NYT - What is a Residential "Sale"?

Are you looking for journalistic integrity from the New York Times?

"We always thought the transactions listed here were kind of odd (close to asking price, not on the market for very long etc.)" - not odd at all when you consider that the RE section of the Times is a commercial undertaking, not a journalistic one.

maybe it includes listings in contract and not closed?

could also be a closed property that simply hasn't hit city records yet. always some lag.

I think mdb is right -- some sales don't get filed for a while (for myriad reasons unknown to me) or get filed in a way that is hard to track on ACRIS or StreetEasy (ditto). I have seen closed sales that I could find on one or the other of Property Shark or StreetEasy but not both. No idea why, but I take it as just one more proof of how screwed up Manhattan data is.

I am pretty sure that NYT gets the data about "closed sales" from brokerage firms (a practice dating back to before coop sales were otherwise "public"). Sometimes it is obvious that the info came from the buyer broker firm (because the exclusive selling firm is not identified). I don't see the incentive for a seller falsely claiming that a specific apartment sold (misrepresenting more general info, a la "60% sold" is a different can of worms; I am not taking a position on that here). Internally, we show 4 units at 60 Beach as Sold & Closed. NO IDEA why they haven't hit public databases yet, but that source seems credible. Your BS meter may be set at a different level than mine, of course.

Downtownster, we just had an appraisal dome for a Tribeca apartment and they use 2 units from 60 beach as comps, along with their closing dates from late May, perhaps they have just not yet hit Acris, sometimes there is up to a 30 day delay for things to post.