Media articles about market crash

What did you think of initial pricing of the townhouses the article mentions? Both of them very narrow and the first one (Kerwin) does not even have an elevator and is not recently renovated. I do not think the first one was ever worth more than $5.5mm (3500 sq ft). The second one while renovated is very narrow as well.

I'm not sure, but I am 100% sure this one went from $10.5 million in 2014 to $9 million In 2018:
https://streeteasy.com/sale/770483

And I am sure this one went from $2,973,290
In 2009 to $2,327,500 in 2018
Https://streeteasy.com/sale/1329843

I am also sure this one went from $20,365,000 in 2008 to $13,750 in 2018
https://streeteasy.com/sale/1326832

Some more info on the last one. 2007 contract for the initial purchase. https://www.google.com/amp/s/observer.com/2008/11/take-my-park-avenue-apartments-please-ubs-exec-lists-twoat-big-discounts/amp/

BTW my point is more along the lines of "this is how it starts":
WSJ, NYT, etc start publishing artitcles about people losing money in the RE market, then water cooler talk about RE being a bad investment, then it all starts to unravel.

That's what I have been saying for years. Apartments are only worth what buyers think they are worth. Any bad news in the market, whether rational or not, has the potential to derail the market. Its all smoke and mirrors which is why such investments are more risky than generally believed. Timing is everything but one cannot accurately predict timing e.g. when the worm will turn, no matter how much number crunching we do. Since the Great Recession, we have seen much irrational buying behavior which drove up prices to the point where they made little sense. But people kept buying. This is the definition of a housing bubble. The market is now becoming more rational but who knows how long that will last?

But it does help to study the market and identify who precisely is buying and what they are buying. Supply is a secondary consideration to demand and always has been to the long-term investor.

Demand and liquidity are everything.

ximon
I agree with everything above.
Re: who is buying, I really don't have an answer for you but I also think that the answer to that question is important. If it is mostly buyers who have been waiting on the sidelines it's one thing, if it is mostly new buyers entering the market it's another. With the former, it's a finite supply of a diminishing resource and they won't save the market from decline. OTOH if there are plenty of new buyers competing for available properties then chances are better that we will get a quick turnaround.
Personally I'm still sticking with my dire prediction (perhaps even more strongly now).

30, What do think about Manhattan rental market? The latest chart show that the vacancy rates have come down significantly likely as a result of concessions. Rental was the first market to soften 2-3 years back and it seems it is much better than last year. I am not saying that the rental market strength will save top end new developments but mid market $1100-1600 per renovated square ft in decent areas of Manhattan still seems healthy (probably down 2-3 percent from the recent peak which is what Streeteasy index shows).

https://www.millersamuel.com/charts/manhattan-landlord-concessions-versus-vacancy-rate/

There are 2 problems with the rental market:
1) There is a ton of new product coming on the market all over the place, and
2) It's really hard to calculate what rental prices are actually doing because of all the concessions (which you can see has truly skyrocketed in the past few years). If you had a unit which 10 years ago was renting for $2,700 plus a 15% broker's fee and today it's renting for $3,500 with 2 months free rent and the landlord paying the broker, how much did the rent actually increase?
In addition, I'm not sure how Miller Samuel calculates their vacancy rate. If you use listings it skews the numbers when you have a lot of new construction because typically you have a new building with hundreds of vacancies but only a few listed. Also when SE started charging for rental listings you had a much larger percentage of rental listings on the market but not on-line.

I think I have mentionedbefore that I use the spot pricing at Stuyvesant Town / Peter Cooper Village as an indicator of how the Manhattan rental market is doing. Right now they have several 1 bedrooms available at just over $3,000 per month. That is very much on the low side for recent history

Also you have to ask if all these new rentals are being absorbed does it represent a large number of new relatively high earners migrating to NYC or does it also represent a significant amount of the potential buyer pool electing to rent instead if buy?

