Any positive data out there?

you've said it all.

Some of your points are irrelevant.
1) Wall street bonuses spent or invested?? Where exactly did ppl put the 24 billion in bonuses in the past 3 months?
2) fed rates not likely to decrease anytime soon => Rents will rise.

The Jan-Mar manhattan numbers are going to be strong. Go out and see and open house and you'll see how much activity there is.

WALL STREET BONUSES...you talk like there are 1,000,000 wall street people with millions to spend. There are a limited number of people on wall street and they bought their apts.

re comment #3 i think there's correlation between NYC sales activity in Q1 each year with annual bonus payments.
Open houses seem reasonably busy at the start but it seems unclear how many are being sold versus withdrawn from the market to rent or wait for better times

ok wall street, lawyers, hedge funds, rich foreigners playing the dollar, DINK's (Dual income no kids), etc. etc. etc. You're playing ball in a different league.

I love how so many people keep saying they are relocating to NYC... few leaving. Hmm. I wonder if rents will rise.

#3 sounds exactly like a real estate agent. I called an agent...I said hello and she said "i've been working 14 hours a day, of course that's bad for buyers so you are going to have to make a decision quickly" HYPE, THEY HAVE IT DOWN PAT

I'm not a broker, I'm an owner that'll be raising your rent.

brokers are lyers

i just moved from florida and the market is terrible because sellers refuse to lower their prices and buyers refuse to pay...it'll be interesting if that happens in new york. Unfortunately that will mean rentals will go up.

#11, you're 100% right i think. Sellers will try to hold on. Those that can't will have to sell, maybe for a discount. The key is demand... the fact that #1 is moving here says that NYC is still going and rents will rise.

#8... I believe you! 14 hours? a bunch of bs... 1. most firms have a centralized database run by OLR (Online Residential - www.olr.com). All of their listings are there. 2. So many sales properties have been steady over the past 6 weeks without any changes. 3. If you do an advance search, most listings have been at least 8 weeks in the market. 4. if you look at the history of 70% of brokers out there, they are either struggling actors, singers, or deadbeats. There's over 30,000 licensed brokers in New York City alone. 5. most agencies trained their brokers to exert an "urgency" to sell or rent a property. This is their motto to reinforce an image of the market is swift, tight, and unstable. The rental season hasn't begun. It usually begins mid-April when university students (NYU, CUNY, etc) are looking to find off campus housing to save a few $$$. If they are talking about sales, there's always going to be spectators at open houses from nosey neighbors to deadbeats with nothing better to do and my favorites are potential low-life thiefs. There will always be, however, real buyers out there but they already have a mindset of what they want in an apartment. I went "window shopping" for a little over 7 months to find my perfect apartment.

I have been to a number of 2BR open houses recently - MH, Gramercy, Flatiron - and been the only one there or among one or two other couples while visiting. So I'm not interested in current comps. Let's start at 10% lower...to start.

#13 ...and clearly you haven't bought because you think you can flip a house/apt like a stock. #14, you've probably been saying that for 5 yrs. Oops.

>> The rental season hasn’t begun. It usually begins mid-April when university students (NYU, CUNY, etc) are looking to find off campus housing to save a few $$$.

So a whole flood of students using their parents money will do what to the rental market? Make it cheaper?

I have a theory that these naysayers are actually speculators hoping to come in and try to flip on a dip...

Sometimes this board cracks me up. People formulate (in this case clearly thought out and intelligent) questions about the market, yet make the disdain they feel for broker's input clear. Not to mention that any poster who states anything about the market indicating its strenth is labeled a real estate broker (and thus disregarded).Truthfully, not all brokers just hype the market as you say. Many of us have been expressing trpidation over the last year or so. The atumn was qite flat, but since the start of the new year there has indeed been a huge amount of activity--and not just lookers. Many things have jumped off the market. Do I think the frenzy will continue? No, I think it will level off pretty soon. Do I think the market will crash? No I don't think that either.But I just wonder at the logic of intending to disregard anything stated by a real estate broker as hype. Seems an odd way to get a truly informed picture

broker alert!!

The problem with brokers is they all have the same pat lines...market is tight make a decision quickly..what idiot (no matter how much money they have) is going to make a quick decision on a $700k + purchase.

#14 I agree with this posting. I have been to numerous Open Houses over the past few weeks and turnout is 2-5 sign-ins after one hour of showing. Prices need to start 10-15% lower. Also, if you track apartments in MH, FL, GP from initial listing to final sale price the average decreae is 13%. Just my two cents.

Well, I'm focused primarily on new developments in East Village. One Avene B, OneTenThird, A Building. They've all basically sold out (under 1mil units) before I even had a chance to look. Uhm, so what was that you were saying about the market?

#22...the new developments in the East Village are NOT sold out...reality check

#20, they say that because they know you're not a real buyer.

23 and 24: Typical responses. Check the records for a sub-million dollar property at OneTenThird. And I am a real buyer, move into my new place early April.

#21, interesting point about final sales prices...but understand that there is a time lag btw when they sign the contract/places are sold and when they are posted; when I started looking this fall there was lots of room for negotiation because sellers were expecting to get 20%. higher than last year's price.

The market has adjusted since then and what I've been finding as a buyer is that in many areas prices have already adjusted and that unless there's something quirky about the place (far walk from the subway, bad building financials) it'll sell if it's priced right.

And I am NOT a broker.

I just sold my place at a 3% discount off list which was a 40% increase from 2005 when I purchased (tribeca loft). do the math -- the market is still very strong for the right properties, and generally always will be. momentary dips notwithstanding. not a broker, a homeowner that has bought and sold over the last 10 years and alwas done well. tyhey key is to buy right -- which means buy in the best neighborhoods, the most expensive place you can afford and love what you buy. investing in real estate fir investment sake in a "hot, emerging" neighborhood is the purvue of broker profits -- not yours.

#27 are you buying now with your proceeds

this is #27 and yes I am buying in Tribeca; larger space, more amenities

Good news! No Fed increases on horizon! Hehe I called it on the other thread. Broker/owner haters are cursing!

#30, what the Fed says doesn't matter anymore in this current market - market is still trending downward from ridiculous valuations.. ARMs are still going to adjust upward over the next 12-18 months putting the hurt on people who bought more house than they really could afford. Buyers sit tight and wait another 12-18 months, and you'll be rewarded with a 10-20% discount.

... is there an echo? I've been hearing that for like five years....

Ummm... #31 If fed cuts rate then mortgage rates should go down. Prices go up. If you locked an arm and rates go down, that's good, you can stay longer because your rate's not going up (duh) or refinance. If you did get hit with an ARM increase of let say one percent, that might be a $300 increase on a $3300 mortgage payment. That's the same as the rent increase you'll see this summer, putting the same hurt on you.