The New York Times has a feature today titled, “The Tightwad’s Legacy,” about the many dilapidated properties in lower Manhattan that were purchased by Bill Gottlieb. This colorful character amassed a large empire of buildings in lower Manhattan that he barely maintained, and they’re now worth more than a billion dollars. Now that Gottlieb has died a nasty fight has ensued over who will control this empire.
In order to illustrate these properties, there’s an interactive map that not only lists property details, but links to a very detailed listing of property attributes from PropertyShark. This is the first that I’ve seen of this real-estate investor site, and I’m very impressed by the tailored tools for the real estate investor.
The service is sold as a subscription, and there are a number of tutorials and tools for taking advantage of foreclosures and house auctions. Detailed and customized reports can be sent to individuals based on the criteria that are set up in your profile.
The mapping function provides a level of detail that I haven’t seen in many other maps. The attribution line at the bottom of the map indicates that the data comes from the NYC Dept. of City Planning, and the interface was designed by Canada-based DM Solutions.
PropertyShark is broader than just Manhattan, with coverage of 20 million properties in fifteen major markets. The number of real estate investors is in flux right now, with many having been hit hard by property depreciation. But there are also a number of great opportunities out there that this site can help you uncover. This site does to real estate investment what E*TRADE has done to stock investment — it puts all the professional tools into the hands of anyone interested in trading and investing.
