Welcome to another edition of Streets365 Weekly. Each Sunday, I take a look at what’s happening in the Manhattan residential real estate market and share a few thoughts about developments that caught my attention during the week.
Manhattan Market Dashboard
Active Inventory: 6,155
New Listings: 292
Signed Contracts: 219
30-Day Contract Pace: 732 — 30-day rolling total
Median Days on Market
Under $1M: 79 days
$1M–$2M: 91 days
$2M–$4M: 82 days
$4M+: 123 days
30-Year Fixed Mortgage Rate: 7.24%
Figures shown are the most current we can verify.
What I Notice
What caught my attention this week was the increase in signed contracts while the number of new apartments coming onto the market continued to decline. Manhattan recorded 219 signed contracts, compared with 191 the previous week. That’s an increase of approximately 15%, and it’s encouraging to see buyers moving forward with purchases as we approach November.
New listings declined from 310 to 292, while active inventory increased only slightly, from 6,138 to 6,155. We’ve been watching the fall market develop for several weeks, and I think we’re beginning to see the seasonal shift that usually occurs as we move toward the end of the year. The September influx of new listings is behind us, and buyers are making decisions about apartments they’ve been considering.
Mortgage rates have also moved in a favorable direction. Freddie Mac’s 30-year fixed rate declined to 7.24%, compared with 7.32% last week and 7.40% two weeks ago. While the change is relatively modest, it’s encouraging to see rates moving lower as buyers continue evaluating their purchasing decisions.
What interests me most is that buyer activity appears to be holding up as the number of new listings declines. I wouldn’t draw broad conclusions from a single week’s figures, but I think it’s a development worth watching as we move into November.
Thought for the Week
StreetEasy Is Changing How Apartments Come to Market
Did you see that StreetEasy recently introduced two new ways for NYC agents to market apartments before they officially go on the market?
The new options are called Preview and Coming Soon. Both allow apartments to appear on StreetEasy for up to two weeks before their official launch. One interesting difference is that Preview listings won’t accumulate visible days on market during that period, and price changes made before the official launch won’t appear in the listing’s price history. Coming Soon listings, on the other hand, will show that information from the beginning.
What caught my attention was how this development fits into the larger discussion we’ve been seeing between StreetEasy and some of the major brokerages about how listings should be marketed.
For years, agents have been discussing the advantages of introducing a property to selected buyers before making it widely available. Now we’re seeing the major listing platforms develop their own approaches to that early marketing period.
I find that particularly interesting because StreetEasy has become such an important part of the NYC residential market. It’s where many buyers begin their searches, and the information they see there can influence their initial impressions of an apartment.
I’ve always thought that the first few weeks of a listing’s life are especially interesting. Sellers are watching the response, agents are evaluating buyer interest, and everyone is beginning to discover how the market feels about the asking price.
What I find intriguing about StreetEasy’s announcement is that it recognizes this early period as a distinct part of the marketing process. I suspect we’ll see more changes as brokerages and listing platforms continue developing their approaches to bringing properties to market.
It will be interesting to watch how NYC sellers and buyers respond to these new options.
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George
Streets365 — Think Beyond The Deal.