I think the rental market is actually quite telling. Of course vacancy rates went down with major jumps in concessions - that's how supply and demand works. If the rental market is reflective of how the sales market works, then you are looking for a major decrease in prices to revive demand.

The other thing about rental concessions is that if condo investors have to compete in the rental market with developers (which they do) then they also have to offer similar concessions, which in turn devalues the units. On top of that interest rates rising also makes the necessary ROR on investment properties increase which also devalues units.

I think one of the fundamental changes in the market is the alignment of rental and sales markets in particular for new condo development. That was not the case in previous cycles where the two markets were far less correlated.

Thoth,
I think top new developments have reduced their prices 15-20 percent and have more reductions to go as that is where the oversupply is relative to demand. There are also new developments in undesirable areas as in 1 Manhattan Square, which will need a 20+ percent price cut.

Mid segment resales have limited supply and many people can afford these. And 10y is below 3 percent again with Fed showing signs of stopping after one more rate increase.

300: I think prices are generally down in all segments at least in the downtown markets that I've seen. I think the primary reason prices don't show worse trends is because sellers are pulling properties from the market rather than accept what the clearing prices currently are. One leading indicator I've seen is that many asking prices this year have fallen below the clearing prices from 2017.

Thoth, Will appreciate some example of lower listing prices than the actual sales downtown. I realize exact comparable listings are hard for resale due to difference in condition, light view etc.

300,
Not downtown, but if I'm remembering correctly in UrbanDigs interview of Ryan Serhant he talks about a unit on 57th St where last year they had offers of $2.4MM - $2.5MM which they relisted this year for $2.0MM and couldn't get a single offer.

What value would people put on the other house, or is the market too up in the air to figure out appropriate value?

I have no idea. As 300 says, it's renovated but narrow. That block/neighborhood is a bit tough to figure. Very close to the park and lots of schools, but not a ton in terms of restaurants, etc.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/04/the-housing-market-is-cooling-and-toll-outlook-shows-luxury-hit-hard.html

Team M, 10 east 92nd was never more than $2000 per sq ft give or take including garden level sq footage. Townhouse market alongwith the rest of the top end is down in the range of 10-20 percent. Email if you want to talk more.

Thanks, 300. Just curious on the perspectives. So where do you think that house ultimately sells?

The part of luxury Manhattan real estate that I actually find most interesting is my perception that most sellers can afford to not do a deal in a way that I think is very unusual. I.e., they can hold out far longer than most other markets if they want. In many cases I think that actually hurts the sellers because they are more likely to ride a market down while holding out for a higher price, but it does interesting things to a buyer/seller dynamics. I don't know the situation of this particular seller, but in retrospect I think they would be in better shape if they had priced much lower from the outset.

Developers are obviously in a different category...

Under $10mm in my opinion for sure. It was never really worth much more.

300 - thank you. I very much appreciate that you are willing to put a view out there on things. I have no context to agree/disagree on this one.

Being able to afford to not sell doesn't stop the market from going down. And having people leave properties sitting on the market not selling is more likely to do more damage to a weakening than supporting it. The house at 10 East 92nd St - the concept of originally pricing it at $3,400/SF? Really?
They certainly picked great market timing for that strategy. But it also suffers from being out of place. So many of the houses off 5th are very large manison style edifices going all the way down into the 60's. So the type of buyers who are looking at them are the ones who are looking at 25' wide, 10,000+ SF and not as focused as being close to restaurants stores, parking garages, etc. Add to the oddness that kitchen being on the third floor (which may very well end up being an excellent idea, but it's still odd so you have to convince people of it and only adds to the uniqueness). It's hard to tell, but it looks like all of the furniture may be virtually staged (based on multiple pics of the same rooms with different furniture). Perhaps it's vacant now? I'm sure that wouldn't help.

30 - so what's your prediction of where it would sell?

