Are people really paying more that 2007?

Some buildings do beat the statistics. Not as much as the sellers believe they should, though, just going by that K-line at the Normandy.

Look at 16K, the wreck that sold in 2009 for $1,825,000 in the pits of the market: the buyer put more than $200K into renovations, so no big drop even then.

In a few select neighborhoods in Brooklyn, people are now paying 2005 and 2006 prices, at least for co-ops

Nabes include Clinton Hill, Kensington, Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South. These were areas that for the most part hadn't really gentrified (or just hadn't caught on widely) when the boom hit, and they got swept up in the mania to outbid your neighbor for real estate no matter where it was located.

If anyone is interested in these areas I will try to collect of few of the examples I've come across, which I haven't saved, so it'll take me a little while.

I'd say I've seen a "handful" of closings in Feb/March in these areas that were the same price, or lower than, the 2005/2006 sale of the same property (using Streeteasy data).

Re: the Normandy apartment--the 2007 price seems low for that line, especially during the 'height' of the market. I recall 11K needed a fair amount of work when it was last on the market (though it was nowhere as decrepit as as 16K, which the owner had allowed to literally turn into a dump).

It's very likely 11K underwent some updates since its last sale. Which would probably bring it inline with the $2.2 range it recently traded for. Remember, people will pay a premium for river views, and the Normandy is a well-established and well-appointed building in an excellent location.

zillow has 2 of my units listed at above 07 fmv but then again its zillow, tho still apricots to apricots

Everyone is paying more than 2007 here http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/chelsea-stratus

Yes mercer. They are paying more than 2007 prices. Now hold that unicorn tightly and get under the covers. Sweet dreams little one.....

As harlembuyer points out, there are building on the West Side that are seemingly recession proof. I am not sure why some of the doomsday people have such a hard time acknowledging that there are these exceptions.

By the way, I used to think that these recession proof-senarios were limited to new constructions (like the Stratus). But I recently looked at a unit in an 1980s bldg. (link below), and the prices there seem to be holding up rather nicely. You won't even know Lehman ever happened by looking at the sale prices there! Maybe the new bldgs. surrounding this one (MiMA, Orion, etc.) are holding the pricecs up for this "old" bldg.? http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/the-strand

w67thstreet, you may call me names, tell me I don't know what I am talking about, and ask me what I have been smoking, but I'd love it even more if you could actually give us a logical explanation as to why the observations some of us have been making are incorrect--based on these hard numbers. I would love to know how to interpret the sale prices at these bldgs. and conclude that people are NEVER paying more than the 2007 prices. Thanks.

bramstar: Maybe in relation to the comps. As we've discussed elsewhere, the K line is "river facing" with an asterisk, because of the way the views are cut off by the north and south wings of the building.

It is hard to draw rigorous conclusions from one-off sales, but I aggregated lofts that sold in both 2007 and 2011 in the niche I follow most closely (downtown lofts b/w $500k + $5mm). The last update I did to a spreadsheet had 79 such pairs. The Big Picture view is stated in the blog post I did when I started this collection last September, when I had less than 70 paired sale lofts, that roughly 2/3 of the sample had higher sale prices in 2011 than in 2007. http://www.realtown.com/sandymattingly/blog/market-data-reports/is-the-manhattan-loft-market-back-to-up-to-2007-61-repeat-sales-say-probably-a-bit/

I identified possible renovation premiums, but there is no way to know what a renovation cost, let alone what its market value is; I noted new development sales from 2007, which can reflect contracts signed freshly, or many months earlier. To mention only the 'cleanest' polar examples: 43 West 21 St #4R was +34%; 244 West 23 St #7A was -28%. With deeds from nearly all 2011 sales filed by now, I will update that blog post one more time soon, but the overall result is consistent with my September post: more gainers than losers by about 2:1.

There are a lot of limitations with this analysis based on the small sample and the renovation and new development issues I mentioned, but these are the only 79 repeat sales from both 2007 and 2011 that I have in the data-base I maintain of downtown loft sales. Short answer to the Title Question ("are people really paying more than 2007?"): in my niche, more people who sold in 2011 after buying in 2007 had a (gross) gain than a (gross) loss. That does not mean that you can extrapolate to the overall market, but it ain't nothing.

I just bought and paid 17% less than the previous owners who bought in 2007, even considering they renovated the kitchen and bath and added built ins.

Nice!!

NYCmodern, don't tear off the unicorn head. It'll leave a scar that will never heal.
Clarification: That's 23% less for the seller (17% plus 6% brokerage fee, plus missing the 100% run up in equities from 2009). So the sellers are NET down 2x their 20% downpayment.

Mr. BlowJobAin'tsexBuyer,

You have what is called selection bias. Like a broke ass Vegas gambler who only recalls his up days... but can't understand why he drives a 20 year old ford escort and lives in a pay by the week motel.

When I was in Beijing, Sprint hit $3/share. Now my in cost was $2.40/share 3 months ago. That's on 160K shares. So I'm up $96K in 3 months (on $384K), so was I "happy"? NO fking way. I am taking a 10 Beta bet against the Stock Market and the market is up 9% in the same period. So I am actually way the hell down on a risk adjusted basis.

But MOST if not ALL of the RE BULLZ on SE would consider my sprint trade a "win."

