All-in-one services expected more than ever from firms.

A panel of real estate insiders marveled last week at the market's growth, but cautioned that the ever expectant customer wants all-in-one-shot services more than ever.

The New York Times held VU2004, a panel on the changing real estate market at New York University Law School last Wednesday.

Panelists included Katherine Farley, senior managing director of Tishman Speyer Properties; Dottie Herman, CEO of Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate; Diane Ramirez, president of Halstead Property; Motoko Rich, a real estate reporter for the New York Times; Debbi Melman, group director of advertising for the Times; and Darcy Stacom, executive vice president and partner for CB Richard Ellis. The panel was moderated by Eileen Spinola, senior vice president of the Real Estate Board of New York.

Herman emphasized the need for the customers to have all their needs met in "one-stop shopping" and predicted many mid-level companies would eventually consolidate.

"However, I do think there is a place for the very small niche broker," she said.

Rich, who joined the Times last year after covering real estate for the Wall Street Journal, said that MLS transactions in the city are frequently poorly organized and that brokers need to work together more often.

"It's still a real pain to get a real estate transaction done in the city," she said. "I think there's a long way to go." With property values higher than ever, Rich said the news media was more intensely focused on the topic of real estate.

"It's considered one of the most important pillars of the economy," she said. "So why wouldn't we treat it as such?"

The market overall is so much on fire, Ramirez explained, that there really weren't any "bargains," per se, in Manhattan.

"In terms of 'opportunity,' there's still some," she said, taking note of Harlem, the West 60s, along the Ninth Avenue corridor and the Lower East Side. But she stopped short of labeling them "bargains."

"It's opportunity," she said.

Herman also took note of the Brooklyn market and said her business was booming in Long Island City

Adelaide Polsinelli, a senior executive broker with Besen & Associates, who attended the event said Long Island City will only take off if put to better commercial service use.

"Just building apartments and office buildings is not enough to attract people who want to live there 24/7," Polsinelli said.

Rich said the market sometimes tended to look too inflated, prompting a broker whom she recently interviewed to term prices as "ridiculous." Out of fear, perhaps, he quickly retracted the word, she said.

Stacom added the city needs to reign in its real estate taxes, saying some individuals are paying $14 to $25 per s/f.

"It's crippling," she said.

The irony of an all-woman panel, in an industry that used to be largely dominated by men, was not lost. Stacom said her struggles to get her firm to hire more women were continuing.

"I've been struggling with working with our own firm on the number of women in the industry," she said. "I do believe it's still a challenge."

Of course, much of the real estate business involves networking, which can present a problem to some women.

"I'm a mom," Stacom explained.

But Herman said women can often take a more leading role in the industry than men. "I think women are more empowering (and) they're more nurturing," she said.