Busy holiday sparks hope for New Year

Editor's note: This article is reposted with permission by The Real Deal. Click here to view the original article.

By CANDACE TAYLOR

NEW YORK -- Hope springs eternal in the New York City residential market, especially now that 2009 -- the worst year in recent memory -- is over.

"If you survived 2009, you can survive anything," said Yael Dunayer, an executive vice president at Barak Realty.

Like many other brokers, he pointed to strong activity in the second half of last year as an indicator of a possible 2010 recovery. "The last six months of 2009 have been very active and brokers should look forward to riding this trend well into 2010," Dunayer said.

One reason for this optimism is that December -- usually one of the slowest months of the year -- saw more activity than usual, brokers said.

As the holidays approach, New Yorkers -- and would-be New Yorkers -- usually take a break from real estate shopping, preferring to gift-shop instead. But this year, low prices continued to lure buyers into the marketplace and prompted them to sign on the dotted line much later than usual.

"Last year, the brokers didn't show around the holidays. It's different this year," said Marilyn Harra Kaye, president of MLBKaye International Realty. "We even canceled an [office] meeting this month because the brokers were very busy."

Of course, December 2008 was much slower than usual, since it arrived in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse. But brokers said last month was busier than most holiday seasons, thanks in part to the perception that there are deals in the marketplace.

"December has been a buying frenzy," said Emily Beare, an executive vice president at the brokerage CORE. "People are taking advantage of the highly discounted market. We're seeing a tremendous increase in the number of sales."

Robb Pair, president of Harlem Lofts and co-chair of the Market Trends Committee of the Manhattan Association of Realtors, said his company had closings scheduled for the last two weeks of last month, during the popular vacation week between Christmas and New Year's.

In addition to low prices, Pair said federal homebuyer tax credits are spurring activity for homes priced below the maximum eligible sale price of $800,000. Originally slated to expire at the end of November, the tax credit was extended to June and expanded to include repeat buyers in addition to first-time homebuyers.

All of this is leading to enthusiastic projections for 2010.

"I think the market will get busier," said Noah Freedman, a principal at Bond New York. "You may even see some price appreciation again. I know it's almost sacrilegious to say that, but whenever everyone becomes so unanimously convinced a market, any market, will only proceed in one direction, it usually is about to do the exact opposite." ...CONTINUED

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