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For the past decade, I’ve been observing a pullback in sales in the summer of an election year and then a release in sales after the election into the new year, no matter the party or the candidate. I was speaking about this to Sylvia Varnham O’Regan at The Real Deal Magazine, and she asked me to prove it empirically.

So I did.

Her article: This is how presidential elections really affect home sales lays it out for the Manhattan market.

My methodology:

• The data set was co-op based because they account for 74% of the apartment market and doesn’t have the wild fluctuation of contract versus closing date because of condo new development lags.
• We don’t have all the contract dates for co-ops, but for those we do, they have been remarkably consistent at around 90 days. That 90-day average was applied to all the closing dates to reverse-engineer contract dates.
• Contracts for even and odd years were compared: Even years represented federal election years, including midterms.

The results compared federal election years to non-federal election years, finding that beginning in June of an election year, sales were progressively weaker than their non-election year counterpart. The most significant difference occurred in September during an election year with a 12.7% weaker sales market than a non-election year. Beginning in November during an election year, sales overpower their non-election year counterpart, with the release of pent-up demand occurring well into the following spring.

Tags: Contracts, Co-ops, federal elections, midterms

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[click to see article and play clip]

Enjoyed speaking with Michael Herzenberg of NY1 on the Super Tall story in Manhattan. This is a great summary of the phenomenon.

Tags: NY1, skyscraper, Super Talls, Michael Herzenberg

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I had a nice chat with Vonnie Quinn of Bloomberg Television on Monday concerning the state of the Manhattan housing market, following a highly read Bloomberg article on the terminal covering our Elliman Report results for Q3-2019 as well as a followup on Bloomberg Radio here and here.

Tags: Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, Vonnie Quinn, Podcast, Elliman Report, Denise Pellegrini

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After the publication of the Elliman Report for Q2-2019 Manhattan Sales, I was asked to join Cheddar anchors Kristen Scholer and Tim Stenovec on the floor of the exchange on Wednesday morning.

When I came through security, the guard at NYSE asked me “when was the last time you visited the NYSE?” and I said, “about 10-12 years ago.” He looked it up to confirm and deadpanned, “I’ll bet you remember that I was the guy that took your picture in 2007, right?!?! He and his colleague and I all had a good hard chuckle over that. Moments like this are what I love so much about my job.

Back in 2007, I was interviewed by Erin Burnett (now CNN) and Mark Haines (sadly passed away in 2011) at CNBC on the balcony overlooking the exchange floor. It was a tight fit on the balcony so I got to sit near the president of the Russian natural gas conglomerate Gazprom and his dozen very large bodyguards. It was very crowded. While he was being interviewed I thought to myself, there is no amount of money in the world I would take to live with that kind of personal risk every single day.

No such worries today. Kristen and Tim were terrific to speak with and I appreciated the invite.

Tags: Bloomberg TV, CNBC, Cheddar, NYSE, Kristen Scholer, Tim Stenovec, Erin Burnett

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Its always fun to join Alexis Christoforous at Yahoo Finance TV – and I met her colleague Brian Sozzi. They’ve got a cool new broadcasting facility and I contend, the best green room in the TV business. If you’re curious where the term “green room” came from…no, it’s not that obvious.

We spent most of the time late last week discussing all the changes occurring in the NYC market this year. Fun.

Tags: Yahoo! Finance, Alexis Christoforous, Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, Brian Sozzi, First Trade

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Michael Kolomatsky of the Calculator column in the New York Times real estate section crafted a cool infographic for this weekend using data from the Douglas Elliman‘s Hamptons Sales report that I author. The gist of it is that sellers are slowly pricing closer to market causing days on market and the listing discount to compress somewhat. This faster moving pattern is in sharp contrast to sliding price trends, declining sales, and rising inventory. The narrative in this market clearly reflects a slowdown, but with a vibrant regional economy, the buyers are here, but unwilling to pay at price levels of a few years ago.

Tags: Elliman Report, Douglas Elliman, Michael Kolomatsky, The Calculator

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Real estate brokerage firm Cushman & Wakefield wrote a research piece on the prime Fifth Avenue retail corridor from 49th Street to 60th Street that was covered in a widely read Wall Street Journal article called Fifth Avenue Losing Luster as Vacancies Climb, Rents Fall. The following chart was in the WSJ article. Luxury real estate here peaked at about the same time.

