Manhattan Apartment Sales Slow as Buyers See No Need

Purchases were down 3.8% compared with the same period last year, to just 2,650, according to a report by New York appraiser, Miller Samuel Inc. and brokers Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The median price of condominiums and co-ops has fallen by 5.5% to $850,000.

This effect is at least partially due to the lack of any federal tax credit, as last year buyers were in a hurry to close deals before June 30th, which is when the federal tax credit expired. This credit was worth up to $8,000, and it artificially inflated sale prices and volumes.

Jonathan Miller feels that the sales prices and volumes for the second quarter are about average, and are what could have reasonably been expected last year had there not been any tax credit available.

Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of The Corcoran Group says “People don’t feel as though prices are going down, but there’s not this overwhelming feeling that prices are increasing by the day. People feel that they can wait a bit to find out what they want.”

The unemployment rate in New York is currently at a 25 month low, at 8.6% in May, which is 1% less than a year ago. The financial industry in New York registered a gain of 10,400 jobs from May 2010 to May 2011.

Reports issued today on the Manhattan apartment market showed mixed results for sales and values in the second quarter. Corcoran Group said purchases of condos and co-ops declined 14 percent from a year earlier to 3,180. The median price of units that changed hands climbed 6 percent to $830,000.

StreetEasy.com, a service that compiles broker listings, said the median price increased 7.8 percent to $810,000, while completed deals fell 12 percent. Brokerage Brown Harris Stevens and its sister firm, Halstead Property LLC, reported a median price of $835,000, a 1 percent drop from 2010.

"My opinion of prices throughout the market is they're not going up and they're not going down," said Hall Willkie, president of New York-based Brown Harris Stevens. "Buyers are buying but they are very price-sensitive. The confidence that real estate is going to be worth more tomorrow is not that common. It's very possible that in the immediate future prices will remain flat."

'Even Playing Field'

For Lindsay Luppino and her parents, this spring was as good as any time to make a purchase.

"They wanted to buy because the market is on its way back up," said Luppino, 29, a musical-theater performer whose parents bought her a one-bedroom co-op in April.

We have a lot of investments in stocks at the moment, so we thought it'd be good to invest where it's low," said Sarah Bengzon, 42, a quality director for technology consulting company Accenture Plc. "The rates were great, the housing prices were great. We'd been looking a while for where we could put our money."

One, Two Bedrooms

Two-bedroom apartments comprised 38 percent of all properties that sold in the quarter, according to Miller Samuel and Prudential. The median price rose 5 percent to $1.31 million from a year earlier. One-bedrooms accounted for 36 percent of sales, with the median price dropping 1.8 percent to $627,500.

The median price of three-bedrooms climbed 20 percent to $3.1 million, while apartments with four or more bedrooms climbed 18 percent to $5.5 million.

On the Upper East Side, the median price of existing co-ops climbed 3 percent to $840,000 from a year earlier, according to Corcoran. Condo prices in the neighborhood rose 12 percent to 1.2 million. On the Upper West Side, the median price of co-op resales climbed 7 percent to $772,000, while condo resale prices fell 14 percent to $898,000.