If we plotted out our gut feelings about the last decade in New York City's real estate market, the result would look, well, something like this graph. But Prudential Douglas Elliman and its market number muncher Jonathan Miller are working off more than just gut feelings. Today they dropped their two 2001-2010 market reports, the first focusing on Manhattan's co-ops and condos. Compared to last year, when the 10-year period studied ended with some serious downers, Manhattan's market is looking pretty good. Or, as the report puts it, "The Manhattan housing market would be best characterized as having stable prices with a sharp rebound in sales from the past year." (Is that not what we said?) The median sale price in 2010 was up 104.7 percent from 2001, but that only sounds like a steep increase if we ignore the boom years. Right now, the market is back at around 2006 levels.
The median apartment sale price in 2010 was $880,000, up from $850,000 in 2009. That increase was due primarily to buyers purchasing larger apartments. But hold the cheers: the median apartment price prior to the global economic meltdown in 2008 was $955,000.
Before we leave you to pursue the rest of the co-op and condo analysis at your leisure, a few neighborhood notes. The West Side co-op market?the Central Park West and Lincoln Center submarkets and the UWS in general?saw the steepest price increases from 2009 to 2010, with a 31.5 percent jump on Central Park West. The FiDi co-op market was the weakest, with a 13.2 percent drop over the year in price per square foot. In the condo market, Midtown East and Chelsea had a particularly good year. Battery Park City had an 18.4 percent fall in prices between '09 and last year. At least the downtown 'hoods are presenting a united front?
Co-op and condo sales take care of the majority of Manhattan's residential inventory, but hey, we spend way more than 1.9 percent of our time thinking about the remaining 1.9 percent of the market?the townhouses. With prices still lower than their 2008 peak, townhouse sales increased in 2010. So did median prices: the median of $3.85 million was 13.2 percent higher than in 2009. And any townhouse owners who bought early in the last decade and sold last year still probably walked away with a healthy profit, since median prices were up 114.5 percent from 2001. Hopefully they can stop kicking themselves for not selling in early 2008 long enough to appreciate it.
The townhouse breakdown:
· Market Reports [Elliman]
· Market Report coverage [Curbed]