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In the first quarter of 2007, the Manhattan housing market notched a record number of apartment sale  read more »

If you’re a buyer looking for a good deal in the Manhattan housing market, consider condominiu  read more »

Could the suddenly busy sales market be draining Manhattan’s luxury rentals?    read more »

How far Manhattan's come. A new report says that the average sales price for a condo or a co-op in the borough has increased more than 200 percent in the last 10 years. The average price in 1997 was $430,927, and, in 2006, it was $1,295,445, according to the report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman.

The titanic upswings in housing prices shouldn't surprise any halfway sentient New Yorker. But some stats in the report did startle The Real Estate.

The median sales price for a Manhattan co-op apparently jumped 244.4 percent from 1997 through 2006, traveling from what now seems a very affordable $196,000 to the decidedly less so $675,000. The median price for Manhattan studio co-ops was under $100,000; now, it's nearly three times that.

The prices-per-square-foot for Manhattan apartments in the late 1990's seemed especially quaint. An Upper East Side co-op sold for an average of $315 a foot 10 years ago, and for $988 a foot now. Along Central Park West a decade back, co-ops went for an average of $524 a foot; now, $1,548. Chelsea condos in 1997 sold for an average of $319 a foot--just about one-third of what condos there sell for now. In Harlem and East Harlem, the price per foot increased 340 percent, from $145 a foot to $639.

And, despite such price increases, the number of Manhattan home sales stayed steady year to year over the last decade, going from a valley of 7,316 in 1997 to a peak of 9,522 in 1999.

Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller assured The Real Estate on Monday that a link to the full report would be up on his firm's Web site by early Tuesday.

UPDATE: The link is up (PDF). - Tom Acitelli

• The Upper East Side zip code 10021 is getting chopped up three different ways by the U.S. Postal Service. Something tells us the two new codes will become just as adverse to Aby Rosen as the original one.
[NY Sun]
• The Shake Shack opened two days early. Take that, lingering winter!
[Eater]
• Daily Reminder That More Than 6 Million New Yorkers Don't Put Up With High Costs of Manhattan Housing: Out in Flushing, Queens, a five-bedroom Colonial with a five-car driveway and a pool recently sold for $620,000. The median sales price for a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan was $649,000 in the fourth quarter of 2006, according to Miller Samuel.
[OuterB]
• The Real Deal's hosting its third annual New Development Forum on Tuesday night at Lincoln Center. You don't have tickets? God, you're pathetic.
[Real Deal] - Tom Acitelli
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Neil Binder has been in New York real estate since 1979, and this is the first year that a reason es  read more »

Brooklyn remaims a home-buying alternative to Manhattan, according to a new report from the powerful Real Estate Board of New York.

The median apartment price in Brooklyn rose 6 percent from 2005 through 2006 to $343,000. That's less than half the Manhattan median sale price, which ended 2006 at $799,000, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel. The median for one-, two-, and three-family homes in Brooklyn increased 16 percent in 2006 to $570,000. Try getting a Manhattan townhouse for that price.

Brooklyn condo prices, according to the REBNY report, increased 9 percent to a median of $477,000. The median sale price for Manhattan condos by the end of 2006 was $1.03 million. The median for a Brooklyn co-op at the end of last year was $253,000; in Manhattan, it was $650,000.

You get the picture.  read more »

Full REBNY release after the jump.

- Tom Acitelli

At the dawn of 2000, when the idea that the average sales price for a Manhattan apartment could top  read more »

When is a luxury condo not a luxury condo?    read more »

For those fleeing Manhattan's pricey housing, Queens may be the answer. Or maybe not.

A new report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel for mega-brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman pegs the average sales price of a Queens home at $492,117 in the fourth quarter of 2006, down 1.5 percent from the quarter before, but up 1.2 percent from the same time in 2005. The median sales price was $485,000 in the fourth quarter, also a slight quarterly decline, but year-over-year increase.

Both the Queens median and the Queens average sales prices are about half of Manhattan's. Which might help explain why it takes around half as long in Queens (83 days) to sell a home as it does in Manhattan (149), according to Miller Samuel.

Still, sales were down in the fourth quarter 12.6 percent from the quarter before, the new report states. Maybe, then, while Queens is cheaper than Manhattan (and Brooklyn, for that matter), it's still... well, Queens. (We kid, of course. Kind of.)

