The first of the month means it's time to check in with snazzy Prudential Douglas Elliman luxury brokers Leonard Steinberg and Hervé Senequier for their Luxury Letter market report. Last month, we learned about the nasty divorce between fantasy and reality. This month, we get the following gem passages from a numerical list about the current "transitional market":
7) There are still lots of buyers in the market (an apartment came on the market last week, purposefully under-priced to stimulate exaggerated interest: If the market was slow, maybe 20 buyers would have visited in the week…..actually, 60 buyers viewed it in 3 days, with several offers, and one accepted over asking……a clear indicator of buyer build-up…BEWARE!)Buyer build-up! A new buzzword for this chilly market. We like it! Wait; there's more: "As a Seller, there may be no better time to sell than now, unless you can wait a few years. Low interest rates are critical, prices are still at record high’s, BONUS SEASON is upon us, and…….those bonuses promise to be not good, but GREAT (up 20-30% over last year)! That’s BILLIONS of spend-able dollars about to enter the market……" Amen. If, you know, the Wall Streeters aren't shorting NYC real estate this time around. (One must note that the featured East 12th Street duplex was also included in last month's Luxury Letter.) Let's start a new monthly tradition of our own: Curbed readers weigh in on the state of the purchase market in this very special Curbed Roundtable. If you're in the market buying or selling, what's your sense of the climate and how it might be shifting? Agree or disagree with Leonard and Hervé? Thoughts in the comments thread or to tips@curbed.com, svp.
· Luxury Letter December 2005 [LuxuryLoft.com]
· November Market Update: Fantasy, Reality in Nasty Divorce [Curbed]