Condo and co-op sales (source: Prudential Douglas Elliman)
Through the housing booms and credit busts, the Manhattan residential sales market had a fairly nondescript decade ending in December 2011.
Prices across all housing stock increased about as much as one would expect they would have since 2002, and sales activity was remarkably similar in 2011 to 2002. [more]
Landlords continue to have the upper hand when it comes to Manhattan’s residential rental market, according to fourth-quarter reports released today by brokerages Prudential Douglas Elliman and Citi Habitats. The median asking rent climbed 6.6 percent over the last year, and vacancies were filled at a near-record pace, according to Elliman, while both firms reported a sharp decline in concessions. [more]
From left, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Dottie Herman, Halstead Property’s Greg Heym and the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman The volume of Manhattan home sales declined at least 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, although prices continued to hold steady, according to quarterly reports issued today by the city’s largest residential real estate brokerages. Experts proffered a host of explanations for the drop in sales activity, from global economic chaos to low inventory levels to financing issues for buyers in the middle of the market. [more]
Compiled by Lauren Elkies
In the wake of Sandy Weill’s reported $88 million sale of his 15 Central Park West penthouse, The Real Deal wanted to touch base and see if real estate executives had any last minute predictions for the New Year since speaking with the magazine for the December residential market report.
Dottie Herman, president of Prudential Douglas Elliman, and Frederick Peters, president of Warburg Realty Partnership, said to expect 2012 to be a bit of a repeat of 2011, while developer Donald Trump said “really good real estate will have excess value.” Elizabeth Stribling, president of Stribling & Associates, predicts a “continuing strong demand for new condominium offerings all over town,” while Stuart Saft, chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s global real estate department, said “the euro will continue to be in trouble causing a flight to safety to the U.S. and particularly New York City, so New York City properties will trade at even lower cap rates.” Meanwhile, Citi Habitats President Gary Malin and Halstead Property Development Marketing President Stephen Kliegerman recently told amNY that 2012 would bring more development and fewer amenities to New York City’s real estate market. [more]
Not only is the high-end of the Manhattan housing market healthy, but in some respects it’s performing just as well as it did during the market’s peak, according to the Wall Street Journal. Seven deals worth more than $30 million have been recorded this year, not including Sanford Weill’s recent $88 million sale, the most since 2008 and the third-most ever. Further, the $6,000 per square foot price point that was noteworthy even in 2008 has become somewhat more commonplace, the Journal said.
The astronomical prices are buoyed by a shortage of ultra-luxury apartments, according to brokers, as the world’s wealthiest people are moving assets right now. [more]
From left: Rubicon Property CEO Jason Haber and a rendering of Extell’s One57A lack of new construction, an influx of international buyers and prices still far from peaks have fueled a shortage of high-end apartments in New York City, Bloomberg News reported.
There were 832 homes on the market asking at least $5 million in New York City in October, according to Streeteasy.com, down 9.5 percent from the same time two years ago. Simultaneously, sales of Manhattan luxury apartments increased 17 percent in the third quarter from the prior-year quarter, according to Miller Samuel. There were more sales of at least $20 million in the third quarter this year than during any time since the third quarter of 2008. [more]
Jonathan Miller with his first-ever lobsterFrom the November issue: Most New Yorkers know appraiser Jonathan Miller as the statistics guru who produces quarterly market reports for Prudential Douglas Elliman. Few realize that he’s also a lobster fisherman.
But Miller, the CEO of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers, says the two vastly different specialties sometimes go hand in hand — or claw to claw, as it were.
It all started in 2005, when Miller decided lobster fishing would be a fun activity for his four sons while aboard the family boat, which is anchored on Long Island Sound near their home in Darien, Conn. So he got his lobstering license. [more]
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From the November issue: The autumn leaves are turning, and New York’s fall real estate market may be changing, too.
Autumn has traditionally been one of the busiest times of the year for residential sales, along with spring — the season of tax refunds and bonuses.
But real estate brokers say the fall selling season has declined in importance over the past few years, thanks to factors like the city’s dependence on bonuses and later-than-usual Jewish holidays.
It’s too soon to say whether the shift is permanent, but some say it could be a long-term trend rather than a temporary side effect of the topsy-turvy, post-Lehman economy. [more]
Last year real estate insiders and prospective homebuyers worried about the glut of new development inventory in Harlem. But that’s no longer the case, thanks largely to price cuts on the units in those buildings, some of which are selling for less than $500 per square foot.
Many buildings introduced to the market in the last year are now mostly filled. The 72-unit Livmor, the 28-unit Parc Standard and the 38-unit Douglass, all on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, are sold out. Meanwhile, introduced this summer, the 73-unit co-op 88 Morningside is 71 percent sold, the 86-unit Gateway is 90 percent sold and Windows on 123 is on its second phase of sales. [more]
Financial District condominium projects have found success since being converted to rentals early this year, according to the Wall Street Journal, although the Occupy Wall Street protests have dampened the trend in recent days.
The 300-unit Sapir Organization-developed William Beaver House, for example, put its 208 unsold units on the rental market this spring, and about 75 percent of them have been leased at a rate of 18 per month and $57 per square-foot.
Similarly, 25 Broad Street, the condo conversion by Kent Swig, went on the rental market earlier this year, and 104 of the 305 units have rented for about $55 per square foot. [more]
