Housing With Fewer Sales But More Paddling

I’d like to think my suburb to city commute is reasonable. The commuter below looks like he has done this before – in other words, it wasn’t a dry run.

I am headed out of town early tomorrow for a little R&R so I wrote this after midnight on Thursday and had to cut my musings a little short (Here’s a shout out to my Columbia University masters students to whom I hard-sold these Housing Notes in our class today.)

Market Report Gauntlet Q2-2018 Week 1: Manhattan Sales

This week, the real estate firm Douglas Elliman published my research of the Manhattan Sales market for Q2-2018 and the report for the Northern Manhattan subset. I’ve been authoring this expanding report series since 1994.

The key issue for me was the continued year over year decline in sales, although total sales were only slightly below the 40 quarter (ten-year average). Sales volume in 2017 was unusually high, overstating the decline a bit. Some people believe that this decline was the increase in mortgage rates, yet the rate rise occurred after sales began to fall. Studios and 1-bedroom apartments (starter market) did see a surge in listing inventory, accounting for a larger portion of the overall rise and they are influenced by mortgage financing. Since cash purchasers accounted for 54% of the market and sales declined uniformly across all price strata, then it is clear that another force was in play. I lay more of the blame on the new federal tax law. Buyers and sellers are trying to recalibrate their understanding of value and there won’t be a lot of tangible impacts felt until checks are written in early 2019 (before April 15th).

Did I tell you that the market report coverage on Bloomberg Terminals (±350K subscribers) was the fourth most read story last Tuesday? Uh, no so here’s the rankings with a chart.


There was a lot of interesting coverage of the report results this week, especially the New York Times online version: A Spring Market With Few Bright Spots for Sellers

Now for some Manhattan charts…(click to expand)




For the rest of the Manhattan charts

Some of the Best Visualizations in Real Estate

@lenkiefer is a terrific follow on twitter. He is the Deputy Chief Economist at Freddie Mac and creates some of the best visualizations I’ve ever seen. Click on them to expand to their full glory.


[click to expand]

Here’s another!

Appraiserville

I’m taking a quick three-day vacay with my wife in Nashville starting today so excuse my content brevity. I wonder if I should check out Tristar bank? I hear they falsely claimed there weren’t enough appraisers, let alone pilots…

Appraisers as Big Ole Jet Airliner Pilots

Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar? An industry screams “shortage” and then it is outed for not paying a fair wage. Pilots are blamed yet the skill required doesn’t match the compensation paid. The rules of supply and demand should apply to all industries.

Brilliant Idea #1

If you need something rock solid in your life (particularly on Friday afternoons) and someone forwarded this to you, or you think you already subscribed, sign up here for these weekly Housing Notes. And be sure to share with a friend or colleague if you enjoy them because:

– They’ll be more able to visualize;
– You’ll be able to paddle to work;
– And I’ll get my pilot’s license.

Brilliant Idea #2

You’re obviously full of insights and ideas as a reader of Housing Notes. I appreciate every email I receive and it helps me craft the next week’s Housing Note.

See you next week.

Jonathan Miller, CRP, CRE
President/CEO
Miller Samuel Inc.
Real Estate Appraisers & Consultants
Matrix Blog
@jonathanmiller

Reads, Listens and Visuals I Enjoyed

My New Content, Research and Mentions

Recently Published Elliman Market Reports

Appraisal Related Reads

Extra Curricular Reads