Co-op and Condo Sales Hit Six-Year Low

Co-op and condo apartment sales in Manhattan fell to the lowest monthly rate in almost six years, as a declining trend in city-wide sales both by price and volume emerged, according to listings and data website CityRealty, Reuters reports. 

Across Manhattan, 840 co-ops and condos were sold in January, a 20.1 percent decline from a year earlier, when 1,051 apartment sales were recorded, CityRealty said. Data for January showed the lowest number of units sold since February 2012, when 799 sales were recorded at an average price of $1.50 million. Volume peaked in July 2013, when 1,721 units were sold. 

“I’m a little startled, it’s quite a blip,” Gabby Warshawer, director of research at CityRealty, said of the drop. 

Sales prices fell 15.5 percent to an average $1.86 million in January from an average $2.2 million a year earlier, while the average price in December fell 14.3 percent, from $2.17 million. 

One reason for the price decline was a lack of new condo buildings entering the market, where prices in the luxury range well above $2 million have skewed the overall market, Warshawer said. Apartment sales priced above $10 million have doubled since 2013, when the post-crisis recovery was fully in swing, CityRealty said in a year-end 2017 report.

The price discrepancy between condos and co-ops remains intact. The average price of a condo was $2.8 million in January, compared with $1.3 million for co-ops, using data that excludes sales in upper Manhattan because of the area’s low activity.