Condo Sales Jump in Manhattan

Yeah, so much for that "UES is the next hot neighborhood and will hold its value better than others" thing.

As a prospective buyer, I am pleased to see this. Especially glad to see the decline on UES as this is my preferred neighborhood. With new housing supply this will hopefully lead to more price declines once the busy season is over. This should alse keep the renatl market in check for a while.

the ues will hold value comments are usually about park and fifth ave coops which will likely hold value relatively well--supply of apts in those blgs will not grow

the condos on lex and east have no particular unique value and will hold value less well than the city generally

Value = bubble? 'nah, all take it in Jimmy.

true that "hold value" may mean down only 30% vs down 45% for rest of city

might also mean up 10% over the next ten years, with rest of city flat to down 10%

Will be interesting to see the degree to which the expiration of the housing tax credits will impact pricing. I'm guessing we will see particular weakness in studios and one-bedrooms going forward. A lot of their recent sales was borrowed from the future.

That in turn will probably weigh on two-bedroom + properties which rely upon one-bedroom folk looking to trade up.

One of the fascinating things seems to be the very poor sales of new properties while re-sales have been selling briskly. Seems like the new development prices remain stuck at very high levels and the developers are continuing with their banks to "extend and pretend." Jonathan Miller puts the "shadow investory" at 6,500 units.

I expect we will, indeed, see a double-dip in residential real estate prices - including Manhattan.

"the condos on lex and east have no particular unique value and will hold value less well than the city generally"

And are in a construction zone.

As I said, the neighborhood is SO out of favor.

A couple of factors seem to skew the UES $-per-ft² numbers down.

The 79 March 2009 sales include six units at 170 EEA and the $15.8M 40E66.

The 73 March 2010 sales include seven units on Roosevelt Island, at around $600 per square foot. None in 2009. Just one big-$ sale, at 515 Park.

As usual, then, you need to look at buildings and other micro-markets to get comps. The $1,245 per ft² in 2010 vs. the $1631 in 2009 don't really get you far.

this year you had six sales in the lucida which you didn't have last year.

They aren't in the city's spreadsheet. Look at http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/DocSearch.dll/Detail?Doc_ID=2010030901085001, where they've classified the borough for the Lucida as Queens. They're not all like that, though, so don't know what happened.

But right, they would've washed the 170 EEA, more or less.