New York City apartment sales are in a slump

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NYC apartment sales slump

The number of apartments sold in the third quarter of the year hit a four-year low, according to the Wall Street Journal, and prices have slumped as well. According to a WSJ analysis of sales data, the median price in Manhattan was just over $1 million for the period leading up to September 27; and overall, the volume of sales was down 11.5 percent from the same period in 2018.

What’s causing the slump? Brokers and industry insiders blame the new real estate transfer tax that went into effect on July 1; recall, if you will, that the implementation of that tax led to a spike in sales earlier this year. But the declines aren’t just for luxury real estate; sales for apartments priced at $2 million or less fell by 4 percent over the same time period last year.

But there were still some blockbuster sales, notably Sting’s purchase of a $65.75 million penthouse at 220 Central Park South.

Greenland Forest City Partners

Finally, some movement at a Brooklyn megaproject

We’re fast approaching the 2025 deadline for delivery of the more than 2,000 affordable apartments promised as part of the Pacific Park (née Atlantic Yards) megaproject, and while a chunk of its buildings have either opened or are in progress, there’s still much to be done.

Some of that work will kick off next year, according to the New York Post: Greenland Forest City Partners, one of the site’s major developers, will begin decking over the Long Island Rail Road tracks below the megaproject in 2020, which will allow work to begin on several major buildings, along with an eight-acre park. A new rendering of the area shows what those buildings may look like once work is completed.

According to the Post, the rendering shows 18 Sixth Avenue, a tower being co-developed by Greenland and the Brodsky Organization that’s due to open in 2022, along with three additional buildings along Atlantic Avenue that Greenland will develop on its own. There are two additional sites on Dean Street, not pictured here, that will be developed by TF Cornerstone.

And in other news…

• Brooklyn’s first shared street has been installed in Downtown Brooklyn.
• A study aimed at exploring options for Queens’s abandoned Rockaway Beach Branch rail line (a park? transit?) may finally be released.
• A peek inside the Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse.
• Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing for a bailout for NYC’s beleaguered taxi drivers.
• Residents of the Park Lane Towers, made famous on The Jeffersons, are planning a rent strike to protest dangerous renovation work.
• And finally, don’t put your shorts away just yet: It’s going to be close to 90 degrees this week, a possibly record-setting temperature.