Although our NYC market reports only cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, I also track Staten Island and The Bronx for fun. For the second quarter 2014 NYC analysis, I observed two new records:
1. The average sales price for NYC residential real estate (co-ops, condos and 1-3 family sales) reached a record $975,441 (pink line).
2. The average sales price for NYC residential real estate excluding Manhattan reached a record $542,216 (orange line).
A few other takeaways:
· Manhattan’s super luxury market is not the only driver for record pricing in NYC—this is a city-wide phenomenon making the affordable housing crisis for middle and working class (heck, throw in upper, too) one of the most important agendas facing the city.
· Manhattan is clearly seeing the the most price growth caused by the skew (obsession) towards the higher end market. The NYC (w/Manhattan) average sales price is up 17.5 percent from the second quarter 2008 price peak (NYC w/Manhattan) before the Lehman tipping point in the third quarter of 2008. NYC (w/o Manhattan) is only 5.5 percent above the third quarter 2007 price peak (w/o Manhattan) before the Lehman tipping point.
· The surge in the spread between the two metrics (green columns) leading up to Lehman has been sustained and relatively level for six years (even with the surge of Brooklyn in the past three years), suggesting that Manhattan will remain much more expensive in relationship to the outer boroughs for the long term.
