Matrix Blog

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:

As 2014 winds down I thought I’d break down the year’s condo market by splitting up resales and new development closings using median sales price. Since early 2012, the new development and resale price trends have parted ways. That’s when the stalled shadow inventory that resulted from the Lehman collapse—a.ka. condos that weren’t formally offered yet and went unsold, because first batches of units didn’t sell in the midst of the financial downturn—was finally bought up or otherwise absorbed…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Three Cents Worth: Why New Developments Are So Darn Pricey [Curbed]

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Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, 3CW

Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #275 NY] Why New Developments Are So Darn Pricey

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:

This week I took a look at the volume of super high end sales that closed each quarter to show how out of whack current activity is when compared to longer term norms. From 2006 through 2013, the average was 21 apartments sales for $10M or higher per quarter. That’s seven per month or nearly two per week for eight years. That’s a lot of sales in this price segment…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Three Cents Worth: Number of Manhattan Homes Selling for $10M+ Is Way Up [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #274 NY] Number of Manhattan Homes Selling for $10M+ Is Way Up

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:

Having that doorman just got more expensive. The difference between the average rental of a building with and without a doorman was at its widest point since we began to track this metric in 2007. The average rental price in a doorman building was $4,915, up 17.8 percent over the past 7 years and the highest recorded over this period. The average rental price in a non-doorman building was $3,461, up a more modest 5.8 percent over the same period. The difference between the two rental types resulted in an eight-year high of $1,645 per month…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: The Cost Of Your Doorman Keeps Rising [Curbed]

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Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, 3CW, doorman

Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #272 NY] The Cost Of Your Doorman Keeps Rising

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:

Although it has been a little more than a month since the third quarter ended, I thought I’d show that the average sales price of the five boroughs in aggregate broke the $1 million threshold for the first time, to a record $1,040,516…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: How New York’s Average Sales Price Broke the $1 Million Mark [Curbed]

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Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, 3CW, Bronx, Staten Island

Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #271 NY] How New York’s Average Sales Price Broke the $1 Million Mark

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:

While there is an obsession with views in the Manhattan market and it is one of the drivers of the tall tower phenomenon, there are a bunch of moving parts associated with it. We looked at the last two years of closed sales (to get enough data) on the four borders of Central Park, comparing the average price per square foot of co-op and condo apartments with direct views of the park—including both those above and below the treeline—and those with city views.

These results, shown in the infographic below, reflect the difference between the view types —but it does not mean that a park view on Fifth Avenue is worth 75.6 percent more than a city view on Fifth Avenue… just because of the view. A key difference between the view types is that the apartments with park views tend to be larger. The average size of a Fifth Avenue sale with a direct park view was 83.2 percent bigger than an apartment without a park view. Manhattan Co-op/Condo Values With and Without Park Views So Manhattan apartment prices on a per square foot basis reflect a significant premium per square foot for larger continuous space. Back to my Fifth Avenue example, the 75.6 percent difference reflects a “double-dip”—park views are more expensive and sell for more per square footage, but they also tend to be larger and therefore sell for more per square foot. Still, it’s a lot more expensive to have a park view than not have a park view.

My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: What Is the Value of a Central Park View? [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #270 NY] What Is the Value of a Central Park View?

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 I posted a few weeks ago on @CurbedNY:

As summer comes to a close and many have checked out until Labor Day, I thought I’d try another GIF animation (after the jump!) to illustrate the long fall of inventory (I’m on the “pronounced like ‘Jif’ peanut butter” team, as is the format’s inventor). August generally represents the annual low for inventory (even though fourth quarter of 2013 was quarterly record bottom, August 2013 was the record monthly bottom). I thought I’d show the last decade worth of inventory and provide some context to how low inventory actually is…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Charting A Decade of Manhattan Inventory [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #269 NY] Charting A Decade of Manhattan Inventory

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 that I posted a few weeks ago on @CurbedNY:

For this chart, I looked at a little more than a decade of Manhattan closed sales by square footage, breaking out the market by new development sales and re-sales. During this period, the average square footage of a new development sale was 1,382—15.6 percent larger than the 1,195 average square footage of a re-sale. However, new development sales size showed significant volatility as developers adapted to the changing market. The underlying driver of volatility is the quest to achieve the highest price per square foot premium a developer realizes by creating larger contiguous space. As a result, the much chronicled “micro-unit” phenomenon falls short and can’t become mainstream under current market conditions without external incentives (i.e. government). The math doesn’t work…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Units In New Developments Grow Larger [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #268 NY] Units In New Developments Grow Larger

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:

Although our NYC market reports only cover Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, I also track Staten Island and The Bronx for fun. For the second quarter 2014 NYC analysis, I observed two new records:

1. The average sales price for NYC residential real estate (co-ops, condos and 1-3 family sales) reached a record $975,441 (pink line).

