…The median price of condominiums, co-ops and one- to three-family homes that sold in the second quarter was $550,000, up 15 percent from a year earlier and the highest in more than a decade of record keeping, New York-based appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate said in a report today. The inventory of listings fell 19 percent to 4,704, the lowest for a second quarter since Miller Samuel began tracking the data in 2008, said Jonathan Miller, the firm’s president.
“You choke off supply, you have a slowly improving economy, and prices rise,” Miller said. “And then you compound it by widening your source of demand, when one of your competitors — Manhattan — is experiencing the same inventory problem.”
Rent gains across New York coupled with mortgage rates at historical lows have helped push buyers into a sales market that’s more affordable than Manhattan’s, while owners are still holding back from listing their properties. Homeowners who bought during the previous peak, when Brooklyn prices hit a median of $540,000 in 2007, still don’t have the equity to sell and come up with a down payment for something new, Miller said….
