Corcoran Market Report: We're OK, Actually
We got our hands on Corcoran’s Q2 sales data, and it shows that the state of the Brooklyn market isn’t quite as precarious as the Times made it out to be. The median price per square foot sales price of condos and co-ops is up 10 percent over this time last year, to $560,000, and…

We got our hands on Corcoran’s Q2 sales data, and it shows that the state of the Brooklyn market isn’t quite as precarious as the Times made it out to be. The median price per square foot sales price of condos and co-ops is up 10 percent over this time last year, to $560,000, and there was a 4 percent reduction in condo/co-op inventory. In terms of townhouses, while the median price on one-families was down 3 percent from Q2 ’07 levels, to $965,000, the median price on 2-4 families was up 6 percent, to $1,240,000. In fact, all the brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods had pretty substantial price increases in the larger townhouse category, and inventory was extremely tight. The most startling figure in the report is the 15 percent decrease in median prices for Williamsburg condos, but even that doesn’t seem so horrible when you factor in that Corcoran had 47 percent more condo listings between April and June ’08 compared to the same three months in ’07. Another mediating factor to consider in viewing the drop in median price of Williamsburg condos: Many developers began skewing their mix of inventory towards studios and one-bedrooms since those were the units that were selling best; if there were more small apartments in the 2008 data, one would expect to see average and median prices declining. Conclusion: We don’t think the party’s over and done with in Brooklyn, either.
Manhattan ‘Still a Party’; Hangover for Williamsburg? [Brownstoner]
Legion:
Actually, voting fraud is a Republican obsession. It is the trope the Republicans have used in many states to make it harder to register to vote, although there is virtually no evidence of actual voting by ineligible voters anywhere. There is, however, quite a bit of evidence that the excluded voters were highly likely to have voted strongly Democratic.
The real problem is disenfranchisement, as it has been for a long time.
Democrats whined when they should have rioted in the streets when the Supreme Court appointed Bush president despite the fact that he LOST the popular vote. No “fraud” there, just a purely partisan vote by justices who often seem to have trouble distinguishing the Constitution from the Republican party platform.
Democrats also complained, again without pushing hard enough, when Republican operatives in Florida and elsewhere simply took long lists of African Americans off the voting rolls based on completely fabricated claims that they were felons. That’s not voter fraud, that’s criminal lawlessness and anti-American behavior by governmental officials who are seeking to destroy the American Constitution.
Legion asks how prices can drop when most homeowners don’t have to sell.
The simple answer is marginal economics. Prices aren’t set by “most” homeowners. Very few New Yorkers could afford to buy the houses they currently own at current prices. Prices are set by the people who do sell and the people who do buy.
Virtually all current homeowners bought before the last rapid run-up in prices. How hard is it to give up bubble gains that on some level you knew were phony even when they made you feel good? Are you really going to indefinitely delay retiring/changing jobs/downsizing/upgrading/divorcing/marrying/moving near your kids or parents because the brownstone/apt you bought for $x is going to sell for five times x instead of 10 times x (and the house you are planning to buy elsewhere has dropped by a similar proportion)? Once people decide the bubble is over, enough will decide to go on with their lives to make the bubble over.
Even among those who stand to lose real money, some will have to sell. Job change, illness, divorce, death don’t necessarily respect your desire to keep your losses unrealized.
Only the boosters & Legion are claiming the world is coming to an end.
A 50% price drop would still leave NYC the most expensive place to live in the US, it would still leave existing house prices ABOVE replacement cost (which is pretty unusual), it would still leave virtually all homeowners in brownstone brooklyn — very few of whom bought in the last few years — solvent and sitting on unrealized capital gains.
Some people will be in trouble — flippers caught in the middle, and borrowers who overloaded on debt they couldn’t service assuming that capital gains would rescue them.
But for the other 90% of NY homeowners and all aspiring homeowners, the news will be overwhelmingly good.
Okay, wait. It’s like 430 in the morning and I am still trying to wrap my head around the liberal baristas. Wouldn’t “The Warriors” be a better movie analogy?
But, okay. Back to deflation…
It’s 1929. I have five apples that I bought for a dollar.
