The PDF version of the 2Q 2007 Manhattan Market Overview [Miller Samuel] that I write for Prudential Douglas Elliman is available for download. I have been writing these market reports for them since 1994.

Here is some additional information from Prudential Douglas Elliman’s CEO/President Dottie Herman covering the 2Q 07 report release. Since she purchased PDE four years ago, she has been unwavering in her support of my requirement to remain independent in the preparation of these reports (and of course, it goes without saying that I am also able to remain dull and boring).

In addition, you can see the methodology that went into the report including the neighborhood boundaries and the type of content we have available.

You can also build your own custom data tables using the aggregate report data (from 1Q 89 through 2Q 2007) and view a series of quarterly market charts, most related to the current market report.

An excerpt

…The number of Manhattan apartment sales are at record levels. Listing inventory has fallen sharply from recent highs. Two of three price indicators tracked in this study set records. Days on market and listing discount indicators are contracting. In contrast, national housing statistics, while not reflective of individual markets, show just the opposite. The New York City economy continues to show improvement coming after two consecutive years of record Wall Street bonus payouts. Preliminary indicators from the financial services sector show more of the same strength bonus income in the coming year. Mortgage rates are low despite recent increases. The government is running a budget surplus, unemployment is low and the weak dollar has brought in significant foreign investment. The constant in the demand/supply equation has been new development activity, whose pace has not abated for the past three years. It contributed to the rise in inventory levels of 2005 and 2006, but the significant demand has more than offset new product added to the market in 2007. The relatively inelastic short term response to demand suggests that the high level of demand is something to focus on for the remainder of the year and through 2008.

Download report: [2Q 2007 Manhattan Market Overview [pdf]](https://millersamuel.com/reports/pdf-reports/MMO2Q07.pdf)


3 Comments

  1. Lurker H July 9, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    Jonathan,

    I always look forward to reading your reports: a goldmine of information. I have one question about something that didn’t make sense to me: the average price per square foot of $1139 doesn’t seem to add up.

    The total co-op dollars was $1835M ($1.15M per apt * 1595 apts), and the total co-op square footage was 1.867M ($1835M / $983 per sq ft).

    The total condo dollars was $3416M ($1.46M per apt * 2344 apts), and the total condo square footage was 2.900M ($3415M / $1178 per sq ft).

    The overall price per square foot would then be $1101: ($1835M + $3415M) / (1.867M + 2.900M).

    From your website’s custom data tables (love that thing), it calculates $1099, which is within rounding distance from the $1101 above. I verified my calculation with the other quarters (all work out) and things like the overall average price and total sales for the latest quarter (also work out). Also strange is that the prior year quarter change in price per square foot is -1.2% for co-ops and +2.5% for condos, but +5.2% overall. I don’t it is mathematically possible for the blended number to be larger than the separated numbers.

    Do you know what’s going on?

    Thanks,
    Lurker H

  2. Jonathan J. Miller July 11, 2007 at 6:48 am

    Hi Lurker H. Thanks! Thats interesting and I am not sure, other than an extreme case of rounding run amok. Your method of verifying the calculations seems to be one step removed by extracting the square footage. I look at it a different way. The $1139 is weighted by the price per square foot and number of sales for both condos and coops and it does fall in between them as it should and weights correctly. I am guessing is a rounding thing because we run all the raw numbers through an application that does the same thing for all stats, thats why the other numbers are in sync. They are based on the same raw data set.

  3. Lurker H July 11, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    Jonathan,

    I think I see what you are saying. In my calculation, I took the total dollars across all sales and divided by the total square feet across all sales. What I think you are saying is that you take the PPSF for each unit (which is just that unit’s dollars divided by that unit’s square footage), and then you calculate the average of the PPSF across all units. The $1139 falls in between the $1178 for condos and the $983 for co-ops.

    I still think there may be a problem, however. An average PPSF of $1139 implies that the mix of condos vs. co-ops was 80% / 20%:

    0.80 * $1178 + 0.20 * $983 = $1139

    However, the actual mix was 59.5% / 40.5% (2344 condos and 1595 co-ops), which leads to an average PPSF of $1099:

    0.595 * $1178 + 0.405 * $983 = $1099

    This $1099 matches the website’s generated data tables exactly. Every other number in the report matches the generated data tables; just the $1139 vs. $1099 is different.

    Thanks,
    Lurker H

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