I think if they would have priced it right from the beginning they could have gotten $11 to $12 million. At this point it's hard to tell what it WILL sell for because they are behind the curve. IF they were to drop the price below $10 million within the next 30 days, with bonus season I think they could get that or close to it. But if they continue to chase the market down who knows where they will end up?

30, You are more bullish than me!!

On this listing I should add.

Do you think that "Mech Rm" hidden behind the kitchen is actually a safe room?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/as-the-rest-of-the-market-slides-ultra-prime-is-doing-just-fine

I was looking at a couple of 5mm range properties as they had come down in price to attractive levels (call it 30 percent below aspirational initial asks which was never the market, 5-10 percent below real peak) and they both got bids before I could make up my mind. It indeed seems that demand is there and buyers are coming out of hiatus.

This is last two weeks. Did WSJ wake up buyers to good deals in combination with rates coming down 30bps from the recent peak?

According to the Olshan report, the last couple weeks are still down YoY in the >$4m market. Last week was 18 contracts as compared to 30 contracts in the comparable period for the two prior years.

I can imagine a bit of a spike in December in this market driven by people eyeing properties and the acting upon receiving news of a bonus, but otherwise I don't see a catalyst to drive buyers into the market. I would be surprised if the WSJ article pushed buyers.

TeamM, I am not a representive buyer as I only ever consider properties which are very good deals in my opinion and need development. So the two properties I am/was looking at are/were indeed good deals and it does not seem they are going to be on the market much longer.

2 things I am hearing now:
1) Encouraged by their brokers to "just make an offer" there are a lot of buyers throwing out low offers right now.
2) A few sellers are taking them.

So we may not know for 4 to 7 months the extent to which prices have come down as of today.

Agreed.

30, How much below reasonable asking price are you hearing in say $2mm resale segment? More than 7-8% below list is pretty common in $5mm+ and the sellers are taking them.

Props to Brian Morgan at Citi Habitats, he called this: https://medium.com/@noahrosenblatt/talking-manhattan-the-brian-morgan-team-at-citi-habitats-c0c70036ecb2

Go to 14:25 or so for the start of that topic, and at 15:00 or so Brian goes into it

The problem I am finding in the $2 mm segment (which is one of my sweet spots) is one that 30_yrs stated earlier, which I'm going to rephrase as "just because you are seeing 7% off some things doesn't mean you are seeing 7% off everything."

Properties that are arguably "special" (and who wants to buy something that isn't?) are holding out for close to their reasonable list prices, and getting that.

So maybe we are seeing 7% off B properties, but we're not seeing it on A properties yet, and the inventory is piling up because, firstly, the A properties are each waiting in line for "their" buyer to come along (which often happens in the spring -- remember last December was an anomaly because of the tax bill), but also, secondly, some of the B properties are not facing the reality that they have to take a discount to move.

ali r.
{upstairs realty}

Thank you Ali. This is consistent with my observation. Desirable properties as in Village in 2mm resale segment are hardly taking a discount from reasonable ask. The rest have to take 7 percent to more it suggesting the market in this segment is down 3-4 percent in an average vs 5mm resale segment which is down 5-8 percent. Top end >$10mm and over $3k per square ft new development is down 15-20 percent if not more as that is where most froth still is and was.

As I have stated in the past, when the market is on the way up I think B properties are insufficiently discounted to A properties. This happens as buyers "feeding frenzy" and don't properly distinguish great from good from mediocre (the same way when animals feeding frenzy and don't distinguish what is "food" properly).
When the market turns more rational and buyers have any time to think before pulling the trigger they shy away from insufficiently discounted B properties, and then when the market tanks even shy away from sufficiently discounted ones and demand overly discounted ones.

"30, What do think about Manhattan rental market?"

https://therealdeal.com/2018/12/13/manhattan-rental-concessions-keep-growing-especially-in-new-dev/

https://therealdeal.com/2018/12/12/penthouse-at-70-vestry-fails-to-set-downtown-record-sells-for-a-discounted-55m/

Seems crazy high to me. It could have traded at $35mm and it still would have nothing to do with under $4mm market. List prices for $50mm properties prices at $5k+ per sq ft are meaningless and no bearing to the cost.

