Dog Days for U.S. Housing; Is NYC Next?
The Times is talking doom and gloom about the national housing market after stats were released showing that home prices fell 14.1 percent in March as compared to the same month last year. While primo New York City—Manhattan in particular—has remained mostly immune to the rest of the country’s housing woes, other once-resilient markets are…
The Times is talking doom and gloom about the national housing market after stats were released showing that home prices fell 14.1 percent in March as compared to the same month last year. While primo New York City—Manhattan in particular—has remained mostly immune to the rest of the country’s housing woes, other once-resilient markets are faltering. Seattle, for example, has only started posting a huge rise in unsold inventory. Some say the housing market hangover could last for another couple years. It’s like eating beyond your stomach’s capacity, said Ronald J. Peltier, the chief executive of Home Services of America, which owns real estate brokerage firms across the country. We have huge indigestion. According to an article in the Observer, though, New York City may yet have to reach for the Mylanta: Recent rises in inflation (the price of a six pack of craft beer is up $1!) and crime, coupled with lots of job losses, could very well mean the worst is yet to come.
In Housing, the Strong Turn Weak [NY Times]
Lead Indicators? The Price of Beer, Hurricane Season [NY Observer]
Photo by bburke782.
NYC’s quality should be fully reflected in rents. That’s why the ratio of rents to prices is such a useful tool. Prices are close to double the value of comparable rentals.
Either rents go up (which requires incomes to go up) or prices go down, or there is huge money to be made by converting rentals to sales, building new buildings or converting warehouses. In the long run, no matter how attractive NYC is, purchase prices can’t stay double rental prices.
11:15, prices and sales volume are still going up.
Your post is nonsense.
If you were dumb enough to pay too much for a place in an iffy neighborhood you’re screwed. Quality NYC real estate is gold. Period.
The What What in Your Butt Butt
This isn’t the 1980s.
The crash in the 1980s was brought on in part by high interest rates and a change in the tax law. Also, as much as I like to be nostalgic about NYC in the 1980s, it was dirtier, more dangerous, and all-around not as easy as a place to live, especially with a family.
Don’t forget, in order for there to be a crash here, people need to decide that they no longer want to live in NYC for some reason–will NYC suddenly stop being a world class city with a ton of cache all of the sudden? I doubt it. Seattle isn’t NYC.
The What is the man. I read about him in New York magazine.
Prices are going up; they have to. This is God’s country and we have a promise.
Soon they’ll be so high that no American will be able to afford them (except me, of course, because I already own a place bigger than I need). Brownstones are a work of art and buyers with Euros will pay whatever they are asked for them. Didn’t you see the biggest sales last week?
And it’s GOOD for prices to go up. Makes renters bitter. Destroys the prospects of the young. Transfers wealth from the productive sectors of society (who earn it or inherit it) to the unproductive ones (who bought earlier). Makes neighborhoods boring and/or unsafe (depending on how nicely the renters behave as they lose their homes). Drives out those pesky artists and others who make NYC attractive to rich people. Helps continue the hollowing out of NYC economy/increases the importance of Wall St jobs. Most important, the longer NYC stays expensive, the better Philadelphia looks. And Philadelphia looks pretty bad.
WOW…all these new What Wannabees!!! Can’t even come up with their own login name. So pathetic!!! The magazine article may have been the death of this site as we knew it!!!
“But the market is in much better shape than it was in 1989, when there were waves of new condos and coop conversions, coupled with rising interest rates. Prices crashed everywhere.”
What have you been smoking? 2006,2007 and 2005 were BY FAR the three biggest years on record for building permits in this city. That does not even take into account the “substitutes” in Hoboken and Jersey City . . . they may be imperfect substitutes, but I can assure you they are substitutes.
Brownstone buildings ARE different, but that will only mean a premium to the generic condo crap that will saturate this market to hell and back.
Prices will trend down over the next 6-8 quarters, followed by 2-3 years flat. In real terms, prices will have fallen 40% before an upturn in the market.
You have been warned. Hate on The What, but despite his obvious flaws, he’s been more right than most of the blind cheerleading fools who comment on this board.
You have been warned.
– Not The What
What I see are people cashing out of the fringe areas, to move back to the prime ones like Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights. I know a couple people who have just recently moved from Bed Stuy to South Slope, actually. As crime gets worse in the fringe, they will be moving back to the safer areas.