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New York

Residential real estate need not fear de Blasio: Pam Liebman

Pamela Liebman
Pamela Liebman

Though 2013 may have been a mixed year for Corporate America, it sure was a bumper year for the New York City’s residential real estate market. And while commercial real estate execs might fear the next mayoral administration, their counterparts on the residential side expect the momentum of the market to continue under the new mayor, according to some of the real estate’s most high-profile players.

“Why would anyone want to turn such a successful ship around?” asked Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group, referring to incoming mayor Bill de Blasio and worries that his administration would hurt soaring sales. “We had the lowest inventory on record, yet we did our highest volume of sales,” Liebman told the New York Post. “I can’t really explain that, by the way.” Miller Samuel’s Jonathan Miller said the jump in activity was propelled by low interest rates.

“We had many people who were sitting on the fence who jumped in worried that they would miss out — it was the busiest summer on record,” Miller told the Post. Indeed, the year saw prices rising to the heady levels seen at the peak of the real estate boom, especially in high-profile new developments such as Alexico Group’s 56 Leonard and Jared Kushner’s Puck Building penthouses.

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Even in less tony neighborhoods such as NoMad, prices at buildings such as Witkoff Group’s 10 Madison Square West hit north of $2,900 per square foot, according to the newspaper.

However, in contrast to the boom years, properties that were thought of as unreasonably high-priced did languish on the market in 2013, Warburg Realty’s president Frederick Peters told the Post.

“One of the ways that today’s market is substantially different than 2007 is that buyers today are both enthusiastic and cautious.” Peters said. “Buyers may fling themselves into a competitive bidding situation for a property they perceive as well-valued or undervalued, but they’ll stay away from something they perceive as too expensive.” [NYP] – Hiten Samtani

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