Third Quarter 2010 Market Report

It is important for first-time home buyers to learn as much as they can and become more educated about the latest market reports where they are considering purchasing a home. 

If you're a first-time home buyer and ready to purchase a home in New York City, the city is fortunate in that our recovery from the recession continues to advance ahead of schedule. The improvement is well reflected in the Manhattan residential market. 

"In 2010, over 55, 000 jobs were added in NYC bringing the city's unemployment rate to 9.4% in August. While still high, it is a full 1% lower than where it was at the beginning of the year, and below the national rate", according to Gregory Heym, Chief Economist, Terra Holdings, LLC .

Heym also reported that our market is the recent turnaround in employment in the city's finance industry. Employment in financial activities rose by 500 during the twelve months ending in  August 2010, the first year-over-year gain in this sector since May of 2008. Demand has also been helped by interest rates that remain near record lows.

There is a stable inventory of about 8,300 apartments available in New York City and has remained stable over the past few months. 

Both the average and median apartment price reached their highest levels since the first quarter of 2009 in the third quarter.  The average apartment price of $1,423,378 was 12% higher than a year ago and marked the fifth straight quarter this figure has increased.  At $890,000 the median price was 14% higher than 2009's third quarter and 6% higher than the prior quarter.

Similar to the second quarter, pricing gains were led by co-ops.  All sizes of co-op apartments posted at least an 11% increase in their average price from the third quarter of 2009.  Activity at the high-end picked up, as the number of co-op sales over $7 million doubled from a year ago.  This brought the overall average co-op price up 24% to $1,156,733.

Condo prices averaged $1,724,180 during the third quarter, 2% higher than a year ago.  A main reason for this gain was a 3% increase in the average size of condos sold from a year ago.  The only size category to post a higher average condo price during this time was one-bedrooms.

Click Here to Read Halstead Property's Third Quarter 2010 Market Report