Q108 Manhattan market reports / more on lofts

Today’s’ earlier post (Q1 Manhattan market reports highlight high prices + major caveats) hit some of the general price and volume questions and (some) answers about the overall Manhattan residential real estate market, as reported by the 3 major firms that publish quarterly reports.

I hit the consensus that Manhattan lofts in the first 3 months of 2008 showed a decline in median price and an increase in average price per foot, but did not otherwise talk about how the loft market performed compared to the overall market.

good news in the loft market, relatively
I still think that Miller Samuel has the most credible data, in part because they are more fully historical, more complete, and more transparent about their methodology. I also think their loft data fits this pattern. (See the Miller Samuel Q108 report here.)

Putting aside the serious questions about reconciling over sales volume reports in the Q108 reports that I addressed earlier today, the Miller Samuel data show that year-over-year loft volume was essentially flat, lofts took a shorter time to sell, while loft inventory was up incrementally. In contrast, the overall market as presented by Miller Samuel shows market transactions way down (34.3%) YOY, overall days on market were 11 days longer than for lofts and increased 11.7% YOY, while overall inventory increased by a similar proportion as for the loft market (4.6% overall; 5% for lofts, both YOY).

If the Miller Samuel overall volume number is accurate, then the most interesting loft number to me is volume — in an otherwise reduced market, the same number of lofts sold in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the first quarter of 2007 (actually, 182 in Q108 and 183 in Q107). That suggests that loft demand has been flat — especially compared to the overall market.

800 pound gorilla
Of course, any sale that closed before March 31 did not get the full "benefit" of the evolving market psychology (economic uncertainty). As ever, The Market can change rapidly if common buyer psychology trends negative. Based on the Miller Samuel numbers, you can’t say that has already happened, in the Manhattan loft market, at least.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008