"When the market turns more rational and buyers have any time to think before pulling the trigger they shy away from insufficiently discounted B properties, and then when the market tanks even shy away from sufficiently discounted ones and demand overly discounted ones."

Well said. This is the main reason why "soft landings" are extremely rare, if they exist at all.

A Wall Street friend told me that only recently did he realize the impact of the tax law on his finances, when he spoke to his accountant about his January estimated tax payment. He was certainly surprised, not in a good way.

As much as we talk about the impact of the tax law (SALT/mortgage int/RE tax deductibility) being baked in, I think that most people will actually learn the ugly truth about their individual situations this April. Employers have not properly withheld, and surprises will abound.

Potential buyers are more likely to have crunched the numbers on their taxes than existing owners/sellers, and I suspect that the April education of owners/sellers will push prices much closer to the bid and even add inventory to the market.

Yournamehere - this is such an under reported dynamic. Totally agree

Noah,
Watching your podcasts it seems like a number of brokers are saying people should buy now because mortgage rates are going to rise and then they won't be able to borrow as much/it will cost them more. But I think it is extremely hard to make an argument that if mortgage rates continue to rise that the market won't continue to fall. Therefore I think it is a spurious argument. In fact I think it rises to the level of "stuff brokers say which they think will close a deal but actually convinces buyers not to pull the trigger."

Employers under-withholding was fairly widely reported back in the summer.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/08/04/report-suggests-more-taxpayers-will-owe-tax-in-2019-due-to-withholding/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-14/from-westchester-to-hoboken-nyc-area-braces-for-housing-decline

Yournamehere -- I think that the tax law really makes a difference in the ~$1.5mm property niche, but go above that and I think that a) its effect on properties becomes a little more marginal and b) it's still not necessarily going to be clear how certain provisions play out (opportunity zones, anyone? anyone?)

front_porch - what is your reasoning for that? I actually think that most properties are likely to be impacted and that properties at a higher price than that are likely to be impacted more for a variety of reasons.

I can imagine an argument that at a much higher price point, such as $50mm, that the impact would flatten out for various reasons.

There has always been a part of market demand that is inelastic, meaning that it is not necessarily based on economic considerations. Availability of capital often leads to irrational decision making, especially at the high end of the market. If the economy causes many buyers to feel poorer, whether they are in fact poorer, then it seems certain that demand will decline. So I think yournamehere may be on to something here but I also agree with Ali that time will tell.

FWIW, I think there’s the unpinnings of a fundamental material shift in the NYC market. I think the most profound impact of that shift relates to housing for >$1mm and it actually grows until some level where money becomes far less relevant. I think there are some delays to the shift manifesting itself, including coop boards rejecting lower prices, enough wealth that people can hold onto properties for a longer time than they should, a psychological mindset of sellers who are hoping the drop is temporary and the dynamic with certain brokers who are getting listings by claiming higher prices. I think the shift will last a lot longer than many people think unless there’s another shift that counterbalances it, such as reinstituting the SALT deductions (which would fundamentally change the outlook in my mind).

I applaud those brokers on this website (and in Urbandigs’s videos) who have acknowledged this dynamic in varying degrees because it is far better for sellers to acknowledge it quickly. I think that those sellers who quickly cut prices to find the clearing price will “win” because I think that the real clearing price for the built up inventory is much lower than many people think once you get past the eager buyers who will lunge at modest price decreases (those are the buyers sellers should be racing to make deals with now). I think that the risks associated with underpricing a property right now are extremely low because if you miss the mark you will generate enough buyer interest to create competition and push back up. I think the risks associated with overpricing a property right now are very high because I think sellers will miss their limited universe of buyers while prices drop further and inventory builds.

I think brokers are facing a classic prisoner’s dilemma in the market right now in how they approach the market, and I think that educating the market is the best thing brokers can collectively do to try to remark the market to the current dynamics.

