Sales at the low end of the market have picked up since the doldrums of
this fall’s financial crisis, which caused real estate activity to
grind to a virtual halt, but the luxury market still shows little
improvement, according to Core Group Marketing’s Real Time Report for
the second quarter of 2009, released today. The report, which pools data from Core’s database, shows real-time
residential market trends throughout a three-month period. The firm’s
data showed 582 contracts signed in May, the most of any month in 2009
to date and the fifth straight month of increased apartment sales in
Manhattan. For example, the brokerage had 82 contracts for studios
signed in May, up from 58 in April and 53 in March. [more]