little red arrows and little bitter renters

LOL- obviously u didn't read the data? appreciation is SLOWING.. the trend is DOWN yoy... at the current rate of price appreciation DECELERATION, manhattan will soon be in negative territory along with the rest of the country...

and BEFORE you start spinning the data ala Lereah or Yun style, the creator of that chart, Jonathan himself comments:

"Not expecting this level of activity to continue in the second half of the year though so the edge will be taken off the gains achieved in first half. Phew."

Aiiight? btw... not all renters are bitter! LOL.

Decelerating price appreciation does not necessarily lead to price reductions. It just means "the edge [sharp appreciation rate] will be taken off the gains." Not hard dollars.

I am a renter paying $2700 for a small (very small) one bedroom...Of course it's better to buy.

#3, you are correct that it does not NECESSARILY lead to price reductions. However, the fact is that the price appreciation TREND is going DOWN, and IF it continues on its current path, then price reductions will occur.

LOL #2 - guess my property went up 16% last year, and it only went up ANOTHER 12% this year!! Boy, if that's the 'downside,' I'll LOL all the way to the frickin' bank!!!!

Gee whiz, maybe some depreciation will occur AGAIN at the end of this year, and I'll only be up ANOTHER 8% for the next year!!!

Aiiight?

Not all renters are bitter, I actually like renting because you don't have to maintain anything, just call the super!

ROTFLOL #6

Good for you! DID I ever say that nominal prices are falling? NO! Durh.... glad you proved your point about how much increases you've 'earned' recently. More power to you.

Now, back to what I DID SAY... at the current rate, it's DECREASING. Ceteris paribus, if it CONTINUES TO DECREASE, the nominal 'income' you've 'earned' will continue to diminish until it goes into negative territory.

Take that shrinking YoY income and LOL that all the way to the bank!

Don't give me this "but... but.... it's increasing still..." argument. Look at the TREND to see what may happen in the future Einstein, smell me?

*sigh* what a jayprox...

blah blah blah over and over, again and again this arguement.
You'll still need a place to live... if this is the place for you for the next 5+ years (and particularly if you have a family), then buy. If not, then rent.
A lot of my friends were unsure (and single) year after year... now 10 years later... oops. They missed the ride and now can't afford it.

Everyone keeps saying their apartment went up 12,25% etc....if you're not selling what is the point. If you pay $800k for a one bedroom and sell it in 10 years you are probably in big trouble.

LOL nobody know where the markets will go. If NYC continues to prosper and if inflation continues to go up, then that 800k 1BR will be 1.5M in 10 years. It'll cost $10 for milk also.

#6---- you only realize profit on your apartment when you sell it, at which point you have to net out the transaction costs which in this town are lofty. Folks who bought in last year and this, in the short term, will get hit. long term is real estate's friend right now. short term is its enemy in this town. And S&P beat you price appreciation last year, slick. And a chimpanzee could invest in the S&P.

btw, #13 here again, I sold out of my apartment in Q1 and pocketed tax free money. Now I rent and am fairly glad I did so.

#13 - sold my last place FSBO - broker cost? 0% Additional selling costs? Nominal. And the first $500,00 was TAX FREE INCOME, thank you very much. That KILlS the S&P on an after tax basis.

#8 - oh yeah it's decreasing - so what? 20% up the first two years of ownership, than 16%, than 12% and so what - 8% next year? If had paid $1,000,000 for my place, that would mean it's MORE than doubled in five years - and aging the first $500,000 of that profit is TAX FREE. Who cares if it goes down - if you REALLY, REALLY think that NYC real estate is going down by 50% over the next five years, jaypox, you're more retarded than you sound.

The only trend is me laughing all the way to bank - and btw, staocks aren't worth anything EITHER until you sell THEM. Wait one day too long, and oops - you're down 10, 20 or 30%

Better make sure your at least getting S&P 500 returns then if you're not in real estate... and oh by the way... that doesn't look much safer.

Or you can invest in "safe" securities and safely lose a little bit more spending power to inflation each year.

#15 said "Who cares if it goes down..."

Your investment management aptitude level cannot have been made any clearer. End of story... NEXT. k-i-m yo, k-i-m*

and btw, u don't even know what a 'jayprox' is so stop googling it and stop using it until u figure it out. i'll give u a hint- it's not directed towards you, and it's definitely not name-calling.

