May 1st 2013
Luxury Listings NYC
Downtown is the place to be if you have a really swanky pad to sell.
For the first time, the asking prices for uber- luxury apartments south of 34th Street—not including the Financial District or Battery Park City—are higher than they are in Midtown and Uptown, new data show.
The important number here to know is price per square foot. The dollar figure for Tribeca, Soho and Chelsea is more than $7,000. For a 2,000-square-foot home in this rarefied category,
for example, the asking price would be roughly $14 million.
The average asking price for a luxury apartment in Downtown overall stood at $2,777 per square at the beginning of the year; for similar homes in Midtown and Uptown, the per-square-foot cost
was $2,685, according to Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group. The reasons why Downtown is sizzlin’ are, well, as many as there are buyers. Brokers, though, attribute the excitement to the
neighborhoods as well as a bevy of new white-glove towers hit- ting the market.
“Uptown is tried and true—if you list something pre-war Up- town, you’re going to sell—but Downtown really has the buzz right now,” said Michele Kleier, a luxury broker whose firm Kleier Resi- dential is based on the Upper East Side.
“It used to be some people would have a 10-block radius in which they wanted to live [on the Upper East Side],” she said. “Now, it’s a lot more about the apartment for a lot of people. They’re flexible on location.” —Katherine Clarke
Sizing up the market
Joanie Schumacher, sales director at Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group
Q: How are buyers able to get the apartments they want in this tight market?
A: Buyers are acting faster. Instead of four or five visits, buyers
frequently come back only once before making an offer. Purchasers are still looking at several neighborhoods, but only a handful of apartments before making their decision. When they decide to make an offer, the offer is typically close to the asking price.
Susan Abrams, senior managing director at Warburg Realty
Q: Where is the greatest dearth of homes on the market?
A: All over the Upper East Side in the two- and three-bedroom market. Apartment buyers in the $1 million to $4 million range are facing a very competitive marketplace. The inventory crunch is even greater west of Third Avenue.