My view is completely uneducated and it’s certainly possible I’m wrong. I also am not smart enough to know exactly where homeostasis is.

A lot can change with the Fed announcement today except for oversupply in the top end new devlopment at >$3k per sq ft average price.

Mounting Inventory Pulls Manhattan Home Prices Near 3-Year Low

- Home prices fell as sales rose in November, StreetEasy says
- Brooklyn, Queens housing prices rose as Manhattan declined

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-19/mounting-manhattan-inventory-pulls-home-prices-near-3-year-low

TeamM, very thoughtful comments.

I worry, however, that your although your hopeful outlook for the market could shorten the length of a downturn, it could also increase its severity especially for those who find themselves in the position of needing to sell. We of course cannot expect these people to act in the best interests of the market.

I also worry that brokers who "see the light" will start bullying sellers who have different motivations. Lets hope brokers will represent the fiduciary interests of their clients and not their own.

Ximon - I guess it depends on what you define as a "hopeful" look for the market. I think there has been a more profound downward shift in underlying values at most price points. I think that has not yet manifested itself in sales prices yet, and I think the actual shift will take some time to occur and some sales will occur at intermediate steps as eager buyers jump at incremental discounts.

I do think that normal trading volume can occur once there is a better acknowledgment on the appropriate bid/ask for properties. That's probably only good news for brokers. I think current owners have a less valuable asset then they perceived and I think that buyers aren't "winning" in this lower price environment because it is the result of real underlying issues (e.g., different tax code that impacts the city).

I understand the sentiment you are expressing about broker motivations, but I think the reality is far less dire and that clients need to be accountable for their own decisions and judgment calls. Brokers are fundamentally motivated to make transactions occur, and there are a lot of judgment calls about what the terms of that transaction should be. Take the examples in the article that started this thread - if the broker for the 92nd street townhouse had said "drop your price to $10mm" a year ago then maybe the house would have sold already and the client would be in a better position, but ultimately that decision needs to rest with the client.

300: Sorry for the long delay. Was very busy at work, so lost track of this thread for a while. Here are some units that illustrate the trends I mentioned:

First, outright major declines.

59 John St 4F
12/09/15 - Sale at $2.2MM
10/16/17 - Sale at $1.5MM
10/31/18 - Tried to sell at $1.9MM, withdrawn from market

1 Wall St. "05" line
02/16/17 - 805 sold at $1.9MM
08/10/18 - 1405 sold at $1.2MM
09/19/18 - 1505 sold at $1.4MM

40 Broad "H" line
02/23/15 - 16H sold for $1.4MM
02/23/15 - 25H sold for $1.6MM
10/16/15 - 10H sold for $1.6MM
02/27/18 - 14H sold for $1.3MM
08/03/18 - 17H sold for $1.2MM

Second, not a sale, but chasing the market down
111 Fulton "18" line
11/24/15 - 418 sold for $1.6MM
01/12/17 - 318 sold for $1.5MM
12/05/18 - 718 pulled from market at $1.5MM (they originally priced this at $1.8MM on 07/29/15 and their pricing has been chasing the market for over 3 years)

15 William 20H
05/28/09 - originally listed at $1.99MM
05/05/16 - relisted at $1.94MM
12/22/16 - relisted at $1.74MM
10/02/18 - relisted at $1.68MM, pulled at $1.65MM
The overall H-lines in the 20s have dropped from closing prices in the $1.8-2.0MM range in 2015 to the $1.6s in 2018. 15 William in general is a poster child for chasing the market down.

Thank you for posting the examples. Very informative.
General comment, financial district is very iffy and there are indeed a lot of deal there. When I think downtown, I really think much broader upto 23rd street.

Starting with 59 John.