*since u don't know what jayprox is, i'll guess u don't know what k-i-m is, keep it moving son, keep it moving.

Right.. exactly... people who say things like

"oh yeah it's decreasing - so what? 20% up the first two years of ownership, than 16%, than 12% and so what - 8% next year?"

that's like saying, "it's ok, we're still above water, who cares if the titanic is sinking? we're still at the tip that's above water, yes? so what? we're never gonna go under!"

MUWAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAH!!!! thanks for the short-sighted entertainment this morning.

Amazing, so much anger #18/20 because another person doubled the value of their real estate investment in five years...

I smell BITTER RENTERS!!!!!!!!!

Poor babies, so much anger. I never said it wouldn't go possibly negative, I just said I don't believe prime Manhattan residential real estate will go down 50%. Read the post - or should I ask, CAN you read? But since you're all such investment geniuses, and both know EXACTLY how to time markets, I'm SURE that you've both made a small fortune in stocks, or real estate, or the art market, or SOMETHING - RIGHT??

You HAVEN'T?

Gee, then I guess I'll have to settle for my lousy 8% increase (again!) in next year's Manahattan real estate market, sanguine that you two will probably be billionaires by the same time next year with all your razor-shArp-no-margin-for-error investment expertise.

Keep it moving, bitter renters, keep it moving.....

#22...you're saying you'll have to settle for an 8% increase...that's if you're selling. I'd rather rent and invest in the stock market...Do you really think that if paying $750k for a one bedroom you're going to make money on that apartment in 5 years...PLEASE, GET A GRIP

Am not buying a one bedrooom now for $750,000. Never said I was.

As for the stock market - it was said quite clearly earlier. The stocks are only worth money when you sell them - just like real estate. Wait one day too many, and OOPS! - you could be down 10%, 20%, 30%, or more. At least with real estate, it's pretty hard to lose 25% overnight while you're sleeping! Even after 9/11 it didn't come close to doing that at ground zero. In addition, it's pretty hard for me to believe that the prime Manhattan real estate market could pull an Enron on you and be worthless. Unlike stocks where that happens on a daily basis, it seems. Just keep chanting tech bubble, tech bubble, tech bubble. People didn't see their earnings go from positive to negative, or see an annual market depression of 10% or 20% - THEY LOST EVERY LAST PENNY!

GO GRIP YOURSELF!

24 good point, at least in real estate you have a physical asset. Markets are related... if the stock market goes down, real estate will probably also... and vice versa.

People that compare the stock market to real estate and say oh, RE is up 8% and the market 10%, so the market is clearly "better"...

Ummmm...

1) Consider the downside risk. The chances of my apt going down 10-20% in value is less than that of the stock market. I know, not all of you believe that, and are forecasting 50% decreases in RE by the end of the year. OK. Go ahead and believe that. I'm not gonna waste my energy arguing with you.

2) Leverage. Does your stock broker allow you to buy 800k of stock for 20% down? I doubt it. So while I earn 8% on 800k, you earn 10% on 160k. So before transaction costs, I have paper profit of 64k and you have a paper profit of 16k. Even though we both "invested" the same amount. Yes, if you were really confident, you could buy stocks on margin and try to leverage your positions as well. How many people do that though? More on this later.

3) Utility. I live in my 800k apartment. My payments are (mostly) tax deductible. The part that is not pays down my mortgage. You probably pay in rent something similar to what I pay for mortgage plus maintenance (assuming we have similar housing needs). But its not tax deductible for you. And you are increasing some OTHER guy's equity. After taxes, its cheaper for me, because I get a nice refund on April 15th, while you have to write a check.

4) Volatility. Lets say you ARE one of those guys that leverages yourself in the stock market. What happens if the market goes down? You get a margin call and ... well... you could be screwed. If the RE market goes down? Well, my mortgage/maint stays fixed, and I just ride it out. While my RE investment is highly leveraged, as long as I make my payments, the bank's not gonna come asking me for more money because the market is temporarily depressed.

5) Taxes. Not only are my monthly payments tax deductible, my paper earnings are tax deferred til I sell. Yeah, so are your stocks... unless you have dividend paying stocks. If you are buying S&P 500, you are getting dividends. Plus, as a married couple, 500k of my RE gain, whenever I realize it, is tax free. If you somehow make 500k on your 160k S&P 500 stock investment, all of that is taxable.

OK... so all you genius renters making a killing in the stock market... prove me wrong.