Tips, Trends and Tales from a Pro
Viewing entries tagged
buyer's market
Are we approaching a turning point in Manhattan’s housing market? Are prices nearing the bottom? Only with the benefit of hindsight can we determine highs and lows, but it feels very much like 2009 when home prices sank and remained flat until regaining traction and climbing past the peaks of 2007 to new highs seven years later in 2014.
Much has been made in the press of late of the shifting New York real estate market. Although buyer’s decidedly have the edge today, all is not lost for sellers. If you are in the fortuitous position of trading up to a larger property, while you may not do as well as you would hope for on the sale, you will more than likely make up for that deficiency on the buy. In this current climate, two important strategies can boost sales: pricing realistically and doing your best to convert that first offer into a sale.
Numbers tell only part of the story. At the end of each quarter, we’re showered with statistical reports that require us to consider the macro and the micro of our market. Yet each neighborhood and even each building has its own contextual history. To best serve buyers and sellers, agents need to dig deeply into quarterly reports and then plough even deeper into individual comps, examining both sold and current properties to scrutinize every factor that influences a sale including condition, staging, monthly carrying charges, price drops, time on the market and extenuating circumstances.
With the exception of well priced apartments under $2M which continue to attract multiple competitive bids and top sales dollars, price increases of Manhattan homes have abated. Sellers have relinquished their upper hand as buyers find more balanced footing in a market that seems to be heading back slowly to equilibrium. Throughout this year, new development options have come to market steadily yielding more than two and a half times as many choices for buyers than in 2014: approximately 6,500 units in 100 new buildings compared to roughly 2,500 units in 59 buildings last year. At the ultra high end, sales are stalled. In 2015, Manhattan’s residential real estate market shifted in more ways than one.