59 John St 4F
02/06/07 - Recorded sale at $1,298,268
12/09/15 - Sale at $2.2MM (I can not find actual sale. It does not see that it was sold but foreclosed. See next comment)
10/16/17 - Sale at $1.5MM ($1.46mm recorded) This seems to have some bankruptcy related issues as the seller looks a foreclosure attorney who acts as referee of the court.
10/31/18 - Tried to sell at $1.9MM, withdrawn from market

Did you mean something else instead of 1 Wall Street?

According to ACRIS there was no 12/09/15 - Sale at $2.2MM of 59 John St 4F.

According to ACRIS there was no 12/09/15 - Sale at $2.2MM of 59 John St 4F.

No sale for 2.2m, that was an ask.. 2017 sale at 1.46

I am glad my investigation matches the pros.

But thoth, FiDi is a special case, innit?

I don't know about the Ralph Walker building, but the other four condominiums you mentioned were all supported by 421(A)s or 421(G)s, so classic pricing theory would dictate that the price of the asset would decline as the cost to carry it rose.

Not disagreeing that the market has cooled since 2015/2016. And not disagreeing that the tax bill has been horrid for NYC. I think values have come down by 5-10% off peak citywide, and certainly transaction volume is a disaster. But for tax-abated buildings, we do need to try to untangle the effect of declining/expiring tax-abatements/exemption before we call a market "crash."

I'm very eager to see what spring brings us. After a year and a half, maybe, of walking around with ashes on my head, I'm actually swerving around to being bullish again -- I'll be listing a couple of smaller UWS apartments and I am curious to see what the reception is. (I don't do a lot of volume, so when I price I have a *lot* of skin in the game.)

I agree this coming Spring will be illuminating. Will large amounts of sellers refrain from putting units on the market because market conditions are weak? Or will brokers oversell the market and give false hope, pushing too many new units into inventory and exacerbating the current glut?
One problem is that there are currently too many Brokers. You've currently got something like 27,000 agents/brokers chasing something like 14,000 deals a year. As deal volume drops, the odds of at least one broker coming in and painting too rosey a picture for a seller so that they list with almost no chance of transacting drops asymptotically to zero.
So while I think it is possible that the market could be saved somewhat by sellers/brokers behaving in a way that controls inventory enough to tame a decline, my bet is on seller/broker greed/stupidity making things worse instead.

Of course what will also have a very large impact (as I mentioned once before) is how many new buyers are coming on looking to buy at current prices vs how many of the current transactions being done are buyers who have been sitting around waiting for prices to come down 5% to 10% to pull the trigger, and now that they have done so on certain units they are executing trades.
If it's mostly the latter then I think as that buyer pool gets used up the market will continue to recede, but if it is the former then there is more hope for a comeback.

I confess I do not have the actual numbers but it seems like there is a ton of new inventory just sitting on the sidelines waiting for become new listings. I also expect this is true for older inventory. So, I assume developers/brokers/owners will flood the market with this "shadow" inventory this Spring if they see any reasonable level of absorption. It may be their last chance if you believe some forecasts - e.g. Alan Greenspan.

Curious to those who thought just a few months ago that the middle of the market was down only 2% or so, do you still stand by that assumption? And will you feel the same in 6 months?

I hope everyone is enjoying the New Year! Back from the holidays with a much delayed response.

1. Re: 4F at 59 John. I just used what was on SE as guidance as I don't have access to anything else, so thanks to all for the additional data. It still doesn't change the fact that there's been a major decline, as 6F sold at $1.95 on 4/24/17, whereas this unit went for $1.46 six months later. I can’t imagine that was a good feeling for 6F's buyer when that sale went through.

2. Re: 1 Wall Street. Oops, I meant One Wall Street Court.

2. Re: Fidi being a bit of a unique market. I know it's not a prime neighborhood and has its own dynamics, but that was part of the point. I think everyone agrees that the high end is down by quite a bit, but there was a belief that more affordable price points were less affected. The reason I chose these examples is that they are showing significant declines, and I don't believe any of these would count as high end luxury.

