Manhattan Q4 prices UP 5%!!!!

Yes, keep telling yourself that...

Why do they always skew the data with outliers?

Because there is always someone in denial to eat it up.

This is MEAN prices, not MEDIAN. Meaning its, well, meaningless. It certainly doesn't say what happened to prices, it says what the makeup of the few sales left are....

Its the basket of goods issue.

Say apples are $10 and oranges are $1. There are 2 sales of each. Mean price is $5.50. Then prices go down to $9 and $.50 because of a decline. Then there are 2 apple sales, and one orange sale. Mean price is $6.17. Does that REALLY say that prices went up? Of course not, everything is 10% cheaper.

And the article specifically mentions one development... which likely had most contracts signed before the mess.

Oh, and btw, the medians are down 20%.

Anybody wants to call that "going up"... well, I'll be there to consider making an offer when it "goes up" negative 50%

nyc10022, MMAfia was being sarcastic.

wow, over my head then....

you got me...

sorry, MMA

We'll be living with that effect for several more quarters. On the Upper West Side, for example, the listings in contract are dominated by sales at Harrison (and Linden78 and a few others) that have been pending since '07 or early '08. And even after a year or more, 15 CPW still messes up the mean.

It didn't sound sarcastic to me; it sounded like he was being a realt-whore.

Mmafia is a well known RE bear and Gold bull on these boards and he has been posting longer than even stevejhz about this.
I'm surprised nyc100022 does not know this.

Props to nyc10022 for that apples and oranges thing.

Having said that I guess nyc10022 is on a hair trigger when it comes to anything that remotely sounds positive about RE. Ya gotta relax a bit mate.

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would talk about average prices, for the exact reason nyc10022 raised. No measure is perfect, but I think there's more of a concensus about using median price, or median price psf.

both mean and median are subject to significant shortcomings. case schiller actually has an APARTMENT price index for manhattan now.

True, Special_K, and this is what our stats professors in college meant when they said, "Sometimes, we need to look at mean, median, and mode altogether to make sense of the data you got!"

"Having said that I guess nyc10022 is on a hair trigger when it comes to anything that remotely sounds positive about RE. Ya gotta relax a bit mate."

Given that alpine and others have made pretty much the exact same denial and NOT been sarcastic about it... it wasn't an unreasonable guess. Hell, he started a thread with almost the same exact language.

My apologies to MMA. I hadn't seen a lot of his posts before.

Hahah, can't fool the Juice!

No worries nyc10022. Just re-playing the same spin that we've seen by people in denial.

Once the 'spins' stop popping up in mainstream media, then we know the bottom is closer that further away. A good anecdotal reference to gauge where we are at in this downward spiral.

My comment is not about you getting it wrong (Admiral does an admirable job of that so has that particular area sewn up) but, again, you appear to be on a hair trigger ready to refute any positive news.

Don't get me wrong - I don't necessarily disagree with your point of view - you just appear to be on edge all the time. Lie I said, relax mate.

you all are delusional...it's going down and no other way but down...

>> On the Upper West Side, for example, the listings in contract are dominated by sales at Harrison (and Linden78 and a few others) that have been pending since '07 or early '08. And even after a year or more, 15 CPW still messes up the mean.

Agree, but this could delay/slow the fall as the data lags. The fact that the bottom line still hasn't hit Manhattan stats yet, is still significant and interesting. It's not like other parts of the country didn't have lagging contracts either. The spinning is thick on both sides.

As UD says, NYC Real Estate LAGS in a slowdown and LEADS in recovery. It's been... what two years since the national top?

"Mmafia is a well known RE bear and Gold bull on these boards and he has been posting longer than even stevejhz about this."

Exactly. RE bear and a Gold Bull.

There is a good chance that the main course might actually arrive in 2009 and not in 2010.

If it does, you better be positioned properly or risk losing even more.

Don't listen to people like petrfitz or tech_guy. They are simply wrong about RE and Gold and will go the way of their predecessors like spunky whom we don't even see here anymore.

Instead, listen to those who have actually been correct, like UrbanDigs.

Hey MMAfia, forgive me for being a bit skittish on Gold. I've read all of your stuff on the topic, but I'm still chicken shit.

