nuggets from Q4 market reports / Halstead dribs + drabs

not very raw
The Fourth Quarter market report from Halstead (pdf, here) has typically infuriating summary data, with little raw material of specific interest about the Manhattan loft market. As a result, I can weigh in with guesses about what it means as well as anyone else (right? it’s my blog! and a free country!!).

nugget one

The average price per foot for lofts in their sample (no idea how many) was $1,181 in 4Q08, compared to $1,170 in the prior year quarter and $1,086 in the prior quarter. Indeed, the 4Q price per foot is the highest of any of the last five quarters. (See p3 of 8.)

nugget two

OK … this is not really a nugget; it’s a mess. Halstead reports on loft sales by neighborhood (arghhh), with median sale prices and median prices per foot (not the average price per foot in the general loft datum, above) (arghhh). The data is all over the map here (pun is shameless), so go look at the chart on p6 of 8. 

huh?

So what does it mean? I infer that the strong data (overall Manhattan loft average price per foot; median sales prices in nabes other than Greenwich/East/West Village) is driven by new development sales, which — of course — were ‘set’ by contracts signed many months ago and involve a higher quality loft than the typical resale. Halstead reports that for Downtown overall "almost two-thirds of sales were in new developments [which] experienced price increases for all sizes of apartments over the last year". (p6 of 8)

Meh. Not very satisfying nuggets. (Like tofu?)

Still to chew on … Corcoran (which has been on the web since yesterday) and Miller Samuel (which just hit the web).