Sellers Are Coming Down From Over-Priced Listings
A report from Curbed New York. “The first quarter market reports are in, affirming a report released last week that found the resale market is strong throughout the city. Jonathan Miller, who crunches the numbers for Douglas Elliman’s report, believes one big reason the resale activity increased ‘is more about the seller coming down to meet the buyer, than the buyer coming up to meet the seller.’”
“Case in point: listing discounts for all Manhattan sales was 4.2 percent, up from 2.1 percent last year. ‘It’s not high, but it doubled,’ Miller says. ‘Sellers are coming down from over-priced listings to begin with.’ A sign that buyers are willing to wait, also, is that the days listings spent on the market rose 16.1 percent from a year ago. As for luxury inventory, it’s the same old story: Prices continued to decline and the overpriced luxury resale listings continued to flounder on the market before being removed, Douglas Elliman found.”
“As for Manhattan’s median sales price, it declined 3.3 percent to $1.1 million. The sales median for co-ops was $775,000, unchanged from last year. For condos, it was $1.65 million, a 10.6 percent decline from last year. Corcoran also tracked a steady market pace, reporting that the number of signed contracts rose for the second quarter in a row, with this being the first year-over-year increase of contracts signed in six quarters. Pricing, however, remained flat and ’sellers became more realistic this quarter,’ according to the report.”
From Mansion Global. “The median sales price in Manhattan fell 3.3% to $1.1 million in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period a year earlier. This was the second consecutive quarter prices fell. ‘Every single submarket saw the listing discount increase, and that means sellers were willing to travel farther to meet buyer on price. The buyers weren’t budging,’ added Jonathan Miller, the chief executive of Miller Samuel.”
The Real Deal. “Going once, going twice, rented! Apartment-rental websites like the San Francisco-based Rentberry and Biddwell in Vancouver want to turn the apartment hunting process into an eBay-style auction, the Wall Street Journal reported. Experts told the Journal that in markets like New York City where there’s already plenty of public information on the rental market, auction sites may have little effect on pricing.”
“When Rentberry launched in early 2016, the company said it would raise rents on average by 5 percent. But the company’s founder said tenants have actually saved 5.1 percent compared to listed prices in the 10 cities where it active. It should be noted, though, that nationwide there is an oversupply of apartments, said Bozzuto Group executive Toby Bozzuto, who manages 60,000 apartments in the country.”
The New York Post. “A few weeks ago, we reported on uptown Third Avenue’s many retail vacancies. The tenement building at 1330 Third Ave. at 76th St. was asking $420,000 for just 1,500 square feet. Now, the price has been slashed to a mere $360,000 a year.”
From Spectrum News. “A 32-year-old Democrat from Binghamton is hoping to be the new leader of the city in 2018. Michael Treiman announced his plans to challenge current Mayor Rich David at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Treiman said while he supports student housing, he believes it’s oversaturated and says the city should instead focus on more housing for the elderly. ‘People are getting priced out of rental properties because the downstate investors expect a certain amount of money per month that they’re accustomed to downstate, and they brought that market up here, and it’s not something that’s sustainable for local residents,’ said Treiman.”
The Glen Falls Post Star. “The Mill apartment complex at the corner of Hudson Avenue and Elm Street has been sold and the new owners plan to renovate unfinished space on the second floor for additional apartments. Sale of the complex was completed on Friday to a real estate group that includes ‘a local investor,’ said Keith Flores of Sunrise Management & Consulting, an Albany-based real estate company that manages the property. A limited liability company affiliated with Amalgamated Bank has owned the complex since 2010. The bank financed the $26 million project, completed in 2009, and took ownership from developer Bruce Levinsky under a settlement agreement to avoid foreclosure.”
“Levinsky headed an investment group that added three stories to a historic former glove factory building. The project was originally intended to be condominiums, but no condominiums were sold once the national recession caused the market for condominiums to drop off. Amalgamated Bank has rented housing units instead of selling them as condominiums.”
