Multi-family sales lag in the Village

While sales of Manhattan multi-family properties have ballooned this year, transaction volume in the Village is struggling to keep up, Eastern Consolidated analysts told Crain’s. In both the East and West Villages, apartment building landlords are seemingly reluctant to put their properties on the market — perhaps for good reason. Whereas the average price per square foot in Village multi-family buildings has risen 5 percent over the past five years, some of that value has depreciated since 2009, with prices plummeting to $491 per square foot this year from $563 the year before. The price drop coincides with a sluggish sales market compared to the rest of the borough. In Manhattan, there were $2.7 billion in sales of multi-family properties during the first three quarters of 2010, already far surpassing the $1.4 billion in all of 2009. But in the Village, just $116 million worth of multi-family properties sold in the first three quarters this year, compared with $138 million in all of 2009. [Crain’s]