Friday Morning Links And Comment

Hello all! It has been quite a busy week. I feel as if I have managed only a few minutes per day actually sitting at my desk, hence the lack of original content on the blog this week.

It is an unusual market right now. It is without question a busier market this quarter than last- by a wide margin. Pricing, however, is funky. Where you would normally have a very good understanding of market price, this month it seems to be a guessing game. It is almost as if there was such a pause in the market over the fall and winter, that there is a gap in comps. There are comps, but plenty of questions go with them- when did it actually go to contract, was the transaction reflective of the pre-Lehman demise era, etc... So now we find ourselves in a group feeling out period. If an apartment was listed in September for $1.25 Mil and reduced to $1.125 Mil. in November, what is it worth today? My sense is that we are just starting to get a grip on that number, and it could be as much as 20%-30% lower than last September. Where is this market going? The market is playing catch up to the new reality. For those that have seen the substantial mark-down I would say that the market looks flat over the next 12 months. However, it could be argued that the majority of listings are still not reflective of the post-Lehman reality. Over the next 12 months, slowly but surely, all listings will come to this new reality and we will find stability and the potential to appreciate. So what do you do? Buy today's prices, not yesterday's.
Hot Building Renderings From 1929 (NY Times)
Barbara Say Harlem Will Sleep With The Rest Of The Market (NYDN)
Manhattan Tops In Price Chops? (Metro)
189 Buildings Worth $9 Billion In Distress (The Real Deal)
Rockrose Siblings To Split The Company In Two (Crain's)

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