Paula Del Nunzio of Brown Harris Stevens

From the July issue: Between the lion’s head doorknocker, ornate stone fireplaces and pastel-colored parlor, the mansion at 973 Fifth Avenue looks like something out of an Edith Wharton novel. But its $42 million contract price, reported late last month after the home spent a year on the market with Brown Harris Stevens’s Paula Del Nunzio, is decidedly contemporary.

The deal is the latest in a string of eye-popping sales in the last quarter that, some brokers say, has prompted sellers at the high end to test their luck with listings priced above $20 million — whether the properties are worth it or not. [more]

Upper West Side new developments, from left: the Laureate, the Rushmore, the Aldyn and 846 West End Avenue

The median listing price for new development apartments in Manhattan is up 10 percent year-over-year to $1.486 million in May, according to Streeteasy.com’s new development May market report. Contract activity and median sales prices for new homes in Manhattan and Brooklyn have increased significantly year-over-year. Meanwhile inventory has declined, most significantly in Brooklyn, where it was 33 percent lower than it was a year ago, and 19 percent lower than six months ago. [more]

(credit: MNS)

According to a market report released today by Citi Habitats, the Manhattan residential rental vacancy rate slipped below 1 percent last month, reinforcing brokers’ claims that the rental market is now hotter than it’s been since the mid-2000s.

The vacancy rate in May hit 0.89 percent, its lowest level since July 2011, the Citi Habitats data shows. Citi Habitats President Gary Malin attributed that in part to declining inventory, due to a lack of new-construction residential buildings. [more]

Source: Streeteasy.com (chart refers to new developments only)

Inventory is declining and asking prices are rising for new development sales throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, according to a new development market report released today by Streeteasy.com. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Williamsburg, the only neighborhood outside Manhattan with median asking prices surpassing $1 million in April. That milestone was achieved on the back of a 53.2 percent year-over-year increase that pushed median asking prices to $1.07 million for the 76 remaining sponsor units in the neighborhood, a 51.6 percent reduction. [more]

From the May issue: If you’re in the market for a 30-room spread at the rarefied 740 Park Avenue, you may be out of luck. Last month, Courtney Sale Ross, the widow of Time Warner chairman Steven Ross, found a buyer for her pair of linked co-ops at the exclusive building. The duplex property boasts eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, six terraces and two libraries, and the reported $52 million price tag would be the highest ever for a New York City co-op if the deal closes for that amount. But even buyers looking for something less exceptional may be reminded of the proverbial needle-in-a-haystack search when they start hitting open houses this season. [more]

Source: the Corcoran Group

The Hamptons residential sales market may be mirroring Manhattan’s, with lower-priced properties making up a greater number of transactions than in the previous year, according to first-quarter market reports released today by three of the city’s biggest New York City brokerages. [more]

From left: Michael Guerra, Elliman’s Brooklyn managing director, and Frank Percesepe, Corcoran’s Brooklyn senior regional vice president

Home prices and transaction volume in Brooklyn and Queens were down in the first quarter of 2012 compared to the same period last year, according to market reports released today by residential brokerages Prudential Douglas Elliman and the Corcoran Group, although the overall picture shows stability.

In Brooklyn, the median sales price dropped 5.3 percent to $450,000 from $475,000 in the same period last year, while the number of sales tumbled 23.9 percent to 1,807 from 2,373 sales, the Elliman report says. Corcoran pegged the median sales price at $428,000, a 2 percent decline over the same period last year. [more]

Closing out an active winter season, Hamptons sales prices and volume were up in the first quarter of 2012 compared with sales at this time last year, according to a report from East End brokerage Town & Country. Across all Hamptons markets, sales volume increased by 30 percent, to more than $394 million from $303.7 million in the first quarter of 2011, the report shows. The number of sales was up 18 percent, to 257 from 217 in the same period a year earlier, and the median sale price was up to $817,500, from $775,000. [more]

Christopher Meyers of Houlihan Lawrence and appraiser Jonathan Miller

Sales volume edged higher in Westchester County in the first quarter of 2012, according to reports by Prudential Douglas Elliman and Houlihan Lawrence released today. But, that was countered by growth in inventory, the Elliman report indicates, and a decline in the average sales price.

The number of sales in Westchester increased 1.8 percent to 1,277 from 1,254 sales in the prior-year quarter, the Elliman report shows, but listing inventory increased 1.5 percent to 6,769 units from 6,667 units at this time last year. Meanwhile, average sales prices declined 3.4 percent to $534,977 from $553,846 in the prior year quarter. [more]

Home sales are down

The fourth quarter of 2011 was a dismal one for the New York City residential real estate sector, per a study released today by New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

The volume of home sales — single-family, co-op and condominium — in the five boroughs was down 15 percent quarter-over-quarter and 11 percent year-over-year, the report says. The sales volume is the lowest recorded since the second quarter of 2009. And there is little hope of sales increasing soon, as the number of new residential building permits citywide was down 60 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to the report. [more]