Bubble Wrap: January 2006

A rough ride predicted for the National RE market

BusinessWeek says Fasten Your Seat Belts in ‘06 where they compare the current national real estate market with the tech sector during dot-com boom times. Explaining that more of our economy is now going to housing than tech at its peak: “The housing bubble is now officially bigger than the tech bubble ever was” and describe the run-up in home-building stocks.

No surprises in end-of-year sales reports

As widely predicted, the end-of-year sales reports from several brokers show prices remain high, but that sales volume has slowed for NYC co-op and condos, according WSJ’s RealEstateJournal. Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel (who authored the report from Prudential Douglas Elliman) describes it as “a pause” and says that we’re just back to usual [low] inventory, as opposed to the “unusally low inventory” of recent years.

New Times Square Lux Condo 80% Sold in 90 days

Sherwood Equities, the developer of 1600 Broadway on the Square announced today that the “the first residential condominium in Times Square” is more than 80% sold in just 90 days.

1600 Broadway will be ready for occupancy in Spring 2006.

The exclusive marketing and sales agent is The Marketing Directors. For more information visit the property site

Q4 Manhattan Coop/Condo sales numbers expected to be lower

The “Walk-Through” real estate blog at the New York Times is predicting that soon-to-be-released sales numbers for the fourth quarter Manhattan coop and condo sales, are likely to show the lowest annual increase in the average apartment price in the last two years. They end by asking the same question on many people’s minds: “will a tide of Wall Street bonus money push the market back toward new highs in the coming months?”