54 Bond StreetFrom the February issue: “It’s like being in the desert,” luxury broker Donna Olshan recently said
of the inventory in the high-end Downtown Manhattan market.
“There’s nothing to buy,” reiterated agent Alison Rogers of DG Neary
Realty, when the fourth-quarter Manhattan market reports were released.

The very beginning of the New Year is always a cyclical low point
for residential inventory in New York, as sellers pull their listings
from the market in the hopes of re-launching their efforts with vigor in
time for the spring buying season.
But this year’s January inventory trough was actually 5.8 percent
above its year-ago level, according to the real-time listings tracker on
UrbanDigs.com. And at press time, inventory had already risen by 6.5
percent in the three weeks since then. [more]

After an erratic several months in Brooklyn and Queens, due largely to pent up demand and the first-time homebuyer tax credit, the residential market in the two boroughs may be stabilizing, according to a Prudential Douglas Elliman report covering both boroughs released today.

The median residential sales prices climbed in the fourth quarter compared to the same three months in 2009, while the number of sales dropped in both boroughs.

In Brooklyn, the figure rose 6.2 percent to $475,000, while sales dropped 29.9 percent to 1,468 from 2,093. In Queens, meanwhile, the price increased 5.4 percent to $369,000, as home sales plummeted 41.7 percent. Last quarter saw 2,483 sales in Queens, compared to 4,260 during fourth-quarter 2009. [more]

With immigrant demand, Brighton Beach and other surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods hold steady

Leon Rakhlis, principal with Kora Developers

From the October issue: When the Soviet Union loosened its grip on its citizens more than two decades ago, culminating in the breakup of the nation in the 1990s, one of the bigger beneficiaries might have been Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. A neighborhood wracked by crime, desolation and high vacancy rates saw its fortunes quickly improve, as Russian immigrants took over buildings and opened shops in the shadow of elevated subway trains. Today, property values are about eight times what they were in the Brezhnev era, according to brokers, developers and residents. While prices also shot up in other parts of the city over that time, Brighton’s transformation is starker, residents say, because it was so decrepit to begin with.

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While prices are still down, activity is high as buyers and renters forsake ‘cool’ for value

Andrew Barrocas

From the October issue: It might not be Manhattan’s hippest neighborhood, but Murray Hill is holding its own when it comes to residential real estate. “It seems like almost everybody who lives in Murray Hill feels like they should live in a ‘cooler’ neighborhood — until cooler turns out to be 40 percent more rent and 30 percent less space,” said Bond New York broker Gus Waite. In this month’s Q & A, The Real Deal talked to brokers who specialize in Murray Hill about everything from how a crackdown on temporary walls are impacting the rental market to how long apartments are sitting on the market.

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Studios and one-bedrooms, often considered the ‘starter homes’ of Manhattan, are struggling in the current market, according to the Wall Street Journal. First-time homebuyers are harder to come by with consumer confidence down, experts say, and the expiration of the first-time homebuyer tax credit has taken away the incentive for renters to take the homebuying plunge. While the median price for a three-bedroom unit has climbed 3.8 percent quarter-over-quarter, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel, the median sales figure for one-bedrooms dropped 4.5 percent between the second and third quarters of the year. Caroline Bass, a senior vice president with Citi Habitats, said that selling small apartments has been a struggle. “I’ve had this studio on West 57th Street on the market for over a year now and virtually no one is coming to look at the apartment,” Bass said. “We initially priced it at $310,000, lowered the price to $299,000, then $285,000 and now I’m trying to get the seller to reduce the price even more.” [WSJ]

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Michael Feder

The nationwide housing market may not be out of the woods yet, according to real estate tracking group Radar Logic. “It is our belief that housing prices will decrease in the autumn, perhaps precipitously, and that may cause a second dip in the U.S. economy,” Radar Logic CEO Michael Feder said. Citing a recent report from Moody’s economist Celia Chen, which suggested that a double dip in the residential market had a one-in-four likelihood of occurring before the market recovers in 2012, Feder said that caution is key. “As we begin to see data for the Fall, we expect it will be soft, that volumes and prices will move lower,” Feder said. “If we need consumer confidence to generate the spending needed to revive our economy, housing does not seem to be a likely source.” TRD

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Are buyers stuck in heat-induced stupor or lacking confidence in the economic recovery?

From the August issue: With July on track to be the hottest month in New York City history, real estate agents report that the sticky, 100-degree heat has kept potential buyers at home. “Some people are staying indoors because they can’t deal with the heat,” said Olga Alexakos, an agent at the brokerage Core. While summer is usually slow, this year it’s “quieted a bit more than usual on the weekends,” said Sara Rotter, a managing director at Citi Habitats. Underlying this heat-induced stupor are very real fears about the sustainability of the market recovery.

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Despite a projected 1,160 apartment units set to hit the Brooklyn market in 2010, the vacancy rate in the borough will stay relatively the same, according to the first-quarter market report from Marcus &amp; Millichap. Apartment vacancy is set to hit 2.6 percent in 2010, according to the report, up just 0.2 percent from the current vacancy rate, despite the abundance of inventory that will enter the market. This prediction comes on the heels of improvement, price-wise, among apartments over the last year. The median price increased 8 percent to $117,360 year-over-year. <i>TRD</i> [more]

April marked the Corcoran Group’s strongest month in residential sales since October 2007, according to an internal market report.

Condominium sales volume increased 139 percent compared to April 2009, while co-op sales volume jumped 91 percent, according to the report, which is based on Corcoran listings only. Last month, Corcoran agents saw 477 signed condo contracts and 689 signed co-op contracts.

Tatiana Cames, a senior vice president with Corcoran, said that the report was consistent with the activity she’s seen on the ground and that she doesn’t expect the market to dip far from the current level any time soon. [more]

While the first-time homebuyer tax credit program is set to expire April 30, it could end up affecting housing statistics for weeks to come. That’s because homebuyers have until June to close on properties if they sign contracts by next Friday. The program, extended from last fall, offers $8,000 to first-time buyers and $6,500 to repeat buyers. The credit could result in a continued, artificial rise in the rate of mortgage application filings, which showed a 13.6 percent uptick for the week ending April 16 according to seasonally adjusted week-over-week data released today from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average 30-year mortgage rate, meanwhile, dipped to 5.07 percent from 5.17 percent, according to the MBA’s report. [more]