Inside Edition reached out and asked me to take a stroll with reporter Les Trent on Fifth Avenue to talk about the state of luxury retail. Les was great to speak with and like a true pro, he had access to sidewalk chalk (see video). I think I am in a lot of tourist pictures as they were snapping my picture as we strolled up and down Fifth Avenue.

If you’ll notice in the video and article, all the vacancies were related to the fashion/clothing industries. The 1 out of 4 storefront vacancies – essentially 1 empty storefront on every block – is not reflective of NYC retail employment patterns, but simply the pullback of clothing/fashion industries from high-end retail locations as they place more resources toward their online presence.

[click to play]

Tags: Fifth Avenue, Cushman and Wakefield, Inside Edition, Les Trent

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There is a cool graphic from the New York Times Calculator column by Michael Kolomatsky in this Sunday’s print edition of the Real Estate section that illustrates Manhattan’s dependence on high-end real estate. Using the data from a chart I began right after 9/11 and we continue to update, he illustrates this point:

Almost half the money spent by New York City home buyers in the first quarter of 2019 went toward the most expensive properties. That wasn’t always the case.

Tags: Michael Kolomatsky, New York Times Real Estate Section, The Calculator

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For the record, this is the first time I recall using the word “cognizant” on national television. A personal lexicon triumph.

There has been a lot of fanfare about the new Related Companies ‘Hudson Yards‘ mixed-use development being created over the West Side Yard in Manhattan and is connected to ‘The Highline.‘ The centerpiece or “hook” is a $2 billion mall in the middle of the complex. While ‘malls’ are generally a non-starter in Manhattan, there is a successful precedent. The same developer built Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle (southwest corner of Central Park) nearly twenty years ago and it was considered a significant success. I used to live two blocks to the west of Time Warner Center and it was a pretty rough area at the time but that submarket has been significantly upgraded.

Related has pushed out a media blitz on the mall opening this week. It is important to note that NYC gave Hudson Yards more tax breaks than were proposed for Amazon in Long Island City. However, as Barry Ritholtz writes in his excellent comparison between the two deals (LIC v. Hudson Yards) offered by the city. Related seemed to do this deal right and Amazon came across as greedy in the end.

The $3.4 billion dollars committed to parks, subways, etc. in the Hudson Yard project is exactly what the government is supposed to do. You can create incentives for companies to relocate in a way that directly benefits every taxpayer in the region. The incoming company could have burnished their reputation as a good corporate citizen, instead of being perceived as rapacious and greedy.

Here is a rendering of the completed Hudson Yards. I think it looks spectacular. And don’t forget ‘The Vessel.‘

[Source: DeZeen]

Teachable moment for condo development naming strategies that include a company: Don’t do it.

The Time Warner precedent-setting mall scenario included a condo offering plan circa 2000 named “AOL Time Warner Center” and then the project was renamed “Time Warner Center” after they sold off AOL (Someone named Jonathan Miller took over AOL strangely enough). Deutsche Bank is replacing Warner Media as the anchor tenant in 2021 so the project will be renamed for the new tenant. However, Deutsche Bank has been having its share of financial problems and is considering a merger with Commerzbank. Uh-oh.

Perhaps that’s why Related went with ‘Hudson Yards.’ 😉

Tags: Bloomberg TV, Vonnie Quinn, Barry Ritholtz, The Related Group, Hudson Yards, Bloomberg Markets, Guy Johnson, Time Warner, Deutsche Bank

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I was interviewed for the U.S. version of one of China’s largest TV networks – CGTN America (formerly CCTV) on the state of the Manhattan luxury housing market and that $238 million condo sale that set the U.S. price record at 220 Central Park South.

Yes, it’s the real estate topic that won’t die.

Tags: 220 Central Park South, Luxury, Ken Griffin, $238 million, CGTN America, Karina Huber, Donna Olshan

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Tags: Listing Inventory

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Just before I stepped on the set, I got to look at the Bloomberg file photo taken at my office about 15 years ago (I think I’ve aged gracefully) but I was also called out for it.

Was the last time you were on Bloomberg Markets 1995? That headshot…— Hiten Samtani (@hitsamty) January 17, 2019

Here’s the interview along with a cameo by Sam Zell, lol!

Tags: Bloomberg TV, Scarlet Fu, Bloomberg Markets, Caroline Hyde

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