And then the stock market crashes, etc.
Now it’s 1935. I would have bought 10 apples for a dollar, but instead I had to pay my mortgage.
And this is bad… because… because why? Maybe sleep will provide the answer. Right now I’m not sure, and my fast googling of the topic leads me to believe that some experts are not either, since there seems to be lively debate on “good” and “bad” deflation.
We have now gone to the new extreme. First, everyone said prices will only go up. Now chicken littles are claiming the world is coming to an end. The reality is somewhere in the middle. Get a grip people.
Lesion, just go away, would you? Whatever good points you may have, and you had a couple there, are totally obliterated by your Anne Coulter-ish, neo-con desire to blame everything from the fall of Adam to yesterday’s Yankees loss on liberals and Democrats. It’s so tiresome, and blatently untrue, and not backed up by any kind of fact, whatsoever.
You are right, we will survive and inspire, no matter what the economy does in the short term. But you better be careful, a lot of those great musicians, artists, and other creative inspiring Americans will likely be liberals and/or Democrats. We are America too.
Montrose Morris
People, think of how dumb some of your arguments are;
You are predicting that the housing market will “crash” in nyc and somehow housing will be worthless.
Follow the logic: why would someone who bought a brownstone for say 1 million, decide to sell it for 500K and have no place to live and be 500K in debt? Doesn’t make sense, does it. Most people don’t buy a million dollar home entirely on credit, by the way. No, people in a housing downturn will either sit it out and take their home off the market altogether or rent out a portion of it to one of the 5 million or so people in this city who don’t own.
Second: do we really think that we are headed for an “Escape From New York” type future where bands of ex-hipsters and baristas roam the apocalyptic landscape of downtown Brooklyn looking like Sid Vicious?
No, this too shall pass, whatever “this” is. Since it is becoming more and more obfuscated by the political posturing of dispicable individuals who would put political gain ahead of truth. In other words, no matter what happens to make the economy seem stable, no matter what information or numbers show that we are not headed to a depression, there are 50 million angry liberal whiners out there who will always say that we are doing badly. why? because they are not in charge.Many of these habitual whiners are news editors, publishers and media figures.
If Obama is elected, watch how rosy the economic outlook becomes. Exactly analagous to the remarkable lack of “voting fraud” issues in the 2006 election cycle when the democrats and liberals won decidedly. Funny, the conservatives and republicans didn’t howl and moan about voter fraud despite widespread evidence of it in democratic chicago and parts of Ohio. No, voter fraud is only an issue when a Republican wins. Go figure. Conservatives, not being the whining and crying type by nature, will simply continue to work hard and produce, regardless. Now this may be a brownstone site, but the economic discussion simply cannot be disassociated from the political underpinnings. Surely no one here would doubt that economic reality is based largely on economic perception, in fact there is an entire index for this phenomenon; consumer confidence reports.
The American economy will continue to move along and Americans will continue to work and the city will continue to inspire. Look at the bright side, if the city does devolve into a dump, at least we’ll get great music and art from the experience.
Legion
Never, before, in the entire history of the world, have there been lenders willing to lend you more than 100% of the value of what you want to buy. Never. It was insane. My biggest regret, was that although I knew it was going on my reaction was this is crazy and not, the hell with it, I’ll take out such a loan and buy real estate. You literally had nothing to lose because you didn’t have to put down a dime to buy a brownstone.
Not only were the banks willing to give negative amortization loans, they did so knowing that borrowers were lying to them regarding their income and assets, the so called “liar loans.” Better yet were the NINJA loans – no jobs, no assets, no nuthin. Granted, primo NYC coops did not accept buyers with such loans, but you can bet your bottom dollar, brownstone brooklyn sellers couldn’t give a crap. Considering how insane the lending got, it would not be surprising to see NYC real estate absolutely tank. Especially considering that the people who personally profitted from the making of these loans, ie., the people working on Wall Street, were also driving up the value of NYC real estate. In other words, NYC real estate was driven up by the people borrowing the money AND the people lending the money, or at least securitizing he loans. It’s gonna be a double whammy and when’s the last time you heard that argument?
Only butt crack, 6:24