Digestible Real Estate News
^ Things I’ve found in apartments owned by functioning adults: a grown adult man’s entire bedroom lined with professionally lit, extremely rare, painstakingly poised Transformer figurines
We’re keeping this recurring piece to do a bit more for those genuinely interested in New York real estate and give my LinkedIn designation a little luster. Taking a note from the easy to absorb nuggets of information in Robinhood Snacks‘ newsletter, here are your RealEstateSnacks so I can make this newsletter tax deductible.
1. What happened this spring in the New York City sales market, you ask? It was absolutely bananas, one of the hottest on record to date with no sign of cooling down anytime soon. Every week since February has seen more than 30 contracts signed at $4 million and over, the most extraordinary run since before the 2008. And this trend is across the whole market. Days on market, historically averaging 100, now stands closer to 60. Many newly listed properties don’t even last a week. In fact, the city displays a history of bouncing back from disaster: the real estate market took off in January of 2002, less than 4 months after 9/11, and again in late 2009, considerably in advance of when the rest of the country began to recover from the 2008 recession. Total supply of Manhattan properties for sale, which peaked in October 2020 just below 9,600 units, stood last week at 6,675. Finally, more and more older people are aging in place, removing an important source of inventory from the marketplace. Taken together, that means fewer properties are on the market at a time when demand is spiking. The supply/demand equation now tilts increasingly sharply towards demand. How long will this last? In New York, the upward price creep has begun…
2.The New York City Rental Market was eaten alive in 2020, however rolled into 2021 with a vengeance, wrecking absolute havoc on the lives of renters across the five boroughs. From insane bidding wars to apartments seeing dozens of applications in the first day, the days of multiple months free and no broker fees during the height of the pandemic could not be further in the past. In June alone, the number of available rental units dropped by 38% from the previous month as people flooded back into the city. Right now we’re experiencing what’s most poignantly described as a Perfect Storm working against renters. First, inventory is exceptionally low; what used to be a busy time for rentals is now crickets supply-wise, due to most renters in 2020 having pushed lease renewal dates into the fall and winter since summer was still peak Covid. Second, everyone who left the city is now coming back in a swarm, doubling the competition for what few apartments there are. Bidding wars are rampant, apartments are either getting snatched the minute they pop up or receiving dozens of applications. This trend should continue into late fall, however inventory should see a slight uptick with people leaving apartments they can no longer afford because the months free they received at lease signing are not being offered year two…
3. Something that ten years ago I absolutely did not think I would be ever be professionally writing about, conversing about, caring about: Lumber futures. Me…LUMBER. So if you weren’t in the know, lumber prices absolutely skyrocketed this past spring, due to a whole host of factors, but it sent the construction and renovation world into a tizzy. Well Lumber prices have finally come down! July Lumber futures ended Tuesday at $599 per thousand board feet, down nearly 66% from the high of $1,711.20 hit in May, when wood-product supply lines were still being unknotted after the lockdown and before Americans began to shift spending from home improvement projects to vacations and dining out. More actively traded futures for September delivery settled at $649.90, just $10.90 above the pre-pandemic high.
4.To no one’s surprise, homes in Brooklyn and Queens sold at record-breaking prices in the second quarter of 2021. The median price for a home in Brooklyn was $910,000, the third all-time highest number recorded. In Queens it was $680,000 — the highest on record for that borough. Meanwhile, the number of sales in Brooklyn clocked in at 3,427, the most for a second quarter since 2007. It’s up by 21.4% from the first quarter and 124.7% from a year ago. The story in Queens is similar: Sales increased by 7.2% from the previous quarter and nearly doubled from a year ago to 3,517. In Brooklyn, inventory is up nearly 27% year-over-year and 18% from the previous quarter. Queens inventory is up about 26% year-over-year and nearly 10% from the previous quarter.
5.An interesting read and some food for thought: this article by Vice “The People the Suburbs Were Built for Are Gone” dives into the phenomenon of “Suburban Retrofitting”, as the demographic these areas were built for is largely no longer choosing to live here and now there’s a dire need to repurpose these communities. Just interesting food for thought…
And for the two homes I’m ogling this month…
…the closest thing to living in Bikini Bottom is scoring a spot on Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights. Try and name a better home than this stunning piece of history, a 1830 sprawling townhome at 13 Pineapple Street, listed for $7,600,000…
…yes, everyone’s dream is a prime West Village townhouse, so if you’re going to do it…do it right with this insane $9,850,000 home at 21 Cornelia Street, I mean…that backyard…
…if you didn’t see this tucked away in the unimportant section of real estate news, the Royal Tenenbaums House at 339 Convent Ave in Hamilton Heights is up for rent for a saucy $20,000 a month, so stay tuned for my GoFundMe to live out my wildest life dream …
