Photo by Studio Sarah Lou.
New stats from Streeteasy show that median rents and apartment asking prices both fell more than 20% on the Upper West Side in November.
The stats show that the median asking price for an apartment in the neighborhood fell 21.4% to $1.395 million (no, that doesn’t sound so low to us either). And the median rent fell 23.3% to $2,800.
An above-average percentage of Upper West Siders left the city during the pandemic, and some haven’t returned. In addition, the usual influx of new city residents has clearly been delayed as the pandemic continues to rage.
Streeteasy says that the median asking rent in Manhattan dropped 12.7%, falling to a 10-year low of $2,800 in November.
One caveat: The median recorded sales price was up 35.9% to $1.325 million, which might reflect the lag between putting a home on the market and closing the deal. Another caveat: November isn’t exactly the hottest month for real estate, so it’s worth waiting to see what happens early next year.
The full neighborhood-by-neighborhood chart is below. Here is the link.
A screaming buying opportunity – if it’s not too late already.
“Risk is greatest when people are least aware of it.” That was January, 2020.
“Risk is least when people are most aware it.”
That was last month.
These numbers mean very little. Numbers to look for are days on market and difference between asking price to selling price.
A large building with lots of luxury apartments that all go on sale at once could also skew the numbers considerably.
The numbers in the article just say that if you purchased an apartment last year with the intention of flipping it, you probably will have a loss, but most people buy apartments in this neighborhood for the long term. If you bought your home 20 years ago and sold it last week I bet you still made a solid chunk of change.
I think attributing this to the Covid virus is incomplete.
I listed my modest 1BR right after Labor Day. Very few showings, about 7. There are two other units available in my building that have been on the market longer. Covid has definitely deterred sales. Apartments used to sell within 5-6 weeks in my 39 unit coop….we are by the subway and the Park with a beautiful roof deck. Hopefully Q1 will be better.
NYC real estate is always going to be a hot commodity and smart investors are going to be buying homes now & reap the rewards in that not too distant future.
WSR, can you embed a link to the Streeteasy chart for those of us who want to see all the data? Thank you.
Added! Thanks for asking.
Median prices are only one part of understanding the market. The other is average prices and average prices per square foot. The median shows that less expensive apartments were being sold. It doesn’t accurately analyse changes in prices, just a shift in the price range where most deals are being done.
Can you provide the link to this info/chart, I can’t find it on their site in this comparison form
Prices have been dropping since 2014, but COVID accelerated the drop dramatically. I shopped for an apt. for the past 20 months and personally tracked how prices fell. Overpriced (imho) apts. sat on the market for months. I found something and was able to negotiate $100k off of the original asking price. Before board approval I negotiated another 4% off the price for the COVID-related drop in values. NB: Many discounts are being negotiated in the form of givebacks at closing, not as final prices – so brokers and coops can maintain the higher value on paper. Don’t believe all the numbers on Streeteasy.
“Prices have been dropping since 2014”???
This is so far from being correct that I don’t even know what to say…
Got a source for that?:)
We have not seen the full effects of this downturn. Yes, COVID was and remains the fire, and as a life long upper west sider, you can see why suddenly these prewar high-rise buildings is affected because no one really wants to be in an elevator now. However, just like the financial collapse after George W. Bush, it’ll get worse before it gets better. This vaccine isn’t going to magically turn everything around. It takes years for a bad economy to recover. We can see that after 2008, after 9/11, the stock market crash of 87, and this is like all 3 of those combined. You have yet to see the consequences of an unprecedented shut down of everything. don’t have anything to compare this to. The upper West side is not as fragile as Brooklyn and some other areas but it will not come out unscathed.
Rental business is booming on the Upper West Side. Brusco/Westside Management has plenty of cheap no fee apartments with one month free for immediate occupancy that have been flying off of the shelves.
No price will be worth living in NYC again. Small businesses were and are being destroyed by the mayor and governor.
Re: “Small businesses were and are being destroyed by the mayor and governor.”
Oh, JUST by BdB and Cuomo?
NOT by the virus??
BdB and Cuomo are trying to keep NYers safe from a deadly disease that has killed thousands, esp. those who refuse to avoid travel, to wear masks, to avoid large gatherings, etc.
Whatever you think of BdB and Cuomo, you cannot deny that they are doing the job for which they were elected…to protect and serve the people.
Imagine the outrage if they instead had done what Trump has done, which is….
As a small business owner who put in everything we have to build a business, there needs to be major financial support if you are going to force them closed for months at a time. People should be able to make their own decisions. If you are deathly afraid of the virus, that’s fine and you should stay home. But to close down businesses for months at a time and not give the financial support, THAT we can blame on Cuomo & BDB. They are more excited by their egos & spotlight than planning a way out of this financial mess to avoid businesses losing everything.
Bulk of rental housing price drops are happening in old tenement or five story walk-up buildings.
Landlords were able to command high rents for what often were renovated formerly (or still are) rent regulated apartments, this while building overall still is what it is.
People are waking up and saying they aren’t going to pay nearly $3k or more for such units when they can get something in new construction for same or less money.
Besides job loss the other fly in multi-family rental is young people and others not wanting to pay insane rents when basically every reason for doing so now has gone.
People didn’t mind paying $3k-$4k or whatever to be on UES, UWS, etc… when everything was open and city was buzzing with exciting things to do. Now that has changed and people facing whole or mostly being on lock down, they can save money by living at parents house or elsewhere.
Finally changes brought about in 2019 rent laws rewrite made it easier for tenants to break a lease before term is over. As such many have done just that, creating more vacant units on market.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/tenants-right-break-rental-lease-new-york.html