[This week, our graph guy Jonathan Miller returns from exile—at warp speed. Click on the image to expand.]
The real estate market velocity of Manhattan has spiked while the Long Island/Queens market as dropped. Velocity is measured by multiplying the number of sales by the average sales price. It represents the total dollars that were traded during a period. However, since there is a lag between recording and closing dates, plus some other inefficiencies in data collection times, these velocity figures are not an absolute number like say, the stock market, but can be used to show a trend. The outlying suburbs are showing more weakness than Manhattan, not unlike many metro markets across the country. Manhattan sees one half to one third the transactions of Long Island/Queens, yet because the average sales price was $1,290,391 in Manhattan in the first quarter of 2007 and Long Island/Queens had an average sales price of $496,369, the total sales dollars in Manhattan were greater for the first time in a while.
· Market Velocity [Miller Samuel]