Prices for Manhattan apartments dropped in July from June, though it’s too soon to claim the island’s rife with bargains. July marked at least the 18th consecutive month that the average sales price of a Manhattan apartment stayed above $1 million, according to market reports.
The dip in prices hasn’t pulled buyers back into the market; the inventory of unsold Manhattan apartments remains high. Sellers accustomed to properties spending little time on the market now face buyers willing to wait, say brokers across the pricing spectrum.
“A lot of people are sitting out there, and they’re basically thinking, ‘Prices are going down,'” said Joey La Penna, a broker with Triumph Partners.
The median sales price for a Manhattan apartment dropped to $747,750, a 6.4 percent slip from June to July, according to Halstead Property. The average sales price also dropped month over month, from $1,309,044 in June to $1,151,793 in July. Although gauging the Manhattan market month by month is difficult, the Halstead numbers gel with other numbers that show a market this summer continuing to ease off the record pace of 2005.
The second quarter of last year was the first time the average sales price hit more than $1.3 million, according to appraiser Miller Samuel. The median sales price went above $700,000 in the first quarter of 2005. Sales, too, were up in Manhattan, with as many as 2,181 deals closed in the second quarter of last year, Miller Samuel reported.
No longer.
The number of Manhattan apartment sales in the quarter ending June 30 dropped 3.5 percent from the first quarter to 1,934, according to Miller Samuel. Inventory on the island expanded 10.7 percent quarter over quarter to 7,640 units. The number of days it takes to sell an apartment rose to an average of 144 days in the second quarter, up nearly a week from the first three months of 2006.
More than one broker is feeling the pinch of this slowdown.
Shai Shustik, founder and CEO of brokerage Manhattan Residential, represented the seller of a loft condo at 90 Prince Street in Soho. The seller got offers during the loft’s first week on the market in January, and turned down each one, assuming — understandably so, at the time — that ever-pricier offers would roll in for a home in such a prime neighborhood.
The next offer didn’t come for six months. The loft sold this summer, after sitting on the market throughout the winter and the spring, for $1,250 a square foot
This was above the median average sales price per foot for a Manhattan condo. Halstead placed that median at $987 in July for prewar condos and $1,061 for postwar condos; both of these represented slight increases over the June medians per foot of $980 and $1,034, respectively. The Miller Samuel second-quarter report put the average sales price per foot for all Manhattan apartments at $1,083; it has stayed above $1,000 since late 2005.
As the market girds for autumn, brokers remain hopeful about a turnaround. Darren Sukenik, a Prudential Douglas Elliman broker specializing in Downtown luxury sales, told The Real Deal in early August that he anticipates “literally, a stadium of buyers,” who have been waiting for signs of price declines.
Even if there’s a seasonal sales pickup, the end of 2006 is likely going to look meager because of the time it takes between signing a contract and closing the deal. Adrienne Albert, president of development marketing firm the Marketing Directors, said her firm had a flurry of sales in late August, normally a sleepy time for the Manhattan market. Those deals will reach the public in a few months.
Until then, the media drips with the storyline of the slowdown, one only bolstered by the July price declines; and prospective buyers, brokers say, continue to wait.
Or, they take other steps, said Triumph’s La Penna: “I’ve gotten a lot more people looking into Brooklyn.”