30 days of actual Manhattan loft sales, from March 12

I captured 30 days of reported Manhattan "loft" sales from the inter-firm data-base on March 12, comprising a fourth set of 30-day-sales data. The limitations, cautions, gripes and hopes set forth in my initial collection (December 18: hard data is hard to find … here’s some on 30 days of actual loft sales) all still apply. The second set was as of January 11, posted January 18: 30 days of actual Manhattan loft sales, Vol 2, while the third set was as of February 11, posted on March 7: 30 days of actual Manhattan loft sales, from February 11.

top line numbers are 21 and 10
For the 30 days prior to March 12, 2009 our inter-firm data base reported as Sold and Closed Manhattan "lofts" 21 resales and only 10 developer/sponsor sales in new developments, compared to the 13 and 21 reported for February, the 22 and 28 reported in January, and the 24 and 19 reported in December. I have been supplementing the original 30-day-reports as I learn of additional closings (to be revealed … sooner or later!), but here is the original data in table form:

 

Even having waited almost 3 weeks, there are still no clearing prices publicly available on 5 of the resales and 4 of the new development sales reported in our database as having closed in this period, and I lack a square footage "measurement" ( 😉 for one resale property.

As ever, I am reluctant to do too much parsing of such limited data, but the median price-per-foot for the 15 resales with full data was $1,039/ft. On the other hand the average was $1,012/ft for these 15 resales, compared to $1,007 last time, $1,104/ft in January and $1,170/ft in December. For new developments, I can compute median and average per-foot numbers (for the 6 sales I have full data on), but that seems pretty thin to me. Nonetheless, for what (little) it is worth, the median was  $1,100/ft and the average was $1,083/ft for this very small sample (compared to $1,306 and $1,567/ft last time, $1,183/ft and $1,258/ft in January, and $1,272/ft and $1,269/ft, respectively, in December). 

As I have said repeatedly, I think that the most interesting current "days on market" number in the current market is the spread between when an apartment came to market and when it got into a contract that (later) actually transferred title. I get a median Days Until Contract for 18 resales of 122 or 143 days (or their average, darn those even numbers of data points) with a range of 22 days to 306 days, and an average for resales of 156 (compared to February’s match of 156 days, January’s 170 days and December’s 179 days). For 9 new development sales, the spread is again from the ridiculous (914 days to contract) to the reasonable (27), with a (sparse) median of 98 days and an (unhelpful?) average of 250 days (that 914 day history carries a lot of weight), compared to 137 days in February, January’s average of 194 days, and December’s average of 147 days.

google = smart
The raw data is on-line here.

limited history, so limited commentary, but another improvement is coming
As I noted last time, I have added some closings to the prior collections. As I have mentioned, the data set starts from an agent updating the inter-firm data-base to reflect that a loft has sold. In the all-too-frequent instances when the update is tardy, that sale does not qualify for my last-30-days set. But when I note a closing that should have been included in an earlier data collection, I have updated those spreadsheets. (In other words, the spreadsheets are dynamic, so check back on them to find better [more complete] data.)

And I have begun to maintain a single running spreadsheet with all closings noted in my 30-day-reports plus additional closings (or more complete information) as I come across them. Over time, this will be a more complete one-stop-shop for Manhattan loft closing data. I don’t know when I will think that is presentable enough to publicly release….