Bad to worse: Manhattan nabes where home sales fell most

Midtown, Upper East Side, Hudson Yards suffered the largest drops

Lincoln Center, Hudson Yards and Financial District (Wikimedia, iStock)

Coronavirus has cost Manhattan’s residential market billions.

Sales of condos and co-ops last quarter declined by $2.4 billion from the first quarter, according to an analysis by The Real Deal of data from OLR. The drop from a year ago was over 70 percent, or $6.3 billion.

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Of the $2.56 billion in sales that closed in the borough while the city was in Covid lockdown, the vast majority of transactions were under $1.5 million. Deals over $5 million saw the biggest drop — by nearly half from a year earlier.

To quantify where the selling season was most crippled by the pandemic, TRD broke down sales by neighborhood.

The steepest decline in sales volume from the first quarter to the second occurred in Midtown East: 92 percent. Hudson Yards was second worst with an 85 percent drop. Hamilton Heights and the Financial District were the only areas in the borough to enjoy a quarterly increase — 3.5 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

By dollar volume, the quarterly decline was more dramatic on the Upper East Side and in Greenwich Village and Midtown East.

The Upper East Side’s falloff was $432 million, from $852 million in the first quarter to $419 million in the second. In Greenwich Village, the drop was $235 million, and in Midtown East, $228 million.

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The Financial District managed a $5.7 million increase in sales, while Hamilton Heights eked out a $325,000 quarter-over-quarter gain.

Comparing this spring’s sales volume to the same period in 2019 reveals a stark picture.

The Upper East Side sustained the biggest decline by dollar amount — $1.3 billion, or 75 percent, from $1.7 billion the year before.

Tribeca’s sales fell to a mere $172 million from about $780 million during the same period last year. The Upper West Side story was much the same: $160 million sales during Q2, compared with $763 million in 2019.

By percentage, however, Hudson Yards and Midtown East fared the worst.

Related Companies’ new district of glassy condos saw sales fall 97 percent to $7 million from $269 million the previous year. Midtown East sales volume of $19 million was down 93 percent.

Lincoln Square was the only neighborhood that saw year-over-year growth. Sales volume grew by 14 percent to about $360 million from $314 million last year. That appeared to be driven by closings at a spate of new developments, plus a handful of big deals at the Time Warner Center. They include the $23 million sale of accused Malaysian fraudster Jho Low’s former penthouse and cardiologist Dr. Joseph Levine’s sale of a $32 million unit.

Write to Erin Hudson at ekh@therealdeal.com