From the August issue: With unemployment on the rise and prices declining, the New York City real estate market is still on shaky ground during these dog days of summer. But morale in the industry has improved markedly as buyers, sellers and brokers, once shell-shocked by the chaos of the fall’s financial markets, now see some action.
Many brokers have reported a recent increase in deal volume in the wake of this winter’s paralysis, and second-quarter reports released by the city’s brokerages early last month confirmed that. According to a market report by Prudential Douglas Elliman, there were 1,532 Manhattan sales in the second quarter of 2008, an increase of 28.2 percent from the previous quarter.
That’s still a 50.3 percent drop from 3,081 sales from the same period last year, however, and prices have fallen accordingly.
