Welcome to the buyer's market: Supply is up, demand is down, and prices are teetering. Brokers say buy now – after all, there are deals to be had! But what if you waited?

Here’s four areas (and one borough) where buyers would be fools to rush in now.

1. MANHATTAN
In Manhattan, prices are falling. But several gauges indicate that, in the months ahead, they'll fall even further.

For one, new development – which accounted for 30 percent of sales in the borough last quarter – continues to skew prices, according to the third-quarter market report from Miller Samuel and Prudential Douglas Elliman.  read more »

As the Hamptons housing market tumbled mightily in the third quarter, the North Fork's saw a mild price bounce. The North Fork median sales price was $575,000 in the third quarter, up 10 percent from last year, according to the new Miller Samuel-Douglas Elliman report.

The North Fork, home to a cluster of well-respected wineries and other tourist attractions, lacks the sandy dunes and social cachet of its southern neighbor; but the home price increase, at a time when the Hamptons' declined, could reflect a maturation of the North Fork as a second-home destination. Make no mistake, however: Despite a nearly 20 percent annual drop in the Hamptons' median sales price, to $830,000, it still dwarfed the North Fork's by $255,000.

It’s not all good news in the North Fork, however, though in this market that’s not really terribly startling. (The Miller Samuel numbers reflect deals closed in the three months ending Sept. 30, and therefore don't necessarily reflect the financial crisis.)  read more »

All is not well at the summer playground for America’s rich and famous, as home prices and sales in eastern Long Island tumbled to two-year lows in the third quarter, according to a new Hamptons/North Fork market report from real estate appraisal shop Miller Samuel and brokerage giant Prudential Douglas Elliman.

The quarterly median sales price in the tony vacation enclaves dropped to $729,000, which is the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2006 and 17.3 percent below last year’s median price of $882,000. Third-quarter sales fell from 427 last year to 355 this year, a 16.9 percent plunge, which brought East End market activity to its slowest quarterly pace since Miller Samuel began tracking the area in the second quarter of 2006.  read more »

The Miller Samuel-Prudential Douglas Elliman third-quarter Manhattan housing report's now online (PDF).

To read about the sagging Manhattan condo market click here; to read about the troubled luxury market click here.

The second-quarter Miller Samuel-Douglas Elliman report on the North Fork and the Hamptons housing markets is now online as a PDF.

Another fun fact! Among the East End's luxury markets, Quogue had the highest average sales price at $15,650,000. Yes, Quogue.

Like in Manhattan (and Brooklyn and Queens), home sales in the Hamptons plunged annually in the second quarter of 2008. At the same time, the average home sales price dropped annually and quarterly as well to $1,730,414, according to a new report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman. The report covers closed deals for the quarter ending June 30.

The 26.2 percent sales drop from the second quarter of 2007 mirrors a Manhattan year-over-year drop of 21.8 percent, suggesting the oft-cited symbiosis between the two housing markets. Quarterly Hampton sales, similar to Manhattan's, were up 12.8 percent to 352--that's still well below the 477 recorded in the second quarter last year.  read more »

Home sales in Queens plunged annually from the spring of 2007, according to a new report, joining Brooklyn and Manhattan in steep year-over-year sales slides.

Queens home sales were down 23.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, to 2,363, according to the report out this week from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman. The second quarter sales amount--nearly 3,100--represents, apparently, a quarterly peak since 2004.  read more »

A report earlier this month showed Brooklyn home sales plunging 43.6 percent annually. And, in Manhattan, sales dropped 21.8 percent year over year. The reports tracked deals closed in the quarter ending June 30 (the Manhattan and Brooklyn ones are available ]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/bad-times-biggest-boroughs#comments Real Estate Brooklyn Housing market miller samuel Prudential Douglas Elliman Queens Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:54:16 -0400 Tom Acitelli 71974 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/stat-day-hey-theres-new-mexico

Most of Brooklyn's home sales are happening in South Brooklyn, a slice of the city much less traveled by Manhattanites than the increasingly mirror-image neighborhoods further north.

In the first half of 2008, over 53 percent of Brooklyn home sales closed in South Brooklyn, according to a report (PDF) from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman.

Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that South Brooklyn, unlike its condo-laden neighbors elsewhere, remains awash in houses. "One- to three-family houses account for half the sales in the entire borough," Jonathan Miller, the report's author, pointed out yesterday.

The second-quarter Manhattan housing market reports will be out by Wednesday morning of next week. Last time they hit, for the first quarter, the reports caused quite the kerfuffle, including internal company e-mails and a New York Times article trying to sort the whole thing out.

Basically, it went like this: Prudential Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel's report showed a 34 percent annual drop in Manhattan home sales. Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property's showed a 5 percent gain. And the Corcoran Group's showed a mere 1 percent drop.

All good and well--different measures by different firms, different numbers.  read more »

But! Elliman superbroker Dolly Lenz sent out an ]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/real-estate/manhattan-market-reports-coming#comments Real Estate Corcoran Group Housing market miller samuel Prudential Douglas Elliman Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:03:30 -0400 Tom Acitelli 71332 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/queens-market-report-sorry-its-boring

Sorry, outer-borough bargain-hunters; the median sales price in Queens actually increased slightly to $498,500 in the first quarter of 2008, compared to $492,900 in the same period last year, according to Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Q1 2008 Long Island/Queens Market Report.

Credit all the new high-end developments coming on-line, not increasing demand, for the price hike.  read more »