If you bought a Manhattan townhouse a 10 years ago, congratulations! That was a fabulous decision. A new report from Elliman shows that the average price of Manhattan townhouses has increased more than 51 percent since 2005, while the median price is up 30 percent (price per square foot is up a whopping 90 percent). The average price is now $5,888,837, and the median price is $4.1 million. Report preparer and appraiser Jonathan Miller points out that townhouses represent just 2.5 percent of the market. "It is really a luxury niche market," he says. Townhouses "saw larger gains in all price indicators" over the last decade than the entire apartment market.
"Ten years ago, no one wanted townhouses. Now, the townhouse has become the new castle," Elliman president Steven James told the Daily News. "Chances are, if you're a real mover and shaker in New York, you have a townhouse." This is not to say that apartment prices didn't spike, too. The median price for condos and co-ops is at $950,000, a 25 percent increase from 2005.
Last year, the most townhouses were sold uptown, defined by the Elliman report as north of Central Park. This market accounted for 40 percent of townhouses sales, while downtown saw 26.5 percent of sales and the East Side saw 21 percent. The East Side, unsurprisingly, saw the biggest price gains in 2014, with the median price rising 12.5 percent to $6.75 million. Over the last decade, however, prices increased the most downtown. The average price doubled, hitting $8.532 million.
When it comes to the luxury townhouse market (the top 10 percent of sales)because $6 million townhouses are in no way luxuriousthe median price is up nearly 14 percent in the last year to $17.655 million, while the average is up 20 percent to more than $20 million.
The record for the most expensive Manhattan townhouse ever sold still belongs to the Harkness Mansion sale of 2006, when it sold for $53 million. There are several townhouses listed for more than that, so will 2015 be the year that record breaks?
· 2005-2014 Manhattan Townhouse report [Elliman]
· 2005-2014 Manhattan Decade Report [Elliman]
· Skyrocketing Manhattan townhouse prices outpace those of co-ops and condos [NYDN]
· All Market Reports [Curbed]