How wild a ride was the Manhattan real estate market over the past 10 years? Well, with its slow buildup, frenzied boom and sudden slam on the breaks, it even felt like a roller coaster. If only we had the visual aids to make this truth less boring! Enter Prudential Douglas Elliman and its market data gatekeeper Jonathan Miller, who have just put out a pair of reports analyzing a decade's worth of Manhattan real estate transactions. The first, the 2000-2009 Manhattan Market Report, is dedicated to condos and co-ops and the numbers are eye-popping. Favorite bellwethers average sales price, median sales price and price per square foot all pretty much doubled from the time when the Supreme Court decided George W. Bush should be president to the gripping nationwide crisis that resulted when wannabe reality TV stars crashed a White House gala. Have a look!
Wall Street excess, easy credit?there are plenty of contributing factors to the market's crazy gains over the past decade. One hall-of-famer? The building boom. According to the report, condo sales began the decade with a 40% market share compared to co-ops, but by the end of 2009 all those fancy expensive developments had bumped the condo market share up to 54%. The market was at its most raging in '07 and '08. Hey, what happened then?
Ah yes, global economic meltdown, which means the story of these blockbuster numbers has quite the unhappy ending. Miller reports that 2009 was the only year this decade that prices declined from the previous year. Average sales price dropped 12.5% from 2008 to 2009, median sales price fell 11% and price per square foot sank 14%. The number of sales in 2009 was the lowest level in more than a decade. The report has extensive breakdowns of sales histories by apartment type and neighborhood, so it's a fun read for when you're sitting on the john.
And what about those precious jewels of the market, the townhouses? The second retrospective is the 2000-2009 Manhattan Townhouse Report, and it also shows huge gains over the past decade and big declines over the past year. Far fewer trading hands, obviously, so the numbers are more volatile. It looks like if you got into the townhouse game this decade in a year other than 2001 or 2002, you're probably kicking yourself. Then again you could probably also afford to buy off Miller and get him to report whatever you want, so it all evens out. Here's some townhouse data:
· Market Reports [Elliman]
· Market Reports coverage [Curbed]
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