Foreign Real Estate Investors Cash Out of NYC

Manhattan real estate is no longer the property playground for euro- and pound-wielding Europeans. With the rebound of the dollar, foreigners have lost their purchasing power, says Noah Rosenblatt of UrbanDigs.com, a private brokerage firm launching this month.

Rosenblatt says New York real estate is back in the hands of locals -- the ones who can afford it, that is. Here's what else he had to say:

HousingWatch: For so long it felt like Manhattan real estate was mostly being bought up by the international market -- Europeans in particular. Has that changed?

Rosenblatt: I've always maintained that there are plenty of people out there in this country with money and that they are spending it on real estate. Listen, although we went through an insane adjustment -- with the high-end hit a lot harder than the lower end -- I see data that shows the high-end has recovered well here. I see the market as a whole has improved a lot.

But if you look, there is a direct correlation between when Lehman Brothers fell and [when] the high-end market fell.