Digestible Real Estate News
We’re keeping this recurring piece to do a bit more for those genuinely interested in New York real estate, not just food porn and obscurities, and give my LinkedIn designation a little luster. Taking a note from the easy to absorb nuggets of information in MarketSnacks‘ newsletter (blanketed with this unshakable food theme), here are your RealEstateSnacks so I can make this newsletter tax deductible.
1. It was reported that last quarter, prices in New York hit a four year low, with the number of transactions slumping as well, posting a lazy median of 83 DOM (days on market). So one may ask, where are homes selling the fastest right now? Streeteasy did a full report and by no surprise, the affordable neighborhoods in the outer boroughs are seeing the shortest time on market. Southern Queens, with a median recorded sale price of $545,000 boasted a median of 60 DOM, with Northwest Brooklyn and Northwest Queens rounding out the top three. For slowest on the market, Midtown, Upper East Side and Upper Manhattan posted a media of ~100 DOM.
2. If you’ve ever purchased in New York, you’ll remember your closing costs may have included the taxes enforced by the city and state, like the transfer tax and the mansion tax. So with a down market, the drop in sales is directly effecting government revenue based off of these transaction taxes. With a 35% drop in investment sales from the second to third quarter of 2019, city transfer tax collections were down $15,618,000, and state transfer taxes dropped by $3,867,500 based on $595,000,000 less in total transaction costs. This deflation is largely attributed to the pre-mansion-tax-increase-buying-spree in June. At the end of the day, the recent taxes enacted by Cuomo et al. have done the opposite of raise more funds for the city; in stifling the real estate market, they are directly negatively effecting the city’s coffers.
3. What may seem as conflicting to the current state of the market, New York is in its 6th straight year of a building boom, with a visible reshaping of the landscape in the five boroughs. A projected $61.5 billion will have been spent in construction in 2019, a 10% increase from last year; after adjusting for inflation, this will mark the highest level of investment since 1995. Besides the glaring glut of inventory, this has also meant record noise complaints and severe concern for the skyline and vistas from neighboring buildings.
4. In case you’ve been living under a rock, this past summer Cuomo signed a multifaceted bill solely focusing on the well being of tenants in New York. While it’s necessary to look out for everyone, the bill was not well thought out and beyond it actually negatively effecting the classes it intended to help, it’s been found to violate the Constitution and landlord groups are fighting back. Beyond the rent law not addressing the “housing emergency” that it’s intended for, it violates owner’s rights, causes grave repercussions to property value, and just short of renders rent laws unenforceable.
And for the homes I’m ogling this month…Norah Jones’ $8,000,000 townhome at 166 Amity Street in Cobble Hill:
In my favorite church-converted-to-coops, 99A Clinton Street, Apt 1 in Brooklyn Heights listed at $1,950,000:
