Thursday, July 9, 2009

Silver Lining for the BoogieDown? [Update x2]

The Daily News has a brief article based on a real estate report produced by the Real Estate Board of New York. Update: the Daily News linkage is acting really weird and sending us to a different article, but under the same URL. When I figure out what's going on I'll fix it...Update2: The Daily News thing is still not working, but here is a link to the Press Release from REBNY's report.

Needless to say, the whole thing is a big shit show, but there was some good news buried in the stats:

1) The Bronx was the least bad of all the boroughs in terms of overall price decrease for all residential dwellings (condos, co-ops, and 1-3 family houses). Our beloved borough saw only a 9% decrease, while Manhattan saw a 22% decrease.

2) Apartment prices actually increased by 12% in the Bronx, which was the only borough to see increases.

Any theories out there to explain this? Less of an unrealistic mark up here? First time home buyers still priced out of inflated Brooklyn and Manhattan? The smaller they are the softer they fall?

But besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

~ErLu

3 comments:

Gregory Lobo Jost said...

It's impossible to say for sure, but I would probably go for your last thought, "The smaller they are the softer they fall," as in the size of the inflated prices/bubble.

Coincidentally, I was just looking at recent sales of one and two family homes in Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham Bedford, Belmont, and Kingsbridge Heights. Since the beginning of the year, there have been a total of 25 sales, 8 single family and 17 duplexes (8 of which are new construction attached in Fordham Bedford). Among the single family homes, the average sales price was about $280k, while the median was $291k.

With the two family homes, there's a huge discrepancy between the existing homes and the new construction ($298k vs $533k average and $260k vs $512k median), which makes me wonder about the different type of people who buy the new stuff vs existing. Three of the eight new construction homes look like they are investor owned, but those prices are in the range of the owner occupied.

When you put all the two families together, the average sales price is 409k and the median is 460k.

The sample size is small, but it gives you a sense of very local trends.

Boogiedowner said...

Thanks for the info, Greg. Can you put these micro trends into context in terms of their relationship to last year's numbers? What is the percentage decrease (or increase)?

anthony rivieccio said...

i think it might be because of the large turnover of vacenies in the bronx...and as of current housing law....vacent control rates...are an extra 20% not withstanding your general rent control board increases.

espada irionally, by chairman of the housing committee could stop this now