The Manhattan residential market may have cooled, but it’s a different story in Brooklyn and Queens.
Prices in Brooklyn have been steadily rising for years. But the third quarter of 2016 saw a bevy of records in almost every corner of the market in the borough, according to Douglas Elliman’s latest report. The median sales price for the third quarter in 2016 hit a record at $735,000 — a rise of nearly 9 percent year-over-year. The number of sales in the quarter also jumped nearly 16 percent to 2,741.
It’s confirmation that Brooklyn continues to be a hive of activity — while Manhattan has gone from a market that’s “white hot” to merely “above average,” said Jonathan Miller [TRDataCustom], the author of the Elliman report and CEO of Miller Samuel Real Estate.
Price records have been set in previous quarters, but, according to Miller, it is unusual for records to be so widespread in a single quarter. The records were for all-time median sales “across all properties types — condos, co-ops, one-to-two families and luxury,” he said.
The median price of condos in the quarter was $812,008 and the median price of co-ops was $428,000. New development condo prices climbed 27 percent year-over-year to $778,452.
But despite a “tight and fast-moving market,” Miller said buyers can still be picky about the price they pay. The number of days properties sat on the market has risen by 47 percent to an average of 81 days. Additionally, listing discounts for the last quarter was less than zero percent. Both figures indicate buyers are still cautious.
“When marketing times expand that usually means buyers aren’t willing to pay aspirational prices,” he said. “Buyers are only willing to pay so much now – and that tells me we might see some easing of this white-hot market in coming quarters.”
A separate third-quarter report from the Corcoran Group found the median sales price in the borough for the third quarter hit an eight-year high.
“Brooklyn market-wide sales were very active as Brooklyn continued to experience high buyer interest for properties across the borough,” said Frank Percesepe, executive vice president for Brooklyn and East End sales at Corcoran.
Queens — a borough increasingly taking the overflow from people priced out of Brooklyn — also saw records in the past quarter, according to the Douglas Elliman report. The median sales price was $499,000, an 11 percent rise year-over-year. The number of sales rose 3 percent to 3,751, and listing inventory fell by 18 percent.
The rental market in all three boroughs continues to be flat, according to the Elliman report. Median rent in Manhattan slipped slightly the second time in 2016 to $3,396 — while Brooklyn’s median rose slightly to $2,949. In Queens, the median dropped by more than 5 percent to $2,787. In both Manhattan and Brooklyn, landlords have increasingly offering concessions in order to lure tenants.
A Citi Habitats report that examined rents over the third quarter found that rents were a “mixed bag, but most recently have been trending downward.”