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]

A screenshot of a building's activity tab

The real estate website Streeteasy.com today launched expanded features, including data from the city’s Department of Buildings. Streeteasy.com, launched in 2006 for brokers and homebuyers, has long linked property listings with recorded sales from the city’s online Automated City Register Information System, known as ACRIS. Now, the site has added data from the buildings department, including construction permits and complaints, as well as mortgage documents and other additional information from ACRIS filings. [more]

Contracts signed in Manhattan (source: Streeteasy.com)

The Manhattan neighborhood where prices for new development apartments saw the biggest jump was Midtown, where the median listing price for new development units was $1.58 million in March, up 12.8 percent year-over-year, according to Streeteasy.com’s March new development market report covering Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. [more]

Number of contracts for new development units in Manhattan

Median listing prices for units in new developments in Manhattan and Brooklyn have increased year-over-year, and contract activity in both boroughs has increased by more than 40 percent, according to Streeteasy.com’s February new development market report covering Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.

The median listing price for Manhattan new development units was up 6.8 percent last month to $1.44 million from February 2011, the report says. In Brooklyn, where supply is more constrained, the median price was also up, 16.8 percent year-over-year to $697,000. [more]

Median listing prices for new development units in Brooklyn and Manhattan have increased year-over-year, while the number of new contracts for such apartments in Queens has ballooned by 325 percent, according to numbers from Streeteasy.com.

The median listing in Manhattan increased 12.6 percent year-over-year in January of 2012, to $1.42 million from $1.26 million, according to the website’s inaugural monthly new development report covering Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, released yesterday.  [more]

Manhattan’s condominium market remained relatively flat in December, with contract volume down 2 percent for the month, compared to one year ago for the same month, and inventory down by 3.2 percent, according to Streeteasy.com’s Manhattan condo market index, released today.

Median listing prices went up 3.1 percent in Manhattan compared to a year ago, the report shows. The Upper East and Upper Manhattan markets had listing median price declines of 12.5 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively. [more]

In some of the city’s most desireable neighborhoods, prospective buyers are eschewing bargains and hedging their bets on rentals till the market returns.

In Riverdale, an affluent residential neighborhood in the northwest portion of the Bronx, listings have skyrocketed, but sales have dropped, the New York Times reported, with available properties having increased by 80 percent over two years.

In fact, it would take approximately two years for buyers to absorb the current sales inventory in Riverdale, according to data from Streeteasy.com, more than double the time it might have taken even two years ago. [more]

Dottie Herman, president
of Prudential Douglas Elliman

Though pricing indicators were mixed, the volume of Manhattan residential sales increased in the third quarter of 2011, creating an overall picture of stability in Manhattan’s residential market, according to quarterly reports issued today by the city’s largest real estate brokerages.

The market’s bright spots included an uptick in sales at the most expensive end of the market — larger or relatively high-end properties (those at $5 million and above) — as well as an overall decrease in inventory, which buoyed prices, and an influx of foreign buyers investing in condominiums, experts said.

The median sales price hardly budged since last year, dropping a mere 0.3 percent to $911,333, an increase of 7.2 percent over the previous quarter, according to a report from Prudential Douglas Elliman. As The Real Deal reported in the October issue, the number of sales rose 16.7 percent year-over-year and 17.2 percent since last quarter, hitting 3,106, the report said. [more]

National real estate listings website Redfin.com has added a free feature to its site allowing users to track the performance of individual brokers in select areas across the country such as Long Island, the New York Times reported. The tool can help sellers find agents who are active and who have had success in their specific neighborhood, said Glenn Kelman, Redfin’s CEO.

With the service using information from local multiple listing services, where agents list the home they are representing for sale, the “Scouting Report” tool provides data on roughly one million agents, he said. [more]

From left: RentJuice’s David Vivero, Noah Rosenblatt of Urbandigs and a screenshot of RentJuice

San Francisco-based online rental management company RentJuice, which launched in 2009 and expanded to New York earlier this year, has launched a new Facebook-inspired feature.
The RentJuice Directory offers real estate pros the ability to browse and search for other real estate companies in their area, establish new partnerships, and send and receive a continual stream of rental listings, via one dashboard, the company said.
Sharing rental listings has always been tricky, with new property listings coming from various different sources, including big-money brokerages as well small, independent real estate firms. Sites such as listings and real estate information site Streeteasy.com and Brooklyn’s Multiple Listings Service,have made strides in bringing all the listings to one place, but the battle is never completely won.
While the majority of brokers say they embrace the market’s ever-growing transparency, some have responded by becoming less willing to share information than before. Hoping to give themselves an advantage in the market, some brokers hang on to listings and keep stum. [more]