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Manhattan’s Housing Market Benefited From Pent-Up Demand in Election Run-Up

Sellers are also becoming more willing to reduce prices

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The Manhattan skyline

Gary Hershorn / Getty Images
The Manhattan skyline
Gary Hershorn / Getty Images

Manhattan’s housing market bounced back to life at the start of this year, thanks to pent-up demand in the runup to the election and sellers becoming more willing to reduce their pricing.

The number of homes sold in the resale market, which accounts for  around 84% of the market, rose 7.7% in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period in 2016 to 2,429, according to a report Tuesday by appraisal firm Miller Samuel on behalf of Douglas Elliman Real Estate. This was the biggest annual gain in two years.

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"We saw an uptick in activity, which we think was built-up demand. We saw the same thing in 2012," Mr. Miller, the chief executive of Miller Samuel and author of the report, told Mansion Global.

Another factor apart from pent-up demand is sellers are becoming more willing to meet buyers’ pricing expectations.

Across the market as a whole, the listing discount (the change from final listing price to contract price) was 4.2%, double the level witnessed a year ago.


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"Every single submarket saw the listing discount increase, and that means sellers were willing to travel farther to meet buyer on price. The buyers weren’t budging," Mr. Miller added.

"After a couple of years of sellers being really disconnected, this is encouraging because this will result in more transactions."

The median sales price in Manhattan fell 3.3% to $1.1 million in the first three months of the year, compared with the same period a year earlier. This was the second consecutive quarter prices fell.

In the luxury market, which represents the top 10% of all sales, the median sales price was up 5.15%, compared with a year earlier, to a record $6.97 million, according to the report.

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However, this is to a large extent propped up by "legacy" sales, which went into contract one to two years ago in some of the city’s most expensive new developments when business was still booming, but only closed once the buildings were completed.