It’s time to share my Three Cents Worth (3CW) on Curbed NY, at the intersection of neighborhood and real estate in the capital of the world…and I’m here to take measurements.

Check out my 3CW column on @CurbedNY:

In this week’s column, I thought I’d look at something near and dear to our economic hearts: tracking rental versus mortgage payments in Manhattan. Above, you’ll find Manhattan’s median sales price for co-ops and condos, as well as median rental prices, plotted against a theoretical monthly mortgage payment. At first I was using this to present the rent-or-buy decision, but the visual became a little more than that.

For the mortgage payment estimation, I used generic defaults of 20 percent down and 30-year fixed Freddie Mac mortgage rates using median sales prices as the anchor—understanding that a 20 percent down payment has not been a constant over the past 20 years. Although I’m only tracking principal and interest on the payment, I’m not factoring in the tax deduction either, so the offset is somewhat reasonable in this simple visual. Here’s what I found:…

[click to expand chart]

__________________________

My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed:
Looking At Manhattan’s Mortgage History [Curbed]

Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed NY
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed DC
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Miami
Three Cents Worth Archive Curbed Hamptons