2005 or 2006?

urbandigs, what is your view on this? Thanks!

isn't 2006 the peak of the market nation-wide?

Not in Manhattan though. Peak was 07/08. Trying to figure out whether I should bid at 05 or 06 levels.

Anyone?

nyues
Err 2005, you can always raise your bid.

BTW, it's not that simple (bidding on 05 or 06 numbers). The problem in today's market is everyone who purchased or refi'ed between '06 and '09 are now looking to break even and get the hell out.
So they bought for $1.5m in '07, paid 50K in taxes and closing costs. Have to pay another 90K to the broker to sell now. So they are asking $1.75m to cover and have 100K negotiating room. Or you have what's worse, a refi for 1.5m. They paid 900K 9 years ago, and will have to cover the above because they refi'ed 1.5m plus pay tax on the profit above the 900K in some cases. And ultimately mean that selling house below these numbers means cutting a check to the bank on the date of sale. Something noone is looking to do.
So best chances for a good deal purchase today are long time owners that aren't maxed out on borrowed equity and new construction.
Unless short sales start to become more palatable for the banks.

Anecdotal evidence with a very small sample size, but here goes. We saw two co-ops in Chelsea that had closed in early '05. (This probably means they were on the market in the fall of 2004, however.) Both were listed at 2005 price + 10% and (we hear) went into contract for 2005 price + 5-6%. Based on a StreetEasy comparison of the listings, it looks like minimal renovation was done to either unit.

Thanks, lad, this is very helpful!

Bid based on recent comps, rather than an arbitrary date.

I understand your approach, but the results of comparing 2005 to now, or 2006 to now, may be all over the map. I did a post on March 5 with (what is now) 27 Manhattan lofts that sold in 2007 and that have sold again since November 2009. (I am going to update it again shortly with more paired resales.)

http://www.realtown.com/sandymattingly/blog/market-trends/data-dump-14-manhattan-lofts-sold-in-2007-recently

Short story: Results range from UP 33% to DOWN 29%, with a cluster within 10% either way. I have on my to-do list to do a similar table of paired resales from 2006. Getting highly relevant recent comps, to me, makes more sense than taking a macro Market Is Up/Down X% approach, because that macro result is an average of data points that varied *widely*.

Good luck.