Uber-wealthy drive top of market to new heights, but $5M to $20M segment lags

“$80 million is the new $20 million,” Kirk Henckels, Stribling & Associates’ director of private brokerage, told the Wall Street Journal. The upper-most echelon of New York City residential real estate is reaching heights never broached by the pre-recession market, the Journal said.

According to numbers from Stribling, the record sale price was about $6,000 a square foot in 2008, and has now reached more than $10,000 a square foot.

“The uber-rich have finally unleashed the liquidity that was well known to exist,” Henckels, told the Journal. “Clearly they are no longer embarrassed to show their wealth.”

Meanwhile the middle of the market — the $5 million to $20 million range, in this case — has been left behind, Henckels said. There were 388 sales in the $5 million area this year through August, Stribling’s numbers show, down 7.4 percent year-over-year. [WSJ] — Guelda Voien