"Spring RE Season a Bust" - says Coldwell

I think the lack of "move-up" buyers is a direct result of a lot of the sellers of the "up" property not being realistic with their selling prices yet.

alpine says this is good news for sellers.

Like him in nj

it will be good news...when they start dropping their prices and meet what the market will bear. until then they will sit.

So the Spring is usually the busiest time for real estate? I would've thought Summer since more people have time off to shop, interesting.

spring it is. people are couped (or is it 'cooped') up all winter, the flowers bloom and the sun comes out and they pound the pavement looking to start anew. summer is filled with family holidays, camps and hot weather. people don't want to work...and looking for a home is work.

The busiest sales season is said to end at Memorial Day. I think it was 30yrs who recently pointed out that only the brokers who saw some uptick were out there talking about it (loudly), while the many brokers who were getting killed kept mum for obvious reasons. I'm sure the market looked better than the deadness of winter, but once all the numbers are out I think we'll see that Spring was bad YOY.

Yes I too am curious to see the NYC sales for the 2nd quarter. Thanks for your replies guys.

but, but, SteveF said there would be a buying frenzy...

And to this, the country is still 1-2 years AHEAD of NYC.

Spring is happening late this year, i.e. now -- I have one accepted offer after a bidding war, and I'm backing-and-forthing with buyers over another offer. This after five months of being in the deep freeze.

Volume is still down tremendously -- I'd say on the order of 50% from 2008 -- but I bet 2Q 2009 in NYC looks better than 1Q.

Third Q is usually slow, but I bet we'll still see some activity from first-timers trying to grab the $8K credit.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Ali, was the bidding war on an exceptional property?

Everyone, this slow spring is great news for alpine. I feel bad for him if he ever sells his house in New Jersey ... he'll be homeless.

Ali, 1Q 2009 was more or less Armaggeddon, with historic lows in the Dow and imminent fears of a systemic bank collapse. Now that we've kicked the can forward with TARP and etc. we could do better than just bettering Q1, couldn't we?

> Volume is still down tremendously -- I'd say on the order of 50% from 2008

50% down isn't that far off from the worst Miller Samuel numbers since the crisis.

I wonder how this compares to declines in other declines...

oh man, how did I miss this..

50% down is the new up!

back_porch... you can do better than that. The last time that I was "in the mkt" nothing but the most ridiculous stuff flew out the window (how easily we forget). The unit I bid on went "live" 6 hours before the first bid.... so I appreciate where you are coming from.. but....

When in July will the 2nd Q numbers be released?

I think Miller Samuel releases 2Q data in the first week of July - much quicker than I would have expected. Maybe second week given the holiday.

Have any of you perused the new Hamptons section? Its seems like they are still looking for $900k for 1600 sqft houses out there. Meanwhile, there are 150 houses under a million for sale in Westport. Hamptons are still in dreamland.

Yeah obviously some are still in deep denial. They remind me of the people who continue to insist that going into Iraq will be George W's swan song. No matter how much proof you show them to the contrary, they just refuse to acknowledge facts.

Here's another article I just read that discusses how the economic downturn is affecting the financial district.
http://www.ny1.com/content/special_reports/recession_hits_home/100995/-i-manhattan---i--downturn-leaves-familiar-imprint-on-financial-district/Default.aspx

prices and volume are different things -- I'm not out there claiming that prices are not down; they're down by an average of 25% from peak.

However, I work the Village/Flatiron, and in the past two months we have seen volume come up -- oddly -- in the form of bidding wars coming up on properties -- little flares of activity.

What these properties all have in common is that they are "starters" -- lower-priced one-bedrooms -- and so it's hard not to believe that the $8K offer from the Feds isn't affecting that market.

I would say that these properties are entirely UNexceptional, except in terms of condition. (One that was not my listing moved despite being on a fairly loud street). The buyer who is taking action is a Pottery Barn buyer who likes new kitchen appliances and fresh paint.

If you are a potential buyer looking for a bargain in this market, I would buy something that needs a little work, because the competition doesn't seem to be able to see past that.

My anecdote here is the cash-rich buyers who didn't like a listing of mine because they thought updating bathrooms from 2001, taking up carpet, and opening a kitchen to the living room would be "too much work."

For those of you who are not renovators, that work would have taken three months at most, and would have cost just 4 percent of the price of the apartment.

Buyers are instead paying -- possibly overpaying -- for the convenience of move-in condition.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

would you care to share real numbers with us re: "in the past two months, we have seen volume come up?"