Outside Manhattan, properties sell faster

In the world of New York City real estate, it’s well known that Manhattan has the highest prices and the record deals. What is not so well known is that Manhattan’s properties don’t sell the fastest.

Properties in Staten Island, Queens and Long Island sell faster on average than in Manhattan.

Manhattan apartments sat on the market an average of 150 days during the third quarter of last year, compared to 133 days during the same period in 2005, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

Manhattan wasn’t the slowest place to sell a property, however.

In Brooklyn, the recent boom pushed up costs, and the borough now sees the longest waits before real estate changes hands. The Brooklyn Board of Realtors estimated that for the third quarter of last year, the average number of days on the market was 171, down from 227 days in 2005.

On Staten Island, homes move more quickly. Single-family properties spent, on average, 108 days on the market in the third quarter, according to the Staten Island Board of Realtors, up from the 93-day average the year before.

Sandy Krueger, CEO of the Staten Island board, said the increase reflected a nationwide real estate slowdown.

“There are 15 to 20 percent more properties on the market than a year ago,” he said. “Properties weren’t selling as quickly as fewer inventories came off the market.”

Comparing Staten Island’s real estate market to Manhattan’s, Krueger said Manhattan’s higher-priced properties take longer to sell because the market for higher-priced properties is smaller. As for Staten Island, “We are the most affordable borough in the city,” Krueger said.

According to the Long Island Board of Realtors, Queens is home to the fastest-moving market in the city. The average number of days on the market in the third quarter of last year was 80, versus 64 the year before.

Buddy Hussein, a broker at Wally Realty in Hollis, said the average number of days on the market in his borough are “lower than everywhere else because people from the Bronx, Brooklyn and everywhere else in the city are moving to Queens. Queens people are selling and moving to other places.”

Next to Queens is Long Island, where properties also move faster than Manhattan. It took an average of 80 days to sell a home in Nassau County during the third quarter, up 14 days from the year before, and 88 days in Suffolk County, up 17 days from the prior year, according to Miller Samuel, which just started putting out a quarterly report covering Long Island and Queens.

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Appraiser Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel has written about this subject on his blog.

“One lesson in all this is that real estate is local,” Miller wrote, adding that he wondered if the time it takes to go to contract plays a role in the way a property is sold.

Rich Schulhoff, executive officer of the Brooklyn Board of Realtors, said methods for determining days on the market can vary. In Brooklyn, the average days are determined by counting the days a property is listed on a multiple listings service to the closing date. Other realty boards tally the days on market to the date the contract is signed.

Schulhoff, who uses the date of closing as his end date, said it can take another four to six weeks between contract signing and closing, which might explain why Brooklyn’s numbers are higher than in Manhattan.

But an explanation for Brooklyn’s decreasing average time on market as other areas increased may be a function of market trends, he said. The recent decrease in real estate prices prompted Brooklyn buyers to move, he suggested. “Once the prices started to drop, people started buying,” he said.

In the Bronx, the average number of days on the market was 161 for the third quarter of last year, compared to 143 in 2005, according to the Bronx-Manhattan North Association of Realtors, a figure slightly higher than in Manhattan.

George Bookis, a Bronx broker at Aztec Realty, attributes the rise to record high prices. “If days on the market are increasing, nine times out of 10 it’s because of the price.”

As far as price, it’s no surprise Manhattan still leads everywhere else, even if prices are coming down. Miller Samuel calculated the average sales price for a Manhattan apartment at $1.29 million during the third quarter, down 7 percent from $1.39 million the quarter before.

The average sales price for a Brooklyn home was $614,000 in the third quarter, according to a report by the Corcoran Group.

Queens was next with an average price of $499,400, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Bronx homes sold for an average of $450,000 in the third quarter, according the Bronx-Manhattan North Association of Realtors.

Farthest down the list, Staten Island single-family homes were selling at an average of $385,000 in the third quarter, according to the Staten Island Board of Realtors.

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