Corcoran.com lists a minuscule 267 new listings this week, the lowest number I have seen on the site. Corocoran defines a new listing as a property that has come on the market in the last seven days.
Usually, four to eight hundred apartments fall in that category. Sometimes, a new development lists each unit separately and creates an unwieldy amount of new listings.
Yes, the holidays may be responsible for the lack of new listings. But people are not putting their apartments on the market these days unless they have to sell.
The November housing report tells a tough story for home sellers in a season full of tough news on all fronts. Sales of existing homes declined 8.6% and the median price declined 13% from $208K last year to $181.3K.
The article identifies the peak of the market as July 2006 when the median price hit $230K. G and I sold our apartment in May 2005.
Every report about the national housing market must be asterisked for New York City residents. The decline is happening here; it’s just not the avalanche it is elsewhere. Yet. Housing Predictor.com projects a 19.4% decline in Manhattan prices in 2009.
As a buyer on the sidelines, I take all the bad news reported as good news for me. Despite cheering with those in the grandstands, I see the prices going down as a necessary correction.
Many families have been burned in the housing build-up and crash, but prices could not continue to go higher and higher out of the reach of normal people. Million-dollar studios in Manhattan couldn’t last forever. Eventually, someone must buy it as a place to live rather than an investment. Manhattan and the nation was playing a game of musical chairs. The music and all the house flipping stops and people must put their butts somewhere.

Are Manhattan apartment prices coming down–finally? Asking prices seem noticeably lower in Manhattan and certain Brooklyn neighborhoods. Another fluke?

As evidence of the turning tide, check out my old Schermerhorn Street apartment, the price knocked down by $40K since I posted about it. An apartment in another favorite building I watch, 200 E 27th, has come down $20K.

Check out this co-op on Amity Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The Bergen Street F stop is only four tree-lined blocks away. Granted the “F” in F train stands for “frustrating.” But the F is the only game in town and it’ll do.

The listing advertises 1000 sq feet of shared outdoor space. I wonder how many residents share the space. From the picture, the brick building looks small, so not that many?

The apartment, a duplex, is 900 square feet with a $599K asking price. That equals $921/sq ft–high for Brooklyn but the outdoor space trips that equation.

What interests me about this apartment for sale is that this apartment is the apartment G. and I used to own. We sold this downtown Brooklyn one bedroom in May 2005 for $345K. Today the asking price is $440K.

Does the $85K price increase say anything about the New York City real estate market as a whole? (When I refer to the New York market, I mean my market: Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn and just maybe, Astoria, Long Island City and Jackson Heights in Queens.) Has the asking price moved with the market or has the price outpaced the market?

Last week’s news about the declining price of existing homes (down 11.3% percent nationwide from a year ago) encouraged me that we might be able to jump into the market again. A New York Times article says that the market is seeing prices not seen since 2004. If that statement could be applied consistently, our old apartment would not cost $440K; the cost would be lower than our 2005 sale price. If only that were true.

I read prices in New York declined by 7%. Even in New York media, meaningful stats remain cloudy. Is the 7% all five boroughs added together? Averaging all the boroughs together doesn’t tell the Manhattan shopper anything. A short piece in the New York Times indicates that current prices are falling in Manhattan but the stats don’t reflect a decrease yet.

Back to our former nest: 96 Schermerhorn is a great apartment. When the Brooklyn Law School dormitory rose behind the building, our apartment was spared the loss of a great view. The view looks out over Brooklyn and the Verrazano Bridge. I am puzzled that the old photo of our living room with our furniture is used. Looked better then, perhaps? I like the kitchen remodeling, but I wonder if the openness above the kitchen counter is worth the loss of cabinet space.

Sentimentality or sour grapes? I think the former, but we won’t know until we are owners of a new space ourselves.

Scanning the listings on Corcoran.com, you’d think that Manhattan apartment prices haven’t budged, despite the crumbling of the rest of the nation’s real estate markets. I’m not looking for Manhattan prices to crumble; I only want them out of the ozone.

Whenever I see a 750+ square foot apartment listed for under $500K, I assume there is something terribly wrong with it, like a $1500 maintenance fee. Or it sits under a highway, or over a bar. Something. And I am never disappointed.

But the news beginning to be good for us fence sitters. Barely noticeable to the naked eye, some prices are moving downward.

For example:

• The Washington Heights apartment on Wadsworth sat at $439K since May and now it lists at $409K.
• The apartment on West 12th took its second price slashing from $725K to $699K to $649K.
• Most surprising of all is the penthouse studio at 96 Schermerhorn that seemed like a deal at $275K. The price went up to $300K, but now it sits at $250K.

All three of these apartments sounded relatively sellable at their original prices. Sellable to someone other than me.