Following up on yesterday's Curbed Roundtable concerning the state of the market as the second quarter begins, the quarterly Prudential Douglas Elliman Market report hits the streets this morning. Does it portend good or ill for the market? Depends whose spin you prefer, as the headlines linked below make clear. A few notable facts:
1) Average sale price: $1.3 million, up 7% from the same quarter in 2005
2) "Because Wall Streeters concentrated mostly on high-end purchases, the average price achieved a new record of $1,004 per square foot, and the median price also hit a new record of $825,000."
3) "Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm that prepared the Prudential Douglas Elliman report, said that when the changing mix of apartments sold is taken into account, using the average price per square foot, condo prices actually declined slightly from the previous quarter, by 4.2 percent, while co-op prices rose by 2.8 percent."
Bottom line: the market looks essentially flat. Or down. Or, you know, up.
· Apartment Prices Up Again After a Slump in Manhattan [NYTimes]
· Housing Frenzy Slows Down [NYDailyNews]
· Curbed Roundtable: April State O' the Market Report [Curbed]