The brokerage firms put out these reports knowing the data is misleading - but that's all they have to go on to convince gullible buyers that NYC real estate is not tanking (which it is). Most new condo developments entered contract 1-2 years ago (or at least a few months ago), making Q4 sales stats absolutely meaningless. You won't see true numbers until at least Q2 of 2009.

"You won't see true numbers until at least Q2 of 2009."

Really? I hear this EVERY quarter, except it always gets pushed out further and further. I thought it was Q4 08, no wait, Q1 09, and now it's Q2 09! Look, I know the reports are publishing closings, which are not "real-time" data, but despite what you say, they are "true numbers" and you have to accept them. Anyone who looks at these reports and says that they reflect the state of the market RIGHT NOW is wrong, but that doesn't mean we have to play this charade with each report that comes out and doesn't agree with your forecasts. This is malraux's thread all over again.

Juice, if you diversify, there's no need to be skittish. Put some 'insurance' stake into Gold. 'Insurance' means different things to different people... 10%? 20%? for some, even 30% or more for others? it all depends on your risk aversion.

Having nothing in Gold is a risk in itself, as more and more people, Funds and Institutions are realizing.

> Really? I hear this EVERY quarter, except it always gets pushed out further and further. I thought
> it was Q4 08, no wait, Q1 09, and now it's Q2 09!

Except the reports already show the declines.

Lets not play the childish games. There is a difference between "wait, the market will go down" and "the market is now down, lets see how long till we bottom / how bad the declines are". Of course no one knows for sure on anything, but pretending this is 2 years ago isn't quite valid. For all the complaints of "well, you kept saying that", the fact is those folks were right in calling the downturn. How deep is another story.

"Except the reports already show the declines."

nyc10022, I know this, but it amazes me that you still have people saying things like "you won't see true numbers til Q2 of 2009." That's the childish game. I'm certainly not pretending it's any time other than where we are now. Calling a downturn is no real feat - anyone patting themselves on the back for that is a bit too quick to dole those accolades out. Frankly, I'm more impressed if someone can give a pretty accurate picture of when, how, and by how much (and constantly pushing back your prediction is the antithesis of this). And very very few people here have done that, whereas others simply jumped on the downturn bandwagon without much to add.

"Don't listen to people like petrfitz or tech_guy. They are simply wrong about RE and Gold and will go the way of their predecessors like spunky whom we don't even see here anymore."

You believe the USD as fiat currency will fail and we'll go back to the gold standard. I don't need to say anything else to make it obvious who's more likely to be "simply wrong" with their predictions.

GTFOHWTB tech_guy. you're not worth the time anymore.

:)

I posted this elsewhere recently, but it's totally relevent.
I read a report from goldman that was published recently that said prices would need to fall by 35 to 44% in Manhattan to return to a neutral valuation level (a return to 1995-1999 valuation levels). The report also said that many other variables could change their estimates, such as Manhattan per capita income, possible change in Jumbo rates, demographic changes, crime, return of empty nesters, etc. So basically to get back to the base period chosen, 95-99, (because it preceeds the recent boom) the article states one bedroom condos would fall from an average of $800k to $480k, 2 bedroom from $1.7M to $1.0M, and 3 bedroom condos would go from $3M to $1.8M. Their math is based on rental prices, incomes, and affordibility.
No mention on how long they estimate this correction would take. The drop seem drastic and we'll have to see how salaries change in the upcoming year. Outside of this report a lot of what is written & studied about the Manhattan housing market is from RE agencies, such as corcoran, douglas elliman, etc. Good to see a somewhat independent publishing.

a_g, that goldman report was discussed here a while ago... search the old threads and you will see the responses to that report from people on this thread.

That Goldman report was a hunk of crap-o-la.

Ok MMAfia, DGP, IAU, or GLD?

Note: I don't recommend not taking investment advice from anonymous strangers on message boards, but I'm going to do it anyway because it’s fun.

"I don't recommend not taking investment advice"

holy crap, I haven't even started drinking yet

Juice, check out CEF or GTU. They are safer alternatives to ETFs. Or, you can always buy ownership of bullion stocked in off-shore vaults (gov't cant' take it away from you if they try to do what they did in the last depression and made it illegal to own gold).