The Dog Days Are Over

What is on my mind this month is gratitude.

I am grateful, for the sake of so many sellers, that the market in Manhattan seems to substantively moved past a bottom.

Pick your metaphor: Turned a corner, come out of the woods, what have you.

To quote the great band Florence and the Machine, “The Dog Days are over.”

Tell Us All About It

has continually improved over the last two years, but my optimism has been tempered by world events, stock market conditions, poor news out of Washington, Europe, and the media.

All that said, there seems to be change in the air.

Many buyers and brokers expected a significant pickup in inventory across the market in the new year.

We are all still waiting for it.

And contrary to expectations, we are seeing a trickle, not anything resembling the deluge people expected.

If any seller shares my view, he or she will very carefully consider timing to bringing their unit to market.

Those sellers who bought in 2004-2008 are hoping to break even.

Many have succeeded, if their home is on the $5mm plus segment of the market.

Those who

have owned for 10-plus years

and want to sell will be very happy with the result even now.

Condominiums have started to pick up

– I’ll cover this is a separate post.

But with the limited inventory available on the market right now, it is inevitable that those buyers who must buy are competing in a frenzy.

There are almost no two-bedrooms on the market along Riverside Drive.

For that matter, there are incredibly few three- and four- bedrooms available whatsoever across the entire West Side.

Do you hear me, sellers?

Massive competition for great properties and high demand for buyers of all stripes:

Practical Buyers, Pied-a-terre buyers, and Empty Nesters- people looking for many different types of situations.
The reality may very well be a return to the what happened to many two-bedroom buyers pre-2008.

The last three years has seen opportunity to lock into two-bedrooms, and those buyers looking in the $700,000-$900,000 range may have to settle for large one-bedrooms rather than two-bedrooms, properties that can accommodate them for a period of around five years or so.

That situation is not ideal for many.

The rental market does not look any more attractive.

I’ve been talking about a pick up and one-bedroom sales for some time and apart from condominium sales I still haven’t seen it pick up significantly.

But with the utter lack of inventory on the two bedroom side, something has to give.

Either prices will go up really start to push up on

two bedrooms or sales on one-bedrooms are to pick up.

We will likely see a combination of both.

I’ll cover condos in my new development post.