some Oct market data shows stable Manhattan market
Josh Barbanel in today’s NY Times Real Estate section has an article that refers to data consistent with his headline What Market Slump? The article is more directional than precise, and still reflects pre-mid-August-liquidity issues, but it gets us closer to real time reporting than we’ve had. Of course, November data will be even more helpful in seeing the impact of tightening credit standards and the Wall Street turmoil. In the meantime it is good to have any hard data.
whose data?
It is a mystery where his data came from (perhaps a Times compilation?), but you’d like (I’d like) the newspaper of record to be more precise about records: “a tabulation of co-op and condominium transactions that were filed with the city through the first seven days of November“. I don’t like mysteries (least not in this context).
I found these statements to be the most interesting.
1. number of sales in October was well above the number recorded during the corresponding month a year earlier although a bit behind the huge volume of sales recorded over the summer
Unless Barbanel’s “a bit” is a lot bigger than mine, October closed sales continued at historically high levels (see Oct 3: it’s the demand, stupid / Manhattan Q3 market numbers), suggesting that Q4 may well be higher than any quarter in 2006. While the time lag to closed transactions makes this data point less interesting for determining market momentum than signed contracts, it is still significant that a historically high number of buyers were able to drag enough cash and credit to the closing table to actually close. My guess is that he saw 1,000 closed sales in October’s data.
2. Prices also remained high, close to the record prices recorded over the summer, and well above the level in October 2006, when the market was in deep doldrums
I take “close to the record prices” to mean that the prices he sees for October closed transactions are lower than reported in Q3. Perhaps the start of a trend, perhaps not.
3. Median prices were 16 percent higher last month than a year earlier, and average prices were 45 percent higher than during that slow October a year earlier
I did not find any monthly data on Miller Samuel for median and average process, so I don’t know quite how “slow” October 2006 was, but the year-over-year data for September 30, 2006 to September 30, 2007 shows much lower gains than this. Average sale price was up only 6.3% Q3 2007 vs. Q3 2006 and the median sales price was up only 2.3% year-over-year. Presumably, October 2006 showed lower prices than September 2006; if not this is inconsistent with Point 2, above. The Miller Samuel Q3 2007 report is here.)
4. Inventories of unsold co-ops and condos were up from the summer but remained low in October, 22 percent below the inventory reported a year earlier, according to figures provided by Jonathan Miller, an appraiser and an executive vice president and the director of research at Radar Logic
Like the price dip in Point 2 above, perhaps the month-to-month increase in inventory is the start of a trend, perhaps not. Year-over-year at September 30, inventory declined 31.7%, so perhaps momentum is slowing.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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