By: Benyamin Davidsons
Last week was the worst week luxury real estate in the Big Apple has seen since the winter of 2020.
As reported by Crain’s NY, only 12 contracts worth $4 million or more were signed in Manhattan last week. That is 13 contracts less than was signed the week earlier. The week was the slowest week since Dec. 28, 2020, when only 10 contracts were signed, as per the latest report from Olshan Realty. Last week was also the worst week for the S&P 500 since March 2020, the report notes.
Olshan Realty President Donna Olshan blamed the slow week in luxury residentials, on the stock market woes. “The S&P 500 declined 11 out of the last 12 weeks. … It’s just a punch to the stomach,” she said, adding that for many prospective luxury purchasers “their net worth is tied up very heavily in the stock market.”
Last week’s deals were worth only a total of $101 million, with the median asking price at roughly $5.3 million. The sales also had an average discount of about 6 percent compared to their original list price, and the homes spent 446 days on the market on average. The luxury sales last week included nine condos, two townhouses and one co-op.
The priciest deal in the lot was a condo at 15 Central Park West, in the Upper West Side, adjacent to Central Park. The three-bedroom unit was asking $26 million, and spans 3,105 square feet. The seller took a loss on the home, having purchased it in 2014 for $30 million.
The second-priciest deal for the week was for a condo at the seventeen-story tower at 155 W. 11th St. The three-bedroom West Village home was asking $15 million, and spans roughly 2,500 square feet. The seller had purchased the home in 2017 for roughly $11.3 million.
Other notable deals included a townhouse, built in 1899, with an asking price of $10.5 million. The home at 226 E. 49th St. has six-bedroom, six- bathroom home and boasts 8,700 square feet of space. Also among the sales was a co-op at 14 Harrison St. The Tribeca pre-war home, built in 1880’s, had an asking price of around $5.5 million and features three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
As per Crain’s, a week with 12 contracts above $4 million was regular for 2020, at the peak of the pandemic. But since 2021, Manhattan’s luxury market picked up significantly thanks to the bull stock market and low interest rates. Last year, an average of 36 luxury contracts were signed per week. Luxury activity started to slow down in mid-May when there were just 23 contracts signed per week. It is “way too early to say” whether a return to 12 weekly luxury contracts will be the new normal moving forward, Olshan commented.
Jonathan Miller, CEO of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, commented to say the stock market decline is just one of the main influencing factors. “The weakness of the luxury market has been a long time coming over the last couple of months with the escalation of the war, the idea that inflation is not as transitory as everybody thought,” Miller said. “There’s nothing a housing market hates more than uncertainty.”
