Appraisal firm HMS Associates released some numbers about the Brooklyn market yesterday that looked quite bullish on the surface but were deserving of a large asterisk: The third quarter report, which show that the average sales price rose 12% over the previous quarter, purposefully omitted data from Bedford Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville, where the sales volume fell a precipitous 50 percent over the last three months. For the sixteen neighborhoods the study did cover, there was plenty of some good news to be found. Year-over-year single family homes and co-ops rose 20% and 32%, respectively, while condo prices fell by 2.9%. Sales volume, while up in Greenpoint and Clinton Hill, fell 36% on average across the surveyed portion of the borough. According to Crain’s, HMS brass says the drop “points to unwillingness on the part of sellers to drop prices, combined with buyers willing to wait for better deals.” Comment: We’d expect this divergence between older homes and new condos to continue, if not worsen, as more condos come to market.
Brooklyn Home Prices Up in Third Quarter [Crain's]