Weekly Manhattan & Brooklyn Market: 1/8

Week of 1/8/23

We’ve said it week after week after week, but the repetitive nature of our posts make the observation no less potent. Demand for NYC residential real estate is incredible. Throw-economics-out-the-window kind of incredible. Why? Because it’s average.

Almost overnight, COVID fears slammed the brakes on purchasing for the next 4-months, wiping out 75% of the pre-pandemic (Jan 5, 2015 to Mar 1, 2020) deal volume. When the market swung the other way post-vaccine by roughly the same magnitude and duration, we didn’t blink an eye and quipped, “Textbook Econ 101”.

But demand didn’t bounce back just once, it bounced back two additional times. And a trifecta of demand spikes weren’t the only rabbits the market planned to pull out of the hat.

We braced our Advisor force and Clientele for what was to come, certain that 18-months of record breaking (translation: “oversold”) deal volume would swing the market back into a period of sustained low demand. But wrong we were. In July of 2022, the market landed softly, at equilibrium, and — with the exception of the holidays — has been traversing along the pre-pandemic average ever since.

Imagine pulling a pendulum to the left (downside) and letting it go. You watch as it swings to the right (upside) but, magically, can’t make it back to the downside again. As a toy, a broken pendulum is irritating, but as a demand curve, it’s outstanding. We like this broken pendulum and won’t be returning it anytime soon.

Manhattan Supply is divided into total supply and new inventory. Total supply (chart directly below) was robust during the first week of 2021 as developers responded to the release of pent-up demand as NYC turned the corner on COVID by opening their warehouses of shadow inventory. Since then, total supply has been significantly leaner as deal volume in 2021 and H1–2022 outpaced new offerings, as confirmed by the second chart. This week, total supply is down –29% from the first week of 2021, from 8,227 units to 5,858.

Brooklyn Supply in terms of total supply [chart directly below] is down –14% this week (2,742 units) compared to the first week of 2021 (3,170 units), not surprising since demand for the borough has been white hot. What is surprising; however — in this high demand period — is that sellers are not meeting that demand with new listings [second chart below].

Manhattan Pending Sales as we have mentioned recently, landed softly after dropping precipitously towards the end of July as mortgage rates decisively cooled demand. However, the number of pending sales is still declining as demand is trending –20% below its pre-pandemic (Jan 5, 2015 to Mar 1, 2020) average. This week, the metric fell –4% from last and the downward trend seems to be accelerating, as illustrated below.

Brooklyn Pending Sales, like Manhattan, dropped precipitously in July but landed softly. And, like Manhattan, what has been a slightly downward trend appears to be accelerating, down –4% this week.

Manhattan Contracts Signed — We mentioned previously that demand for Manhattan, as measured by the number of contracts signed, was down –20% from the pre-pandemic average. The chart below, which compares this week to the first week of the past two years, paints a similar picture with demand down –30%.

Brooklyn Contracts Signed — Although demand for Brooklyn is down –36% this week compared to the first week of 2021, demand for the borough remains incredibly strong versus the pre-pandemic average, trending approximately +60% above that number.

New Development Insights

As reported by Marketproof, this week, 44 new development contracts were reported across 23 buildings. The following were the top selling new developments of the week:

• 450 WASHINGTON (Tribeca)
• ONE MANHATTAN SQUARE (Two Bridges)
• BROOKLYN POINT (Downtown Brooklyn)
• 483 HART ST (Bushwick)

Please contact me if you would like to learn more about these, or other new developments.

We will continue sharing the Elegran Insights data analysis with you every week.