Manhattan loft market mirrors overall market (boring!), except (slightly) outperforms on inventory

data is dumped, for now
As is my custom following the quarterly reports, the two tables below break out the (limited) loft-specific data from the three major firms that do quarterly market reports for Manhattan residential real estate and then provide some (deeper) overall market data from these three firms and from StreetEasy.

The Links

• Miller Samuel report is here;
• Corcoran is here;
• the Halstead version of the Terra report is here;
• I still don’t see this on the website, but I played around to find the StreetEasy report, here.

(I did this for the last quarter’s reports on October 2, Manhattan loft market outperforms in volume (big) + absorption.)

Even though I am often critical of the news articles about quarterly market reports, I have also noted the challenges to offering coherent analysis in our Wild West in which data differ between firms, so if you are looking for magic bullet prose, find somewhere else to go for a while….

is boring good?
What I said yesterday about the overall Manhattan market numbers (in fourth quarter Manhattan residential market reports hit / what’s your favorite number?) is largely true about the loft niche numbers, which:

are interesting for being uninteresting … that there is not a lot of movement in the overall Manhattan real estate market reflected in these reports

As you will see below, the loft niche generally tracked the overall Manhattan residential sales market, in both direction and scale. The only significant exception to this generalization (putting aside the difference Corcoran measured in median sales price change) is that overall inventory went up year-over-year, but loft inventory was down. Did more disappointed loft sellers than ‘apartment’ sellers take the holidays off??

One could therefore say about the loft niche VS. overall market, meh. This time, they are largely in sync. But here are the traditional charts, from which you can draw your own conclusions (meh, or otherwise). With any luck, I will soon take up the challenge (promise?) in my October 3, is the 2010 strength in Manhattan loft sales odd, or even notable in a Lake Wobegon sense?, and look back at 2010 in lofts, before anyone else does. I think I might see something ….

Loft data from the Fourth Quarter 2010 Manhattan real estate market reports, with year-over-year comparisons

Overall market data with year-over-year comparisons

*If StreetEasy has an overall market number for DoM, I didn’t find it; my table has their Condo/Coop numbers (how awkward!)

© Sandy Mattingly 2011