more Manhattan lofts sold, but very, very slowly

like the overall Manhattan market, mostly
Following up on my post yesterday about the New York Times article about the Big Three market Manhattan real estate reports for the fourth quarter, here’s a nugget about the loft market from the Miller Samuel report (pdf here), now that I have read it.

Compared to the overall Manhattan real estate market, lofts showed a much larger increase in (relative) volume of sales, but the time it took to sell lofts increased dramatically more than the overall market. The listing discount was the same for the loft niche as for the overall market, while inventory declined in roughly similar rates. Numbers, per The Miller:

One can’t read too much into the loft numbers, as the "n" is so small, and only 7.4% of the market, but there were visibly more loft buyers (actual buyers) out there this past quarter than previously. These actual buyers were pretty darn picky, with the average listing discount of 12.8% (from the last asking price) and with lofts taking (on average) more than 6 months to sell.

why so long?
If there is any number than can be counted on as suggesting a greater weakness in the loft market than in the overall Manhattan real estate market it is that change in Days on Market for lofts, up nearly 40% since the prior quarter and nearly 20% since the prior year. I would have to check the miller Samuel archives, but I believe that the listing discount of 12.8% is well above the ten-year average. On the one hand, that means that sellers are still asking prices that buyers are not willing to accept; on the other hand, th increase in sales means that buyers are not entirely put off by "too high" prices but will bid and negotiate to contract. That dynamic of implied hard bargaining would explain the increase in Days on Market.

bullish Miller?
I wondered yesterday about this quote in the Times from The Miller, which is relatively (for him) bullish: “There are a lot of challenges ahead for housing, but I think the worst is behind us.” I see in the text of his market report that he, as I expected, recited a host of "challenges" for the Manhattan market, and summed up:

"While the increased levels of sales in the second half of 2009 was encouraging, a true housing recovery will be marked by a meaningful decline in unemployment and greater consumer access to credit."

This is right in line with many comments I recall from him to the effect that any ‘recovery’ requires that bank lending problems be fixed first systematically, with no reasonable prospect of this happening in the next quarter or two.

other reports in (tardy?)
The Miller Samuel report gets the first reviews in Manhattan Loft Guy because (as long-time readers know) I consider that report and data set to be the most useful because it is the most comprehensive, the longest tenured, and because I appreciate that it has long been part of a campaign for greater transparency in this secretive industry. Now that I am with a firm that puts it its own Big Three reports I will have to pay more attention to the strengths of the Corcoran reports, while remaining frustrated that the two largest residential real estate brokerages in Manhattan use such different data sets to describe what should be the same market. I will overlook (for now) the fact that my Home Team report came to the web last yesterday, at about 4 PM, 4 hours after the Terra reports and at least 8 hours after the Miller Samuel reports. C’mon Team, you can do better!

More chewing on those ‘other’ reports in days ahead.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010