Luxury market sales hit $11.3B in 2014: report

Manhattan’s luxury real estate market hit a whopping $11.3 billion in sales in 2014, as prices rose across all inventory types, according to a report today from Olshan Realty.

The very top of the market saw the biggest gains: Contracts signed on properties priced at $10 million and up rose just over seven percent to 270 in 2014, from 252 in 2013, according to the report. But in the mid-luxury market, or apartments priced between $4 million and $10 million, the number of contracts signed fell. This led to 1,339 contracts signed overall in the luxury market, a decline of 2.4 percent from last year.  (The report tied the decline to “heavy contract volume” a year earlier, in December 2013, at the Rudin family’s Greenwich Lane and Extell Development’s One Riverside Park, or 50 Riverside Boulevard.)

Still, prices rose across the board.

Overall, the average asking price in the luxury market in 2014 was $8.14 million, up from $7.85 million last year. For condos, the average asking price in 2014 was $7.8 million, or $2,783 per square foot, up from $7.7 million, or $2,766 per square foot in 2013. Among co-ops, the average asking price was $7.7 million, up from $6.7 million in 2013; among townhouses, the average asking price was $10.3 million, up from $9.5 million.

In 2014, a total of 53 percent of all luxury contracts were for Downtown pads, according to the report. And, in 2014, 41 percent of luxury apartments sold off floor plans, up from 38 percent in 2013.