Pam Liebman: Brooklyn Doing Better Than the Rest
Consoling words from Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday: “Brooklyn on a performance basis is holding up better than any of our other markets. Price and volume drops have been less than Manhattan…Brooklyn caters more to value buyers…It’s not a second choice anymore.” Another gem from the same session:…
Consoling words from Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman at the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable on Tuesday: “Brooklyn on a performance basis is holding up better than any of our other markets. Price and volume drops have been less than Manhattan…Brooklyn caters more to value buyers…It’s not a second choice anymore.” Another gem from the same session: “Anything marketed on bells and whistles is not doing well.”
I stand by my prediction that there will be a meaningful increase in supply in Brooklyn in the near term and that will be accompanied by further deterioration in prices. I will not buy until I see this happen.
The supply in Manhattan is starting to get pretty impressive. There is just a ton of supply in the $3mm plus range right now. Remember all those foreign buyers who were going to keep the market up forever? They turned into foreign sellers. And wall street…. we all know what happened.
But Manhattan is an island! There is limited supply! It costs too much to build! It’s special and prices will only ever go up! Buy now or be priced out forever! To every broker and mouth-breathing bubble cheerleader who has ever given me these arguments, you can all kiss my ass. Line forms to the left.
The landing in Brooklyn will be softer. But at the end of the day I think that is actually good for people like me who will be buying in the next couple of years. It makes my purchase less risky as compared to someone who is buying on the dip in Manhattan.
Brooklyn overall is a much different market than Manhattan. Fewer condos and coops, more single family homes (Victorians, traditional, new constructions, etc), brownstones, etc.
I see Brooklyn as a much more diversified market and that will help it fall less. The bubble made everything inflate. $3k sqf? Nuts. Brooklyn never achieved that lunacy, so while I do think there will be a leveling off of prices, price drops in the 20% range from 12 months ago, and listings sitting on the market longer, overall I think the diversity of the Brooklyn housing market will keep it from sliding as dramatically as Manhattan, or the rest of the country for that matter.
Yes, they are coming down, but to a lesser degree, a much lesser degree. Apples-Oranges.
As for Manhattan, Trump soho is still asking $3K a square foot. Brooklyn never got that high. Less to fall? Hope so.
Mr B and others: Good article on page C-1 of the WSJ today. Really drives home the pressure on the Manhattan market right now (nominally on condos, but the hip bone is connected to the leg bone etc).
DIBS, I would respond that they will suffer the same fate, just to a lesser degree.
I am increasingly surprised by how much of a difference there is between what is going on in Manhattan and what is going on in Brooklyn. I have been predicting this for some time now (pat on the back) but I didn’t think it would be this stark. Not to say Brooklyn prices aren’t coming down more of course, and not to say I’m not going to keep sitting on the sidelines for a while…
DIBS, I would respond that they will suffer the same fate, just to a lesser degree.
I am increasingly surprised by how much differences there is between what is going on in Manhattan and what is going on in Brooklyn. I have been predicting this for some time now (pat on the back) but I didn’t think it would be this stark. Not to say Brooklyn prices aren’t coming down more of course, and not to say I’m not going to keep sitting on the sidelines for a while…
except that kinda sorta have, no? there’s pricedrops galore on everything these days.
*rob*
SEE, I TOLD YOU SO. Brooklyn townhouses will not suffer the same fate as the rest of the country and the condo market.
Discuss…