86%
52 Week Low: 5.98%
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The New York Times
May 19, 2007
State Attorney General Investigating Manhattan Real Estate Practices
By Bloomberg News
New York State is investigating Manhattan real estate practices, seeking information about whether brokers pressured appraisers to inflate property values as prices doubled in the last five years.
The state attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, has issued a subpoena to the Manhattan appraiser Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson Inc., the company said late yesterday. A broker, the Manhattan Mortgage Company, also received a subpoena, the company’s chief executive, Melissa Cohn, said.
“It’s a rather large, broad, sweeping request for enormous amounts of information on everyone we work with,” a founder of Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson, Jeffrey Jackson, said. The appraiser, which evaluated about 20,000 properties last year in the New York region, said it received the subpoena “about 10 days ago.”
A lawyer for Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson, Y. David Scharf, said his client had been told it was not a target of the investigation.
“The information that is being requested is whether or not pressure has been brought to bear on appraisers to change their appraisals,” Mr. Scharf said. The firm was “continuing to gather information” in response to the subpoena.
“We did not change appraisals in any circumstances,” Mr. Scharf said.
A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, Jeffrey Lerner, confirmed that the attorney general’s office issued subpoenas to Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson and to Manhattan Mortgage. Mr. Lerner declined to comment further. In March, Mr. Cuomo said his office was investigating subprime lenders.
Mr. Scharf said the subpoena called for information about “mortgage lenders, mortgage brokers, real estate brokers and sales persons and appraisal management companies.”
Manhattan Mortgage handled $3 billion in loans last year in New York and the surrounding area, Ms. Cohn said. She started the company 22 years ago, according to the newsletter Real Estate Weekly.
Other appraisers — Miller Samuel Inc. and the Vanderbilt Appraisal Company, competitors of Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson — said they had not received subpoenas.
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