3. Re: Impact of assessments. I know that these buildings have abatements that are about to end, but I don't believe this is the primary driver of the declines. If buyers know basic math, they should be factoring in the value of the abatement during the initial purchase anyway, and even setting that aside, the value of the years of abatements remaining on these buildings is in most cases much smaller than the recent declines in value. To 30 yrs point, I believe the main driver of the declines is not abatements, but rather a change in expectations regarding price appreciation.

Given this data, if you view Fidi as an example of one extreme and ultra luxury as the other, this begs the question of whether these are early warning signals for the market as a whole. I agree that this Spring will be quite telling.

I think 6F 2017 sale at 1.95mm is an anomaly relative to general market as it sold for $1.45mm in 2015.

Wall street court does seem to be very good example of price decline. I do not enough about the reasons.

Personally, I think FIDI has an issue due to limited light due to narrow street for many of the buildings and taxes post abatement as high as Prime Village. I hear school district is pretty good.

300: I think 6F was reflective of the "animal spirits" in 2017. I don't see it as much of an anomaly but rather how people at one point felt that NYRE could only go up.

FIDI definitely has all the issues that you mentioned, but I think the issue is that people were more than willing to pay ever increasing prices from 2014-2017. All of that came to a halt in 2018 and went into reverse, even though none of the issues you listed have changed.

It seems that the fringe area with narrow streets and high taxes similar to prime manahattan got slammed when the market slowed down in 2018. If the rest of market is down 4-5 percent (using various indices as Streeteasy which do not include new devlopment sponsor sale and adjusting another 1-2 percent for the sales data to catch up) from the peak index level, this area is down more than that.

From the title of this piece you might think they were going to be in the ultra luxury segment (but you would be dead wrong)
https://streeteasy.com/blog/5-nyc-apartments-with-major-price-cuts/

@30 but even a few of the listing agents besmirch the properties in the descriptions. Read them you'll get a laugh.

Yes, not sure why sellers would let them advertise their properties with such a negative slant. But this strategy just might work for some of these listings. Quite intriguing I must say.

Question for the brokers - would you have supported your clients appearing in that WSJ article (or unsold properties)? For example, I'm wondering about that unsold townhouse that they've had to keep cutting the price on. I suppose you'll get more eyes on the property, but it also seems to carry a negative taint.

I come from the world of real estate publishing, so I'd say for *some* clients, yes. Obviously for the car dealer and the actor, the publicity they get might be helpful to them in their careers. Highlighting that something isn't selling is more of a bold move, but if you'd tried other avenues...maybe. I mean, what are the chances that a buyer shows up and says, "well, I *was* going to offer you X, but since you've been in the paper, I'm going to offer you X minus Y?"

Curious if SE is allowed to site these listings for the article without getting the broker's permission? It's all pubic information, right?

If were interested in bidding on any of these listings, I would certainly not make a full price offer after reading this article. But maybe that's not the point. Any bid is a good bid? Seller can always say no thanks.

Front_porch - I think the chance of a buyer actually admitting that the coverage drives down that buyer's view of value is virtually zero, but I think there is a risk that buyers are turned off by the whole thing. I don't have any expertise in this area so I'm just curious. Coincidentally, I noticed that same house being covered in an advertisement in a taxi I was riding this morning so it seems that this particular broker or seller thinks that the best approach is to get the most eyes possible from all mediums. I scratch my head wondering if any serious buyer would find the property more compelling because that buyer saw the property this way but I can imagine some buyers being turned off by it.

We have a client bidding on one of these properties, ironically.

Keith - good luck to you and your client.

Without betraying an confidences, did this article come into play for your client in considering whether to pursue the property?

We will be interested to hear how it went once you are able to tell us.

No not at all. I realized it after I clicked on the link and started going through the properties.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-existing-home-sales-posted-steep-fall-in-december-11548169461

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2019/01/22/five-eye-popping-truths-investors-need-to-know-about-manhattan-real-estate/#abe1d2f3767a