Manhattan Condo Sales Nearly Double -- WSJ

Unlike every other report, this seems to exclude everything above 110th west of the Park, and above 96th east of the park - or where about 1/3 of Manhattanites live. So its not really a "Manhattan" report at all.

Riversider? Where is he. I'm getting worried.

this was covered in the crain's piece yesterday.

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/22011-radar-logic-condos-16-off-peak

what your quote leaves out is this part...
"Condo prices, for example, are still an average of 16% below their late-2008 peak."

pretty amazed that WSJ makes this claim:
"the latest sign that the New York market is holding up"

when it conflicts the actual data (unless 16% is "holding up")

W67: I think Riversider either went off in a huff after SE slapped him for starting so many threads. Or..... Riversider is only one of his usernames. Or he was an alter ego for AR. And though we thought AR was a nice, homemaking lefty with a beautiful daughter, in reality she was a supply sider with an Ayn Rand fetish. Which doesn't explain exactly why RS sided with the troll against AR. The state of anonymous can make everything so complicated.

And lest I accused of hijacking the thread. Do you think the WSJ factored in the perks developers offer the sellers .. closing costs, upgrades, tweaking the actual sales price so it shows up in acris at higher than actually paid?

offer the buyers.. sorry

Whoa! Too complicated for me. I can build bridges, fly a plane, sail a 50 footer, know nyc re is toast, but human relations and what makes people tick, I've no clue.... ppl are just plain insane.

Riversider is a he, and decided that the there was a lack of civility on the website by many but certainly not all the posters. It's also the same conversation which never gets resolved. I think Street Easy needs to take this site in a new direction if it hopes to remain relevant. A site with cursing and old time posters ranking on each other is not a particularly good business model for a site looking to attract real estate advertisers and frankly feels tired.

Many of the posters are clearly intelligent considerate people. Others are not.

Many of the posters are clearly intelligent considerate people. Other is not.

hypocrite much, riversider? FLMAOz

real estate much, w67? thread hijack much?

"And lest I accused of hijacking the thread. Do you think the WSJ factored in the perks developers offer the sellers .. closing costs, upgrades, tweaking the actual sales price so it shows up in acris at higher than actually paid? "

Probably not.

Wouldn't assume that WSJ did much work to get behind the raw numbers, so I agree w/ swe. I think that's twice that I've agreed with him in two days now, which is sort of bizarre for me.

sideline, I would add that very few (if any?) reports on pricing factor in those things. Frankly, it's nearly impossible to do with any degree of accuracy unless you're privy to the negotiations. My parking spot and closing costs show up on ACRIS, for example.

Sorry, meant to say parking shows up, but closing costs don't!

Ever since the WSJ decided to get into the NYC local market, I've noticed a definite slant on their NYC RE reporting: lots of small content-lite articles that only present the rosiest portion of any piece of data. This article is just the most recent in a long line of such articles. There's no mention of the tax credit effect, no mention of the upcoming huge drop in sales (which UD's in-contract graphs show will be pretty steep), etc. Furthermore, I'm betting that there will be nary a word in the WSJ when RadarLogic shows the large drop in closed sales coming up.

I gotta figure that this is WSJ's attempt to endear themselves to RE advertisers...

Good call Nada,
Ive been pounding WSJ articles, for what, 6 months now, and the angle of their fluff didn't make sense to me 'til now.

good to see ya, river!

inonada, I've noticed the articles as well, but I wouldn't be so quick to disparage their RE section as "advertising" just yet. Plenty of media do the same headline shenanigans, no? I would also urge you to read Urbandigs' latest post before commenting too much on the drop in recent activity, not to mention the supposed "tax credit effect."

http://www.urbandigs.com/2010/08/a_seasonally_slow_manhattan_su.html

bjw, UD sounds like a chartist to me w blinders on. The same baffoons (no harm meant to baffoons) that said the charts say we will never have a synchronized RE downturn in the country, nay the world.

His "theory" breaks down if one considers a scenario with an over-hand of 30K shadow inventory at breaking point and about to list versus, 5K shadow at break point.... the deluge of listings can turn his "theory" upside down w/o even a "equity mkt" break down similar to 2008..... yes I AM saying we are in uncharted NYC RE mkts... beware the listings this fall.. i expect a deluge like Technologic... the babies keep on coming and they keep on growing...

w67th, if that happens, I can't help but agree. Where are you seeing 30k listings about to come on?

I hear you, bjw, but I've been observing for some time now. Do you recall a single NYC-specific residential RE article in the WSJ that has been anything but positive?

