facts v. hype / testing the thesis of “little or no sales activity”

still beating on The Real Deal

I unloaded a bit recently on The Real Deal article that linked two related-but-vastly-different premises. Here’s more….

The teaser early line from that Michael Stoler piece was:

So … it is hype to say that

sales

are taking place because the truth is that there’s been little or no

sales activity

. Let me offer some more hype, then.

actual data: sales are taking place

Looking only at sales of Manhattan lofts (as in transactions reported as Sold & Closed), on average since mid-October 2007 (when I started counting this stuff) 18.93 Manhattan lofts have closed each week. Here are the weekly average closing, reported by month since June:

I don’t have long enough data (yet!) to know what the seasonal trends are, but October 2007 through January 2008 were hardly barn-burner months for closed Manhattan loft sales (I have only data from the last two weeks in October 2007):

quibbling

Again, I am

not

arguing that market activity continues at the same pace as Before Lehman (which filed for bankruptcy protection on Sunday, September 14), just that it is not "hype" to say that "sales are taking place", at least in the Manhattan loft market (and probably in the overall Manhattan coop and condo market). Looking back to that article in The Real Deal, it may well be true that fewer

contracts

are being signed recently in new developments, just that smart people like Michale

Stoler

and industry rags like The Real Deal should be able to provide data to support claims about trends — and should know enough to keep as

separate

the

separate

things of contract signings and closings.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008