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Thursday, July 3, 2008
Manhattan real estate market trends report
The Corcoran Group has just released the second quarter 2008 sales figures on the Manhattan real estate market. Today I'm posting a market wide snapshot and you can download the full Q2 2008 Corcoran Report [1.3mb pdf] here too. The big picture is that the market did have strong gains with the overall median price of a Manhattan apartment increasing 13%. Co-op sales posted across the board gains too in every size apartment. In my opinion co-ops are one of the leading indicators of the overall health of the Manhattan real estate market, as they represents about 80% of the city's housing inventory being traded by individual owners, at arms-length. By that measure the housing market here seems to be holding its own— even more remarkable when compared with the rest of the nation, which has continued to experience an unprecedented correction downward in values over the past 2 years.
This Corcoran Report leads a wave of information about Q2 2008 released by all of the large New York brokerages as well as newcomer StreetEasy.com. For the first time, Corcoran's report has the been compiled in collaboration with PropertyShark, 
which is a leading resource of New York City marketplace information for real estate professionals. Corcoran has re-thought how the data are presented by isolating new development sales, from resales, reflecting a similar methodology to how national stats are compiled and often presented. The underlying assumption is that there are two distinct market segments at play. Corcoran's CEO Pam Liebman explains, "New development closings typically lag behind the market by one-to-two years and are therefore a poor barometer of what happens when a seller lists the home she has lived in for ten years on today’s market. Moreover, brand new, highly-amenitized luxury properties are much more likely to sell at a higher price point than the average property competing on the open market. In this report, therefore, we examine re-sales in isolation while our colleagues at Corcoran Sunshine analyze new development property sales."
a complete copy of the report
overview report: second quarter 2008
Waning consumer confidence took its toll on residential real estate this quarter. With widespread concern about the national economy, the credit crisis, and near-term political uncertainty in the face of the upcoming election, sales activity in Manhattan slowed to its lowest level in five years, falling 38% from the peak in the Second Quarter of 2007. While no part of the market was entirely immune from buyer reluctance, perhaps the hardest hit was the first-time homebuyer market; 38% fewer studios and 34% fewer one-bedroom apartments traded this year.
five year trend of sales activity (number of sales)
click on any chart below to enlarge
However, the sales that occurred were generally at a higher price point in most market sectors, a fact that holds true for both the re-sale market and new developments. Taken as a whole, Manhattan apartments reached an average sale price of $1.675M, a median price of $975,000, and a price per square foot of $1,262 – all of which represents a substantial increase. Moreover, when new development is taken out of the picture, homeowners selling their apartments still did quite well this quarter as the average price for re-sale apartments climbed to $1.431M and the price per square foot rose to $1,129. With luxury apartment buyers focusing more energy on new development, the median price for re-sales was the one major statistic to slip, falling 2% to $819,000.
market wide
market wide resale
