12 examples of the (rapid) velocity of the Manhattan loft market

velocity, observed, in the rear-view mirror
I chewed on the loft-specific data in the major firms’ Second Quarter Manhattan real estate market reports in yesterday’s post, how did lofts do last quarter compared to overall Manhattan real estate market?. (Woo-hoo to self: that post generated a link from The Real Deal!) My major take-away was that transaction volume and Days on Market showed a much more vigorous loft market, even than the overall market. "In other words, [even more-so than the overall Manhattan market] the loft market was essentially asleep a year ago and now has awakened."

There’s no highly probative data for this, but the general assumption among agents was that the paucity of sales a year ago (the nuclear winter I keep referring to) was more a function of buyers staying home than sellers mis-pricing lofts. Now, with the loft market awake, there’s probably still no good way to prove whether the buyers have moved more than the sellers, or vice versa. After all, an actual sale proves only that the buyer and the seller met at a mutually agreeable price, not who traveled further to get there. (A long story for another day, perhaps: I don’t think that listing discount is as good an indicator of this dynamic than Days on Market.)

from trees, to forest
Which leads me to the list below of some of the Manhattan lofts that sold in June, all 12 of which found contracts within five weeks of coming to market. When I was updating the Master List of Lofts Sold Since November 2008 over the weekend (before I had delved into the quarterly market reports) I noticed a string of lofts that had sold quickly … what struck me as an unusual number (or an unusual concentration) of lofts that sold quickly.

I have hit some of these lofts in individual posts when they closed (June 21, another quick sale, as 1 Hudson Street closes up 10% AND down 10%, June 16, 129 Lafayette sells but NOT because of the designer (contra The Observer), June 15, 808 Broadway seller bites painful bullet, closes off 15% since 2006, June 14, 20 Desbrosses Street loft sells above ask, quickly, with pellet-blasted brick and more (dramatic photos!)), but they have power as a spare list.
 

• that is 12 quick sales out of the 50 June loft closings on the Master List (others were "quick", but not quite this quick)
• the largest listing discount was 5.3% (105 Wooster St #5B)
• one sold at the asking price
• three sold above the asking price

Note that I am not interested (for this post) in the price levels, only in the velocity. (In fact, 2 lofts on the list last sold since 2005 above the recent closing price, while 3 lofts on the list sold since 2005 below the recent sale; the others had no resales since 2005.)

current trend, or past trend?

The really interesting question is whether or not the pace of the market will continue (because there is continued strong buyer interest matching sellers really interested in selling) or whether this trend will peter out (either because of a summer slow-down, or because the second quarter sales sated the pent-up demand from the nuclear winter, or because …).

As you see from the four posts I did last month on four of these sales, I tend to notice things like "quick contracts", and often comment about individual sales.  But I am often tree-level, rather than forest-level, on a daily, on-going basis. I will try to pay enough attention to offer informed commentary, going forward, and point out (apparent) trends when I see them. This one looks real.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010