Decent UWS 3/2's are in the $2.5 - $3M range right now

Same thing people always say at the peak of a bubble. No where to go but up, this time it's different, blah blah blah. The amazing thing this time though was the absolute ignorance of what was already happening in the suburbs and what had already happened in the rest of the country for the past two years.

thanks for the reminder

steve, I think you are becoming obsessed with me. Taking time on a Saturday morning to dig through months of old posts so you can start a thread about me. Stalker. Not to mention that my post was 100% accurate for that timeframe.

I could start searching through old threads to point out all of your posts where you claimed that we weren't in a recession, the economy was fine, and that the stock market will continue to go up, but I won't. Why? Well, I really don't care enough to put in that kind of effort even if it continues to make you look silly.

Getting testy, JuiceMan?

jgr, you are completely wrong. What happened in the suburbs and the rest of the country is not what is currently happening in Manhattan. What's amazing is how absolutely ignorant that comment is.

No steve, why would you think that? Just having a relaxing Saturday morning with a coffee and my cat.

It's okay JuiceMan. You were caught up in the herd, too stupid and too blind to see what was coming. I bet you lost it all in the internet bubble too.

jgr, funny how you result to insults when confronted with the fact that you made a completely uniformed and amazingly ignorant statement. Don't worry about what I have or what I have lost, I'm doing just fine. Based on your knowledge of real estate, my guess is that you are lagging behind your peers and are pretty upset of being excellent at accomplishing mediocrity. Good luck to you.

juiceman, why not just admit that you were wrong? no big deal. obviously apartment prices for that sort of unit did not go up from that point--they have come down significantly. so you were wrong. everyone is wrong from time to time. kind of silly to deny it.

on the other hand, i agree that it is unnecessary for people to dig through your past comments like that. but if you'd just admit your error they would probably lose interest.

Who again is uninformed?

"Over the next year, you will be have to get [r]eally lucky to get a decent 2/2 in that price range."

This is the same thing said in every other market. Fueled by cheap credit. That's all crashing down now.

If being excellent at accomplishing mediocrity is being smarter than you and not believing a Manhattan bubble wasn't going to end differently, then yes I am excellent. By your own word, you most certainly are one of the dumbest people in the world.

fair point happyrenter, but I don't feel like I was wrong. joedavis was looking for a 3/2 in the UWS and I gave him my opinion on his search. Prices ABSOLUTELY increased after I made that statement as UWS 3/2's at the time were still raging even as the rest of the market was slowing down. If you take the comment out of context (as steve generally does) you can spin it however you want.

That said, things changed after Lehman failed. New ballgame. All of my arguments over the last 18 months did not consider this as an option. I'm probably not the only one.

fair point happyrenter, but I don't feel like I was wrong. joedavis was looking for a 3/2 in the UWS and I gave him my opinion on his search. Prices ABSOLUTELY increased after I made that statement as UWS 3/2's at the time were still raging even as the rest of the market was slowing down. If you take the comment out of context (as steve generally does) you can spin it however you want.

That said, things changed after Lehman failed. New ballgame. All of my arguments over the last 18 months did not consider this as an option. I'm probably not the only one.

"Over the next year, you will be have to get [r]eally lucky to get a decent 2/2 in that price range."

jgr, uninformed? Read the thread, the price range joedavis was looking for is $1-1.25M. How many decent UWS 2/2's have been sold in the last six months in that price range? Not many. It was very difficult to do and I would say even after all that has happened, still very difficult to do. Well priced solid 3/2's in UWS are still very hard to come by. Why don't you do some resaerch befor e calling people uninformed and ignorant? You don't know what you are talking about.

JuiceMan: What was "right" probably depends on the sample you use and what you mean by "right". If you were studying closed deals and asking prices, you were absolutely correct - the price of a prime 3/2 on the Upper West Side continued to rise after Bear collapsed, even if you filter out the noise from 15 CPW.

On the other hand, if you focus on at "trade date" rather than "settlement date" for transactions, the picture is rather different. The market we're talking about is mostly co-ops, and they probably settle, on average, at T+90 or T+120, often even later. When you factor in that long settlement lag and focus on contract dates and volumes, I think the market had topped by March.

Your opinion back in May/June was completely reasonable, based on the available data at that time. It just turned out that the trailing sales data and on-market asking prices gave little indication of what was ahead.