- Tom Acitelli

Manhattan’s real-estate chattering classes (reporters and the sources they call for every stor  read more »

Let's go right for the negative: In the fourth quarter of 2006, for the first time in more than a year, the average price per square foot for a Manhattan apartment fell below $1,000, according to a new report. The report, from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman, shows the average dropping 5 percent from $1,050 in the third quarter to $998 in the fourth. It was last below $1,000 in the third quarter of 2005, when it reached $984.

Otherwise, the report--a benchmark for the health of the Manhattan housing market, along with others from Halstead Property and the Corcoran Group--painted a familiar picture of a Manhattan that remains very expensive, even with other quarterly price dips besides the per-foot slide.

Every Manhattan-wide sales-price marker cited in the Miller Samuel report--average, median and per-foot--declined slightly from the third quarter to the fourth. But the meaning's in the details: The average, for instance, declined from $1,288,748 to $1,224,840.

In a borough where the median household income was $50,000 in 2005, does that drop to $1,224,840 really make a difference to most?

- Tom Acitelli

Pity the poor Manhattan housing market in 2006; it missed out on so many adjectives.  read more »

Pity the poor Manhattan housing market in 2006; it missed out on so many adjectives.    read more »

In 2005, Wall Street investment houses handed out a record $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses, accord  read more »

In 2005, Wall Street investment houses handed out a record $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses, accord  read more »

Jonathan Miller, the best-informed man in the residential real estate biz, releases his 3rd Quarter report today. (Lots of other folks do too, obviously).

The big message is that there's no need for panic. Residential prices are going down, Mr. Miller says, but they're still higher than they were this time last year. So at least the bubble won't have a violent burst, right?

And brokers beware: it took an average of 150 days to sell an apartment this quarter, which is two and a half weeks longer than the number for this time last year. Plus, discounts are on the rise. Salvation!

More after the jump.  read more »

- Max Abelson

• This week only: Mortgage rates fall and purchase mortgage volume at record high. Act now; numbers might change. (The Matrix)
• Boost your confidence with color-balanced bulbs in the bathroom, otherwise that pasty winter complexion might be all you notice. (The New York Times)
• The International Builders' Show, otherwise known as the Jetsons, displays a dishwasher with 19 time and temperature settings, and a stove whose burner strength is increased by 1,000 thermal units. The NextGen house is a model for the ways homeowners can prepare for "the next big disaster." (The New York Times)
• It's final, sort of: the Brooklyn Bridge waterfront plan, as well as the new Yankees and Mets stadiums are a go. But, the sport complex projects now go through public hearings, to be completed within the next 60 days. (Crain's)
• A blogging gourmand's favorite meals, at home and out, for the last two years--restaurants and recipes. (The Amateur Gourmet)
• The U.S. versus Manhattan change in average sales price for real estate. Suprise, suprise. (Miller Samuel)
• Alphabet City has really cleaned up. (Curbed)
• Google Earth, a target for product placement? (Matrix)
• Three Williamsburg waterfront buildings, once owned by the Royal Wine Company, are set for demolition to make way for two high-rise apartment towers. (Brownstoner)
• The New Museum of Contemporary Art, on the Lower East Side, is scheduled to be done by the fall of 2007. (The New York Times)
• London's posh restaurant Le Caprice may be sending a tempting sister to New York. (Page Six)

- Riva Froymovich  read more »

The Post follows the money and sees less and less of it. Miller Samuel reports a 13 percent drop in average home price in Manhattan—but then again, outrageous luxury sales have been exagerrating market gains for a long while. More troubling, the Times discovers, is the fact that it is taking almost a third longer to sell real estate than it used to and, nationally, executives at big residential builders are selling stock like Froot Loops. The Post quotes Corcoran CEO Pamela Liebman saying, “Their assumption of double-digit price increases every six months isn’t realistic.” Now she tells us.

Steve Cuozzo reports that Larry Silverstein is not buying the Governor’s plan for retail at Ground Zero.

In the Daily News, Councilmember Yassky rides herd on the Mayor for forgetting about Newtown Creek now that the Olympics aren’t coming.

The federal labor board has found a way of solving New York’s rodent infestation problem: get rid of the union rat.  read more »

Finally, Tom Tomorrow explains New York’s emergency evacuation plan to you.

In April, four luxury condos housed in the gilded Parisian-style townhouse at 3 East 95th Street for  read more »