2. The average sales price for NYC residential real estate excluding Manhattan reached a record $542,216 (orange line).

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: NYC Sets New Record Average Sales Price [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #267 NY] NYC Sets New Record Average Sales Price

[Source: WSJ]

A little over a week ago the WSJ’s Candace Taylor broke the story about 3 contiguous listings to be marketed together at the top of a 15-year old ground lease condo in Battery Park City for $118,500,000.  At 15,434 square feet, that works out to $7,678 per square foot.  CNBC’s Robert Frank provides more details in a video tour that was broadcast shortly after the story broke.

Normally I don’t bother to do the math on this sort of thing but after the Cityspire listing a while back, I thought I’d tweak my thinking a bit as the luxury market gets more than its fair share of confusing “milestones.”

Doing the Math
Here’s my listing price logic using content in the near viral news coverage of the record Battery Park City listing – I break down the 3 units:

$56,500,000 ($7,406/sqft) listing – 7,628 sqft 5-bed listed last year for 5 days and removed.

$11,700,000 ($3,330/sqft) purchase – 3,513 3-bed in April 2014.

$19,000,000 ($4,425/sqft) listing – 4,293 sqft 4-bed $23M January listing dropped to $19M, then removed.

$87,200,000 is the aggregate total for the 3 units that total 15,434 square feet ($5,640/sqft). The current list price of $118,500,000 represents a $31,300,000 premium for the combination of all 3 units before we might assume the millions in renovations to combine if you believe that the $87,200,000 total is what aggregate of the individual properties are worth.

Given the $3,330 ppsf recent sales price of the 3-bed and the unable to be sold for $4,293 ppsf after 6 months on market 4-bed and the not-market tested 5 day listing period 5-bed at $7,406, I can’t figure out how the listing agent gets to $7,678 ppsf as an asking price for all 3 together before the cost of renovation to combine? Perhaps the seller set the price.

The listing broker tells us that the pricing “is justified by the square footage“, as well as the views and building’s amenities.”

Got it.

Tags: Curbed NY, Robert Frank, Cityspire, Battery Park City, Steven Klar, Ryan Serhant, Candace Taylor

Comments Off on Cluttering Luxury Housing Markets with Listings Made for TV – Manhattan Edition

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:

I took a look at Manhattan’s climb out of the depths of the inventory void, and things are changing, but at a glacial pace. On a monthly basis, inventory bottomed last August (but it boomed in the fourth quarter on a quarterly basis). Perhaps the only significant reason inventory has begun to rise is because housing prices are beginning to ramp up, and sales are below last year’s pace. Sellers with new found equity have begun to list their properties. However, rising inventory remains inadequate against demand and the imbalance between supply and demand remains significant—and forget about the new development boom, that’s not going to help the overall market. The above chart shows a long view of the monthly Manhattan co-op and condo peak and trough and provides context on how low current supply actually is….

[My post title was originally “Biggest Inventory Rise in Decade, Just Not Enough” but wasn’t used – the crack Curbed staff didn’t think it was catchy enough.]

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Inventory Is Rising, Just Not Enough [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #266 NY] Inventory Is Rising, Just Not Enough

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:

I thought I’d bring out another way to measure the market since we’re over-obsessed with “luxury.” The starter market needs more analysis since affordability is now a key topic of conversation across the U.S. right now. For the more than 20 years of releasing market reports, and in all the other markets we analyze, I have always defined “luxury” as the top 10 percent of sales in a given period. For the “starter” market, I inverted the analysis and defined it as the lowest 10 percent of all sales in a given period. I’ve parsed out the past three years of Manhattan apartment sales by quarter and measured the year-over-year change in average sales price for the luxury and starter markets. I selected “average” over “median” to suss out more volatility…

[My post title was originally “For Starters, Luxury Manhattan Is Further Away” but wasn’t used – the crack Curbed staff didn’t think it was catchy enough.]

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Gap Between Starter, Luxury Markets Grows [Curbed]

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Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #265 NY] Gap Between Starter, Luxury Markets Grows

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:

It’s that time of year when sellers begin to introduce listing inventory to the “Spring Market”—when sales volume and upward price pressure are generally at their annual peak. I started working on a chart after someone mentioned they noticed a lot of new townhouses being added to inventory. Manhattan townhouse inventory has been rising since the beginning of 2014, showing a similar pattern to co-ops and condos. From the end of December 2013 to end of February 2014, townhouse listing inventory is up 12.8 percent, while co-op listings are up 11.1 percent and condos are up 20.2 percent. To provide some context for these numbers, I expanded the chart to include a 14-year monthly series breaking out co-ops and condos in addition to townhouses…

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My latest Three Cents Worth column on Curbed: Manhattan Inventory Keeps On Rising [Curbed]

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Tags: Three Cents Worth, Curbed NY, Listing Inventory, 3CW

Comments Off on [Three Cents Worth #262 NY] Manhattan Inventory Keeps On Rising