for real: Second Quarter Manhattan real estate market report numbers out
that didn’t take long
When I blogged this week about actual research done by the Wall Street Journal from city data about coop and condo sales in Manhattan (June 28, first Second Quarter Manhattan real estate market report numbers out), I noted that the NY Times probably then already had the major brokerage firms’ reports under an embargo that prevented them from being reported on until the end of the quarter. Well, the Times article is out this morning, Vivian Toy’s In Manhattan, Apartment Sales Rose but Prices Were Flat, so that did not take long. Now I wonder if next quarter, the Times will not want to wait to publish because this quarter the Journal tried to scoop the brokerage firm reports.
(Note that any report "as of" the end of the second quarter that comes out in June [like the Journal’s analysis of sales volume] or on July 1 [like the major firms] can’t be literally complete because of the time lag between deals closing and deeds being filed. Before the competition between the Journal and the Times, the convention had been to report immediately after the quarter as if the data were complete; that convention might not survive Murdoch-level competition.)
same story, different paper, more details
As I said in that June 28 post, the Journal could scoop the Times on sales volume by going directly to the city for transaction numbers, but any other "analysis" would be based on general quotes from firms without pricing or other detailed data. This is almost comically apparent if you read the Barbanel article in the Journal (Apartment Sales Up in Manhattan) side-by-side with the Toy article in the Times. The firms would only hint to Barbanel about the hard numbers, rather than scoop themselves and the publicity they get from the embargoed reports.
The lede from Toy today pretty much says it all, in ways that Barbanel could only project without more numbers:
The number of apartments sold in Manhattan rose significantly in the last three months, but prices were flat, with some categories dipping slightly compared with the previous quarter, according to sales reports to be released on Thursday by the city’s largest brokerage firms.
The reports showed that there were 80 percent more transactions in the second quarter of this year than the same period in 2009 and 15 percent more than the previous quarter of this year, a return to historically normal levels after a virtual standstill early last year. But even though brokers are reporting much heavier traffic at open houses and bidding wars on certain properties, prices have not rebounded.
It is probably an impossible task for a reporter to coherently summarize different firm reports, as i have pointed out numerous times. Here’s how I started my post about the First Quarter reports (April 2, first impression of First Quarter reports):
Toy’s summation about the Second Quarter in her lede today is actually remarkably coherent: "[b]ut … prices have not rebounded". I would quibble with the word "rebound" for the same reason that I quibbled with Haughney’s article on the First Quarter numbers, which used The Peak as a baseline ("my first reaction on reading the Times article is that the emphasis on 1Q10 vs. 1Q08 has the wrong tone for a piece to be consumed by readers who don’t follow real estate every day and by other media").
Toy reported today about the firm reports on prices, comparing quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year (the bold is mine):
So … yes, there is no sign of a "rebound" to Peak prices. And prices (at least as measured by an overall average) were essentially flat, both YoY and QoQ.
cheerleaders wanted, or not?
I have never been asked to advise the major brokerage firms about their media strategies (a trend that will certainly continue!), and I have never sat in on one of their interviews. So I don’t know if the media consistently report the major firm representatives as highlighting "positive" numbers because that is all they talk about, or because that is all the media is interested in hearing from these people. But I just don’t see that it is a good thing for all the brokerage quotes to be about "positive" data points, leaving it to someone like The Miller to make some obvious references to circumstances that are not positive. Fairly or not, the firms come across as shills.
Thus, miscellaneous heads said:
“We’re looking at good steady transaction numbers, and to me, that’s a sign that the pulse feels healthy,”
“I would have never thought a year ago that we’d be where we are today,”
“Smaller apartments were first, because there’s always going to be a market for the entry-level apartment, but now the high end is selling too because people see an opportunity since prices are down.”
Only The Miller talks about a forecast for more clouds:
Factors inhibiting recovery, he added, include continued difficulty getting jumbo mortgages, high unemployment, rising foreclosures and a “shadow” inventory of new development units that have yet to come to market.
“It’s still too early to celebrate,” Mr. Miller said.
how did that template do?
In my initial post about the last quarter’s reports (that April 2, first impression of First Quarter reports), I commented on the template for an article attempting to deal with the varying numbers in the major firm reports and the mix of numbers and quotes:
This is actually brilliant in execution, in weaving in quotes and numbers from the three major reports and four major firms. For the average reader, this looks like a very comprehensive review of the quarterly data, glossing over internal firm report trends and inter-firm differences in data. That’s probably as much as one could hope for.
Today’s Toy article about the Second Quarter reports matches up pretty well with Haughney’s article about the First Quarter reports.
- start with general trends (here,
24 paragraphs, [including one about the StreetEasy report]) - follow with an overall comment (here,
Diane Ramirez of HalsteadPam Liebman of Corcoran about prices and volume, and Diane Ramirez of Halstead about volume) and (nearly random) specific points citing the Major Firms - In that category, the Times
quotes Corcoran data for relative strength in the 1-bedroom marketnotes (a) a marked decline in median prices for studio apartments in condominiums and new developments, andother Terra folks for the sparse $10mm market(b) Hall F. Willkie of BHS that deals under $2 million accounted for 82 percent of his agency’s sales at the beginning of the year, but that that percentage had dropped to 60 - Then, add another overall comment or two (here, from
CorcoranPruDE andThe MillerTerra Holdings) - dropping some more (nearly random) specific points (here,
Terra data on sales volume, Corcoran data on bidding wars, and The Miller on inventoryTerra data on shorter time spent on the market and smaller discounts from final listing prices) - You close with a capture-the-psychology quote from A Major Player (here,
“The biggest complaint I’m getting from my brokers is ‘I need more property.’ ”it is The Miller, “We’ve reached the point where a lot of the damage has been done, but we’re not yet at recovery,” )
As i said last time and will bold this time because it is so true:
actual reports
The Miller report is here. The Corcoran, Terra Holdings (Halstead and BHS), and StreetEasy reports were not on-line as of 8:50 this morning (shame!) but they should be here, here, and here when they are up (I will check the links when they are up, to be sure).
actual commentary, later
I will do some actual commentary about the numbers (as opposed to Inside Baseball about how these articles get done) after digesting the reports. I probably should look for Barbanel’s take in the Journal about these reports, as he is a past master of the Times template and is keenly interested in surpassing the Times. [UPDATE: Barbanel did not disappoint; see my post today, quick hit: WSJ finds Manhattan real estate market "healing"]
Enjoy!
© Sandy Mattingly 2010
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