Luxury housing activity in Manhattan improved slightly in the second quarter of this year compared to last, with 350 contracts signed for high-end homes during that period in 2017 compared to 343 in the second quarter of 2016, according to a report Monday from Olshan Realty.
Olshan tracks contracts signed for homes in Manhattan priced at $4 million or more. Despite the slight uptick in activity, transactions in the second quarter totaled 10% less in price volume than in the same quarter last year.
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In total, $2.507 billion in homes found buyers between April and June, a decrease from $2.787 billion during the same period last year.
New developments played a major role in luxury activity both this year and last, with about one-third of contracts signed involving a developer.
Meanwhile, the second quarter underscored a trend toward affordable luxury, or homes priced under $6 million—the market’s current "sweet spot," wrote Donna Olshan in the second quarter report.
#LosAngeles’s ‘affordable luxury’ homes market outperformed the overall market in 2016 https://t.co/GYfFhcMmsF pic.twitter.com/ncgmcA1BLg
— Mansion Global (@MansionGlobal) January 12, 2017
The median price in the second quarter was $5.95 million, the lowest on Olshan’s record since 2011.
Sellers fed up with waiting around for a buyer have finally started to compromise on price after waiting months—sometimes years—to sell, metrics in the second quarter showed. For instance, the average time a home was on the market before finding a buyer soared to more than 13 months in the second quarter, compared to around nine months during this time last year.
Price reductions have also reached a five-year high, with the average home getting a 9% price cut before selling.
Weekly stats
There were 29 contracts for luxury homes signed in the final week of the second quarter, the week ending Sunday, according to Olshan. Those transactions totaled $191.86 million.
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The most expensive contract in the week ending Sunday was for a two-bedroom apartment in Walker Tower on West 18th Street, asking $15.2 million.
The second most expensive home was a townhouse on East 51st Street, asking $12.9 million. The seller purchased the five-bedroom, 19-foot-wide home in 2011 for $4.6 million and undertook a gut renovation.