in ancient battle, Demand winning, over Supply / Miller Samuel: inventory dropping
Manhattan inventory down to 5 year average
Jonathan Miller’s most recent chart offered up for whack-a-mole treatment on Curbed (Three Cents Worth: Inventory Drops Like a Rock) is graphic evidence (sorry) of how different Manhattan’s market is from the national trends. (Not unique, but different from the overall market.)
There were 5,456 coops and condos for sale in Manhattan at the end of last month, compared to the 5 year average of 5,598 units for sale, and down a whopping 25.7% from May 2006, and down 11.7% from April 2007. I am a firm believer that trends are best viewed in retrospect, but the (relatively) low inventory is a strong indication of very strong demand for Manhattan coops and condos.
Yes, buyers are out there, and they are taking their hands out of their pockets.
While Miller does not provide the sales figures for last month, his prose makes it clear that the declining inventory numbers are the product more of increased sales than of expiring listings falling out of inventory.
The (relatively) high number of sales continues a trend from the first quarter, as the Miller Samuel Q1 07 report showed 3,474 sales in Manhattan, up an even more whopping 73% from the first quarter of 2006.
Clearly, new condo development makes up a significant part of the market for the last year or more (I think Miller has said it is 25% to 30% of all sales activity). What fascinates me is that these new condo sales have driven many coop owners to the sales sidelines. (The number of coops is unchanged [d’oh] but the number of coop sales is down significantly from past years.)
In the loft market, all new loft developments are condos [double d’oh], so there are significantly fewer coop lofts changing hands than there had been. (Loft sales the last three full years have been 710, 672 and 811; the first quarter of this year had 183 loft sales.)
I suspect there is a pool of coop loft almost-sellers out there. Not sure what they are waiting for, but they don’t seem to be anxious to sell.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
Tagged with: None
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Top
Follow Us!