[Trying, Stabilizing] 1Q 2012 Queens Sales Report
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, April 19, 2012, 3:59 PM
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We published our report on Queens sales for 1Q 2012 this morning. I’ve been authoring this report series for Douglas Elliman since 1994.
Here are some takeaways:
- Entry-level apartment sales continued to surge as buyers took advantage of record low mortgage rates.
- New development market share expanded to 7.3%, the second highest share since Lehman (2Q 11 has an 8.9% share)
- The sharp decline in inventory outpaced the decline in sales. As a result the absorption rate (number of months to sell all inventory at the current pace of sales) accelerated to 12.2 months from 15.7 months in the same period a year ago – the market was more efficient.
- Price indicators slipped modestly – pulled down by the surge in lower priced sales in response to record low mortgage rates.
- West Queens saw the largest gain in market share over the past year, followed by South Queens.
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
There was a 16.2% decline in the number of sales in the first quarter to 2,176, down from 2,598 in the prior year quarter despite the surge in co-op sale market share. Co-ops represented 28.7% of all sales in the first quarter compared to a 13.2% share of condo sales and a 58.1% share of 1-3 family homes. The increase in coop market share was largely caused by the sharp drop in mortgage rates last fall. The entrylevel market is more immediately responsive to changes in mortgage rates. Listing inventory fell faster, declining 35% to 8,851 from 13,609 in the prior year quarter. The result of declining sales and more rapidly declining inventory resulted in a sharp drop in the monthly absorption rate. In the first quarter, the number of months to absorb all active inventory at the current pace of sales was 12.2 months, more than 3 months more efficient than the 15.7 month rate in the prior year quarter…
I’ve got a tool to build custom data tables on the Queens markets and I just updated the all the charts for Queens. You can also see other market areas and other generally cool housing market charts (IMHO).
- The Elliman Report: 1Q 2012 Queens Sales [Miller Samuel]
- The Elliman Report: 1Q 2012 Queens Sales [Prudential Douglas Elliman]
