Manhattan's Bounce Detectable in Brooklyn?
The cover story in this weekend’s real estate section of the Times is about how the Manhattan market is showing signs of recovery. Brokers say that in the past couple months deals have been picking up for most kinds of properties (pricey new condos are the big exception). Still, prices are off about 30 percent…
The cover story in this weekend’s real estate section of the Times is about how the Manhattan market is showing signs of recovery. Brokers say that in the past couple months deals have been picking up for most kinds of properties (pricey new condos are the big exception). Still, prices are off about 30 percent from the same period last year, and there were 55 percent fewer closings recorded in public records at the end of May of this year as compared to the same quarter last year. Appraiser Jonathan Miller isn’t seeing anywhere near a full recovery yet: “‘You did see an upturn in activity this time of year,’ he said, but ‘it was not a robust spring.’ Mr. Miller said that the spring did not ‘undo the damage that occurred last fall’ during the banking crisis, and that prices still appeared to be slipping, though at a slower pace than earlier in the year.” Still, brokers say there have been bidding wars in recent weeks and that would-be buyers who sat on “the sidelines” in the past few years are now looking to buy property in Manhattan based on the idea that they can now get more bang for their buck. The question for us, unaddressed in the article: Is the Brooklyn market showing any of the same tentative signs of rebounding?
Honk if You Think It’s Over [NY Times]
Photo by Amazin’ Jane.
“a home price activist” !?
“The mindset is one of inclusion and understanding and is therefore open to anyone who chooses to look at living in Brooklyn from a broader perspective than housing prices”
But this is a market thread. I don’t intend to poke you buyers in the eye. I responsd to nonsense (not particularly from you) with sense. I’m just a home price activist speaking the gospel about the market as I know it. Prices need to come down, way down, to make sense.
***Bid half off peak comps***
“The What” is a song by Notorious BIG.
“I guess to qualify for Team Reasonable, you have to already own a home. No? Any such members out there rent?”
Not at all. Had I already been renting I would have continued to do so for the foreseeable future but I needed to sell a coop last year and made what I thought was the best decision I could make about where to buy next (replete with compromises a plenty). Team Reasonable is a mindset rather than a Team with a financial agenda to pursue. The mindset is one of inclusion and understanding and is therefore open to anyone who chooses to look at living in Brooklyn from a broader perspective than housing prices, and who chooses to set aside the finger pointing and derision one sees on both sides of the argument. I personally am sick of being lumped in the caricature of the marauding yuppy masses just as I am sure Miss Muffett is sick of being ridiculed and abused for her choice to sell at peak market and wait out the fall. If life had a rule book to follow that applied to everyone all the time it would be easy to say one person or another made a bad choice but every person faces a completely different set of variables that render their options unique from everyone else’s. Team Reasonable seeks to lessen the rancor found on this board and to foster a broader understanding of what living in Brooklyn is all about. Renters absolutely welcome. As are you BHO, provided you can resist the urge to poke us buyers in the eye at any given opportunity.
What,
this morning on the subway I saw someone reading a book titled “what is the What”. Have you read that book? Is that where you got the name?
Summary: it’s fucking over….
The What (Why are we arguing this shit???!!)
Someday this delusion is gonna end…
“At best we are at the bottom…”
Not when f” < 0 (price drops accelerating).
“the number of deals in May was almost double the previous month–so the spring bounce seems to be pretty widespread”
A spike in volume in this environment means only one thing: plummeting prices. Data not yet available but you will see.
***Bid half off peak comps***
“anyone catch Bernanke on 60 minutes last night?
I felt this NY Times piece was fluffy, however most people don’t understand fluff and will beleive it and might spark people to ‘pull the trigger’ instead of trying to wait it out.”
The banks understand fluff and are not ‘leaving their feet’. They have locked the trigger on safety and have thrown away the key.
“all of the theories about when to buy and sell to ‘maximize’ market return are just not valid for most people”
But ‘most people’ bought into “buy now or forever be priced out” and the security of “prices only go up”. The boom needed that to do what it did. The decision to buy in these cases was almost purely market-based. Home ownership is almost never a necessity. There are always alternatives, maybe not in the toniest parts of Brooklyn.
I guess to qualify for Team Reasonable, you have to already own a home. No? Any such members out there rent?
“Ever hear of first and second derivatives, cornerbodega?”
I have, DIBS. f”(NY Case-Shiller) << 0. Prices falling faster and faster and faster than before. It means nobody’s honking and Manhattan’s bounce is nowhere to be found in Brooklyn (all-out exodus of the high-end seller/buyer/renter).
If giving cornerbodega a calculus quiz wasn’t ‘going off on a tangent’, I don’t know what is? In no way are those numbers bullish.
***Bid half off peak comps***
The Sunday Real Estate article that Brownstoner refers to states that prices will continue to drop for the next few months and probably for a year or more. It is saying that there are more deals now, but that prices have dropped 30% from a year ago and will continue to decline. So there is no contradiction between the two articles–just a different spin.
A friend who lives in the northern burbs and has a RE blog said that the number of deals in May was almost double the previous month–so the spring bounce seems to be pretty widespread.