Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Thursday, January 12, 2012, 7:13 AM
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We released our report on the Manhattan rental market for 4Q 2011 this morning. I’ve been authoring this series for Douglas Elliman since 1994.
The rental market tends to lead the purchase market because rentals are generally more immediately responsive to improvement in the economy. However since the economy’s growth is tepid the key driver has more to due with the tightness of credit.
Affordability may be at an all time high but many need an arm and a leg to get financing.
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
The median net effective rent (face rent less landlord concessions) jumped 9.5% to $3,121 from $2,950 in the same period last year. The year-over-year-gains were consistent across all rental price indicators as no apparent shift in apartment mix was responsible for the increases.
The data tables will be updated shortly, if not by the time you read this. The chart section on the new site remains a work in progress.
The Elliman Report: 4Q 2011 Manhattan Rentals [Prudential Douglas Elliman]
The Elliman Report: 4Q 2011 Manhattan Rentals [Miller Samuel]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, January 11, 2012, 6:00 AM
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[click to expand]
Last fall Prudential Douglas Elliman turned 100 years old and they asked me to write an article for their Elliman magazine. If you’ve been living in a cave, I’ve been writing their housing market report series since 1994.
What started as a simple project morphed into a fun, albeit gigantic, research project. I learned a lot about the evolution of the Manhattan housing market, largely through the amazing incredible New York Times archives. This was right about the time of my web site revision and semi-necessary hiatus so I am cleaning out my desk of posts I have been itching to write so please indulge me.
The article I wrote for Douglas Elliman was beautifully presented by their marketing department and prominently inserted in their Elliman magazine (and iPad app!).
Diane Cardwell of the New York Times in her “The Appraisal” (an incredible column name BTW) penned a great piece: In an Earlier Time of Boom and Bust, Rentals Also Gained Favor that originated from my article and zeroed in on the 1920s and 1930s to draw a comparison to the current market.
I have the feeling my project is going to morph into something bigger – it’s just too interesting (to me). A few things I learned about the Manhattan market over this period:
- Douglas Elliman published the first market study in 1927 [heh, heh] not counting other marketing materials written before WWI)
- Real estate media coverage in the first half of the century was social scene fodder (same as today) but with extensive and excessive personal details presented on tenants, buyers and sellers yet housing prices and rents were rarely presented in public.
- Manhattan made a rapid transition from single family to luxury apartment rentals and eventually co-ops.
- Housing prices and rents by mid century weren’t that much different than the beginning of the century.
- Manhattan’s population peaked at 2.3M around WWI.
- Wall Street in the 1920’s was seen as the driver of the real estate market.
- Federal and state credit fixes in the late 1930’s help bail out the housing market.
• Change Is The Constant In A Century of New York City Real Estate – pdf [Miller Samuel]
• My Theory of Negative Milestones [Matrix]
More after the jump…
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, January 4, 2012, 8:53 PM
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I’ve got no particular reason for posting this chart other than I think it looks pretty cool and appreciated the WSJ’s effort.
Here’s the article it goes with.
Sales Decline to 2009 Level [WSJ]
Posted by Jonathan J. Miller -Wednesday, January 4, 2012, 11:49 AM
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We published our report on Manhattan market sales for 4Q 2011 this morning. I’ve been writing them for Douglas Elliman since 1994.
I’m thinking that 2012 may very well look a lot like 2011…stable prices and sales, but with a bias towards weakness and yet a sprinkling of trophy property sales. Not a lot on the table in terms of reasons to think economic conditions will improve in a meaningful way and or get worse in a significant way. Housing will lag the economy for the next few years with the legacy of idiotic credit conditions of days past.
The market may become sort of…well…boring.
Here’s an excerpt from the report:
After a summer and fall of mixed economic news and uncertainty caused by geo-political events including the debt ceiling debate, the S&P downgrade of US debt, and the financial crisis in Europe, the Manhattan housing market experienced a slow down in the level of activity. However, overall price retained its stability. There were 2,011 sales in the fourth quarter, 12.4% less than 2,295 in the prior year quarter. The fourth quarter had the lowest number of sales since the same period six years ago, perhaps related to the unusual surge in sales in the third quarter. Co-op and condo sales returned to near equilibrium with co-ops comprising 49.5% market share and condos comprising 50.5% market share. The drop in mortgage rates caused by the S&P downgrade helped shift more demand to the entry-level market, which is generally more responsive to changes in mortgage rates. Entry-level apartments, namely studio and 1-bedrooms, were 51.3%, the highest level since 2009, which readily saw market share in excess of 50%, as first time buyers entered the market after the credit crunch began….
As I’ve mentioned before, we just launched this site and I am getting used to how it works under the hood. The data section will be updated shortly, if not by the time you read this. Charts may be a bit longer since I am doing some house cleaning.
Here’s the press coverage for the report today, it’s fairly broad reflecting the strong interest in this market as some sort of gauge for the region.
The Elliman Report: 4Q 2011 Manhattan Sales [Miller Samuel]