I don't. The Q2 Miller Samuel YoY numbers were dismal considering where we were Q1 2009 vs. Q1 2010. Nary a mention. The drop in activity over the past 3 months has been well-reported by UD & others. No mention. I understand that there are many ways to interpret the same set of facts, it just makes one wonder when all data is interpreted the same exact way. I don't see this in their other articles, even commercial NYC RE, so it makes me wonder.

et tu, nada, with the media conspiracies? are you saying that during the downturn they just put out blank pages? when the data don't confirm your bias, it could just mean that you were.....wrong.

it was, by all accounts, a strong spring for sales. maybe the autumn will be different - we shall see. personally, i don't see anything remarkable happening that will shift the needle much in either direction - on the positive, rates are low, jumbo terms are the easiest they've been in 2yrs, and inventory is well off the peaks and at reasonable levels. on the negative, there has been only modest improvement in the labor market, general macro uncertainty, and of course the mid-term elections.

Meredith Whitney just pointed out on cnbc that this is the 9th quarter of contracting mortgages which has never happened before. This was in the context that the banks will be hurting for a long time.

Printer, let's play a game. There was a 20% drop YoY 2008-2009 in NYC rental prices (i.e., drop off a cliff). There was a 3% increase YoY 2009-2010 (i.e., inflation). For every WSJ NYC RE article you find mentioning the former, I'll find you 2 of the latter.

Does that slant in coverage make sense to you?

yes - b/c apparently the bears are so obstinate that in order for positive news to penetrate, it has to be repeated.

Great, then we agree there's a bias in the of the NYC RE articles. Do you think that bias is present in any of the other markets covered? I don't. Is there something special about the NYC RE market that requires special biased repeating that no other market requires?

In case you missed it, here's a balanced article on the same exact report:

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100802/REAL_ESTATE/100809988

Can you point to one balanced article from the WSJ?

nada, confirmation bias. I'm not sure what the cure is, but you've definitely got the disease. surely if this vast media conspiracy is whipping up prices, there should be some way for you to profit from it.

of course, given the incredibly low faith in the credibility of the media that people have, maybe this is a reverse-conspiracy to drive prices down?

Printer, I have large exposures to many markets outside of NYC RE which overshadow my exposure to NYC RE, whether I were to buy or continue renting. Presumably, I should have more confirmation bias in these markets. Yet strangely, I find that the number of bullish vs. bearish articles written by the WSJ on any of these subjects are balanced, and the bullish articles are balanced by bearish sentiments and vice-versa.

Markets are inherently hard to read and predict. When was the last bearish NYC RE article you saw in the WSJ? I can't remember. I do remember seeing both bullish and bearish stock market articles nearly every day, though.

Really, do you think the WSJ NYC RE articles are balanced?

Once again it's average prices - where is the median? Who knows if one expensive building attributed to the big rise in the FD. The article says nothing - ita a fluff piece

Down 16% from peak is not so bad, considering the dire SE predictions!!! (Down 50-75% for ever, right before the island falls into the ocean, etc!!!)

There will be ups and downs, but as the economy recovers the next 3-5 years, Manhattan RE will continue to appreciate overall.

Median is currently down about 12% from a frenzy buying peak established in Q2 2008. Pricing has peaks and valleys but trend is forever higher see UD chart..

http://www.urbandigs.com/2010/07/10yr_manhattan_median_sales_sn.html

Im surprised nobody writes about new condos flying off the shelves like the Setai, 20 pine, 111 fulton, .......but at below $900 per sq ft.
Even therealdeal.
Fidi is getting creamed and not a peep.

> Median is currently down about 12% from a frenzy buying peak established in Q2 2008.

True, but Steve is leaving out the full story. Median is "only" down because of composition shifts. If you look apples to apples, its actually still down MUCH more.

All the data:
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/21856-data-causing-the-screams-declines-by-category

By size (# of bedrooms), medians are STILL down 18-61%

PPSF, we're down 20% off peak (and 23-36% by category).

> Pricing has peaks and valleys but trend is forever higher see UD chart..

Bad logic. Uh, pricing is ALWAYS "forever higher" when you're looking at a bubble. At the top, everything is higher than it was before. When you get to a valley, it doesn't look that way anymore.

And, of course, Shiller, who actually did the research long term, showed that the real long term return on real estate is basically... zero.

Noah is great (and lets not forget that, like anyone else with great insight and data, you slagged him as biases too!) but his data is TEN YEARS. Jeez, Steve, thats the period of the bubble.... you're really using that as the basic of future returns? Thats horrible, horrible logic.