And finally, what I have going for w67 on my side are observations which can only lead to the logical imploding of the NYC RE bubble (in 2001-2007).
1) massive credit bubble exclusively driven by MBS;
2) massive growth of financial firms (finance went from 2% of GDP to 6%) mostly based in NYC which were the middle men of the credit bubble;
3) massive bonus/wage growth of the financial firms within NYC due to the credit bubble;
4) 2 year moratorium on mortgage defaults (2010-2012);
5) Zero rate policy to support RE by Bernakie.

The unwinding of ALL of the above can lead to only one conclusion.

Finally, I don't believe paying savers 0% while allowing Prada bag buyers to pay 3% HELOCs which are tax deductible (up to $100K) is the "moral" high ground in our discussion. Do you think paying someone $60K to trade a $1MM studio on west 42nd street when a solider taking bullets in Afghanistan gets paid $60K/year w/ combat pay is "fair" by any stretch of the imagination?

uh uh.. w67 u must be sweating ur posts are getting longer, trying to show off e-gunz with ur brilliant stock tradezzz... always posted AFTER the fact...

why don't you actually create a topic of what you're buying with time stamp date so we can track back 6 months later not AFTER the fact... like here..

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/27747-im-buying-stocks-today

no wonder why ur dad kicked you out of the family real estate practice...does he give you a commish on the higher rent he's been charging..

..out of pity for a son spited? tear

i do find it quite funny that someone would actually pay more for a property now than 07' ..

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/675493-coop-100-riverside-drive-upper-west-side-new-york-- asking 2.2m after paying 1.825 in July 2008. And 2c sold for 1.445 last year.

140 RSD #11K did have some updates: for example, all the wiring was buried behind walls/moldings, and IIRC at least one bathroom was redone. I don't think enough money went into the apartment to offset the price increase, but the listing agent insisted that the work justified the uptick.

West, in your opinion, was the 2007 price low for that unit? That was my impression, considering others in the same line, including the complete wreck that went for over $2M.

"why don't you actually create a topic of what you're buying with time stamp date so we can track back 6 months later not AFTER the fact... like here.."

You mean like this from 2009/2010, where I'm now up 85% while w67th is up a "mere" 40%. In a utility no less, can you imagine the rest of the portfolio?

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/19922

Back before you earned a few extra nickels last year to throw into stocks because you were all-in on RE and were too meek to sell in 2009 to buy stocks, w67th and I were already there.

And w67th has been posting for some time about his Sprint investment now. But it's now only up 15%. That's nothing, because in that time some random idiot increased the asking price on his apt by 4%, which levered 5x becomes 20%. What a loser.

inonada
about 1 hour ago
stop ignoring this person
report abuse "why don't you actually create a topic of what you're buying with time stamp date so we can track back 6 months later not AFTER the fact... like here.."

You mean like this from 2009/2010, where I'm now up 85% while w67th is up a "mere" 40%. In a utility no less, can you imagine the rest of the portfolio?

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/19922

Back before you earned a few extra nickels last year to throw into stocks because you were all-in on RE and were too meek to sell in 2009 to buy stocks, w67th and I were already there.

hey nada, who's the girl in your relationship with w67 (meaning, do you take it in the ass or does he)?

Bramstar: The 2007 sale went to contract in Q1 2007, so the sellers missed the last little surge of the bubble. With that in mind, I don't think $2MM was especially low. Ultimately, 11K and 16K were going to need similar work, and they both had the K line's narrowed view. You could as easily say #16K went high, for a Q1 2009 contract.

Ooh. Stks looks like its about to swoon. Time to get my leverage on!

Come on guys. Let's all go in!

Not my fking fault you are overleverged already in nyc re.

sandy, thanks for the post. very good information.

my pleasure, 330M

West--I still think the 2M price in 2007 seems like the buyers did well comparatively. Not a 'deal', perhaps, but still a decent get IMO. That said, I do agree with your assessment of the 'narrowed' view--that is actually one of the things I really dislike about the K line.

Our building in low West 80's has crept up every year since 2007. We never saw a dramatic increase, but steady rise over the past 15 years. Similar to many stable co-ops on the UWS.

tough to believe--address? so we can see the transaction history

or provide a similar address with such a history...i cant find such a building...a steady creep up since 07?? every year?? since the overall market peaked in 07??

pls prove me wrong, but i think you are deluded

Clearly there has not been a "steady creep up every year" -- the market fell with the crisis in 2008 -- but I would say just about every single nice apartment that I look at downtown (except a very few rare cases of expensive new construction in oddball buildings -- 135 West 4th St comes to mind) is trading much higher than the 2006-2007 highs. If you look at the downtown market, I don't even see how the subject of this discussion is a debate.

"but I would say just about every single nice apartment that I look at downtown ..is trading much higher than the 2006-2007 highs."

same for prime HK, prime meaning NOT west of 9th. and not below west 50th.

Basel just announced it is seeking 1*1 bonus limits in financial firms. So base salary of $400k would receive max bonus of $400k.

Deutsche bank is proposing max bonuses of $263k next year for ALL employees.

In the land of unicorns and happy endings, Nyc re prices are sell for above 2007. Ya better buy it now bf the bankers make some real moneyzzzz.

Damn. Wtf. will Bernie stop QE4,5,6,7,8,9. I need an entry point... All he is doing is helping the .00001%. I'd like to move up from .001%.

Hezuz. Gooooodddsdaaaaaaammmmiittttttttt. Bernie. Comez on. QE did zip for the 'real economy' after qe2. Come on. Go write another term paper on the meaning of god. Grow get some Rogain.