Manhattan apartment prices tumble 11%

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By CANDACE TAYLOR

NEW YORK -- A Prudential Douglas Elliman report depicts the spectacular rise of home prices over the past decade, but also the sudden -- and definitive -- arrival of the real estate slump in Manhattan.

In 2009, Manhattan co-ops and condos saw year-over-year declines for the first time since 1996, the report shows. The average 2009 apartment sold for $1.39 million, down 12.5 percent from the previous year. The median price dropped 11 percent to $850,000 from 2008, while the average price per square foot sank 14.2 percent to $1,073.

Other areas of the country have seen real estate activity and prices decline gradually over the past few years, but the Manhattan real estate market was still booming until the Lehman Brothers collapse in the fall of 2008. In fact, Manhattan prices set new records in 2008. That year, the average sale price of a Manhattan apartment reached a new high of $1.59 million, while the median was $955,000 and the price per square foot was $1,251, according to the report.

The number of sales sank 27.9 percent to 7,430 in 2009, from 10,299 in 2008 and 13,430 in 2007. Still, Manhattan real estate prices remain at dizzying heights compared to a decade ago.

Source: Prudential Douglas Elliman.

In 2009, the median sales price of a Manhattan co-op or condo surged 113 percent from $399,000 in 2000, Elliman's report says, while the average sales price climbed 96 percent from $710,778. In 2000, the average price per square foot in Manhattan was $522, about half of what it was in 2009, the report said. "Nobody lost if they bought something in 2000," said appraiser Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel and the preparer of the report. ...CONTINUED

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