Uptick in Apartments For Sale Offers Market Ray of Hope

Don’t stick a fork in the Manhattan co-op and condo market just yet. While listings and closings have plunged since the coronavirus pandemic led to stay-at-home orders, sellers are beginning to tiptoe back and put their apartments on the Manhattan sales market, Brick Underground reports. For the last week of April, the number of new listings rose 39 percent from the prior week, marking the highest weekly level since New York’s shutdown order went into effect, according to UrbanDigs' weekly report on total new listings, contracts signed, and listings being taken off the market for Manhattan.

The news was not altogether rosy. For the week April 27th through May 3rd, contracts signed were down 10 percent and listings off market were up 63 percent. “Buyers remain in wait and see mode, with only 40 contracts during the week, suggesting that until the stay-at-home order is lifted, the market will remain thinly traded” with wide gaps between bidding and asking prices, says Noah Rosenblatt, chief executive at UrbanDigs and author of the new report.

While encouraging, the news is decidedly mixed. Typically, during the spring selling season, there are weekly increases in both new listings and contracts signed, with a weekly decrease in listings being taken off the market, Rosenblatt says, adding that “with the market on pause, contracts signed are decreasing while both new listings and off market listings are increasing on a week-to-week basis.”