From the September issue: In the annals of residential real estate, the dog days of summer are never a good time to sell an apartment. So it’s not surprising that fewer than 1,000 Manhattan units were listed in the week before Labor Day. But in reality, more than 3,000 were actually for sale, representing a cohort of apartments known as “shadow listings” that were removed from the market during the slow spell of late summer.
According to analytics site UrbanDigs.com, there were 3,534 shadow Manhattan listings in mid-August — up 67.5 percent year-over-year. That indicates that sellers may finally be adjusting to a market where buyers hold the cards, said John Walkup, the chief operating officer at UrbanDigs. [more]