Halstead Property

Diane M. Ramirez
President
dramirez@halstead.com
(212) 381-3203

Manhattan Market Healthy But Inventory S Up According To Report

The median price of a Manhattan apartment hit $979,000 during the second quarter of this year, up from $795,000 in the same period in 2007, according to a report out today from Halstead Property, a New York brokerage. The median sale price went up in all neighborhoods Halstead examined — except one pocket of the Upper East Side. The median price of apartments on 80th-96th St. between 5th Ave. and Lexington Ave., dropped from $1.48 million to $1.47 million.

The Manhattan market is “healthy,” says Diane Ramirez, Halstead’s president, but “we have to be cautiously optimistic,” considering the housing market overall and what’s happening on Wall Street.

Ms. Ramirez says that the Manhattan market has seen a slight rise in inventory — to just under 10,000 units, which is about a ten-month supply. In 2007 she says inventory was just a little below 7,500. She hastens to add that building permit numbers in New York are down dramatically — in part this is due to the difficulty of obtaining financing these days and to a change in the tax abatement law that’s about to go into effect. In other words, inventory won’t be rising much more.

There is some good news for New Yorkers who have been waiting out the housing boom and hoping prices would fall with Wall Street’s fortunes. Ms. Ramirez says that the market is a “bit more hesistant” — meaning that buyers have more room to negotiate prices and more time to make a decision. And, for those looking across the river — Ms. Ramirez says that Brooklyn is “definitely more challenged.” As the NY Times recently reported, sales are down in the borough and many new condos are being converted to rentals

Wednesday, July 02, 2008