Oh My! Newer Luxury Condo Prices Drop Across Manhattan

This is the final of three articles today on the Manhattan housing market since last autumn. Read about the apartment rental market and the condo sales market.

Median prices for new-development luxury condos in three of Manhattan’s glitziest neighborhoods dropped substantially during the third quarter, according to a new report from research outfit StreetEasy (PDF here). From trendy downtown Manhattan all the way through the glamorous Upper West Side (and even midtown in between), median prices for top-tier newer condos declined quarterly by 29.1 percent, 31 percent, and 32.4 percent, respectively.

The Upper East Side was the only neighborhood with a median sales price increase among new luxury developments (nearly all condos), with a jump of 145 percent. (StreetEasy defines the luxury market as the top 10 percent of the condo and co-op sales marke; for this quarter, it included all apartments sold at $3.1 million and above.)

The flagging new-development market lagged the luxury resale market, which also declined, but not by nearly as much. The median price for new luxury condos was $4.1 million in the third quarter, down 16.1 percent from the prior quarter and 14.6 percent less than the same time last year. Resold luxury apartments had a third-quarter median price of $4.395 million.

Of the 325 luxury apartment sales in Manhattan in the three months ending Sept. 30, 200 were resold apartments and 125 were in new developments. Luxury co-ops accounted for 56 percent of the luxury resale market, and their number inched upward 2.8 percent to 112 in the third quarter.