Amidst the already well-populated field of New York City real estate market reports, two of the most well respected Web sites for residential market data — Streeteasy and Property Shark — entered the fray at the end of the second quarter.
Property Shark has teamed up with Corcoran to help widen the scope of research for the brokerage, which has been publishing its own report for about a decade. Meanwhile, Streeteasy has published a market report by itself.
Property Shark contributed data to the condo and co-op sections of the company’s most recent report, while leaving analysis of the townhouse market to Corcoran.
Recorded sales from the public database ACRIS were collected by Property Shark, which checked them against the RealPlus Online Listings Exchange (ROLEX), a shared listing database that is the closest thing New York City has to a Multiple Listing Service, and which has historically served as the chief source of sales information for brokerages’ market reports in the city, according to Property Shark founder Matthew Haines.
Haines claims that with the combination of sources, the two companies found more sales transactions than any other market researcher in the second quarter.
Another interesting aspect of the Property Shark-prepared Corcoran report: The new residential development data was broken out from resales data to dispel the myth that new, high-priced projects hitting the market are inflating the average sales price. “We found out that existing condo prices are holding steady on their own,” Haines said.
Streeteasy, meanwhile, says it stands out as the only Manhattan residential market report preparer that is independent of a brokerage. Sofia Kim, vice president of research, says that this relieves the company’s researchers from a conflict of interest, allowing for an honest view of the market.
“There’s always some skepticism by readers that [brokerage-prepared] market reports are providing a very sunny view of the market because brokers have kind of an agenda,” Kim said. “We don’t have an agenda. We just want to provide a transparent view for our readers.”