Feb-Manhattan Record Low Inventory

urbandigs would disagree- his charts show inventory up 5-10% YOY since Labor Day or so. I think the market is slowing slightly. More properties staying on market for longer.

Well let's get Noah on the spot to explain the variances. Noah would u be so kind?

I would tend to agree with cresent22. The market is still strong and the best properties are seeing 4-8 bids. However there is a sense of some slowing. Looking at our deals for Q1 last year v. this year our clients are having a much greater success rate getting to contract. We are also getting deals done without entering a best and final on a few properties; just good old fashioned negotiating. I have not dug through the data at UD's site yet but it certainly feels a bit "better" than last year. In 2014 it seemed like everything sold, went highest and best and then more offers came in after it was supposedly over! Not seeing that nearly as much, certainly not as widespread.

That said 2014 was insane. You could not expect to see that kind of momentum maintained indefinitely. Let's not throw a party just yet, it's no softball game out there, inventory is still sparse.

Keith Burkhardt
The Burkhardt Group

The absolute bottom in supply was not in Feb 2015, according to UD. Rather, it was Jan 2014, which saw supply dip down to 3,000. This year, supply started 2015 10% higher, at 3300. The bottom is seasonal in this respect, at early Jan, when listings first start to come on to start the active season. SE's # can be different for a number of reasons, mainly how they engineer/cleanse their data and scrub the supply #s, as well as how they dealt with tagging status to individual listings. I can tell you at UD we spent years on that and our systems are in their 3rd iteration, mainly due to integrity issues in RLS that we discovered throughout the years.

We have Supply +3.9% yoy, and +2.6% from last month. The first 2 months of 2015 pretty much has seen the same level of new listings come to market as the first 2 months of 2014. Its the next 3 months that will really be interesting to compare to Mar-Apr-May of 2014, as those months (as Keith mentions) saw very little new supply come to market causing an extreme shortage of quality product for buyers to be drawn to. Ill try to post link at bottom, but SE now auto-breaks links, so likely wont work - If you go to www.urbandigs.com then u can go to chart room and check supply trends out for yourself.

In general, my sentiment is similar to Keith. The start of 2015 is not nearly as frenzy-ish, for lack of a better description, than 2014. Only a fraction (1/4 or so) of our buyer clients are seeing best n final situations, or a seller that will absolutely not proceed with a financing contingency in place. 2014 in my opinion was nuttier that now, especially March-June 2014, where buyers saw extreme competition everywhere. Doesnt mean the market is falling, I still see ppsf trends up from 2014, just not at the same pace at it has been for years prior. Given where we came from, I would think that is quite normal. Overall, supply is still tight and there are more deals pending, in contract, than there are available for sale right now. Telling. Chart on new monthly supply below.

https://www.urbandigs.com/chart.php?type=mon+ACTIVE&nbhoods%5B%5D=all&proptype%5B%5D=all&price=all&slevel=all

cheers

plus signs didnt work..2nd paragraph - supply is plus 3.9% yoy, and plus 2.6% from last month.

Don't we have to break out the market into say luxury and non luxury? If I'm not mistaken all new inventory coming to market and available is for our fine High Rollers out there and nothing for the sub million and 1-2 million players.

Steve - Yes, that statement is an accurate one. Here you go. SUPPLY figures yoy by price point:

<600K: down 22.3%
$600k-$1M: down 0.7% yoy
$1M-$2M: plus 12.6% yoy
$2M-$5M: plus 17.9% yoy
$5M-$10M: plus 8.9% yoy
$10M+: plus 15.8% yoy

ALL: plus 3.9% yoy

Great data. Thank you

I guess tha <600k is because prices have gone much higher? No one is even pricing much in the category to begin with?

Steve,I think you hit an important observation. The under 600k category is going to keep shrinking. Just like the under $250k category of say 1991 is gone.

Not just Manhattan, things have completely dried up in LIC.
Back in 2009, if you would had told me that the View at LIC would fetch $1,800 psf on a resale i would had thought you were crazy.

Well….it happened recently.

http://streeteasy.com/property/1099099-the-view-at-east-coast-512

Here's another one that went into contract at $1,660 psf in the View.

http://streeteasy.com/building/the-view-at-east-coast/1509

It's an absolute buying frenzy in Greenpoint, Dumbo, Williamsburg and LIC.

LIC definitely caught me off guard. It is a place people want to live, love living. Also loom at what has happened in DUMBO...I always loveday the area (along with Vinegar Hill). when it hit a thousand dollars a square foot I thought that was pushing the envelope a bit....Brooklyn in general is just so hot.Even my favorite nabe for Mexican food, Sunset Park is seeing a lot of activity.

Keith Burkhardt
The Burkhardt Group

Spelling was correct when I hit reply!?

amazed that pricing in the View is now more expensive than Manhattan.

Urbandigs. Anything to comment on co-op vs condo? Condo supply appears to be up yoy (driven by new development?) whilst the co-op market appears very tight. For co-op, supply appears down, and days on market also appear to be down although I think there maybe something screwy in the data here as I tried to drill down by price point within the co-op market and it seemed to show time on market to be up at most pice points.

Also, I agree with your overall premise that it'll be interesting to see what happens in the next 3 months. Supply looks to have been negatively impacted by the cold weather. I'm not sure whetehr we'll now see a rebound based on the properties kept off the market in Feb.

Any views on foot traffic at open houses?

Steve that sounds logical. Not many <600K apartments out there compared to say 5 years ago or even before the crisis hit. As long as the market continues to see price action rise with no external force to reverse course, the low end pool, especially south of 96th, I would think it will just continue to shrink away.

Oxy - our ud chart room is FREE for that kind of chart --> cant post link as this forum auto-breaks it. Go to www.urbandigs.com --> chart room --> click SUPPLY --> and select all 4 property types and generate chart. The YOY breakdown is as follows, very interesting indeed:

Co-op YOY Supply - down 7.2%
Condo YOY Supply - up 9%
Condop YOY Supply - up 38.8% (small sample size)
Townhouse YOY Supply - up 37.2%

Nice call on diseecting this but the UD chart on it showing all 4 against each other is super cool - any chart on the new UD can compare up to 5 nhoods plus up to 4 prop types in the same chart..its pretty awesome, chk it out. no need to register for that one

kylewest the remaining <600k inventory is probably for parking spaces :)