NEW YORK CITY—The recent trend toward tight inventories in the single-family housing market extends to for-sale multifamily as well, at least in Manhattan. StreetEasy said Wednesday that sales inventory in the borough fell 14.3% last month from October. The 7,293 apartment units also represented a 13.3% year-over-year decline and marked the lowest level since StreetEasy has been keeping track.

"Lower inventory is to be expected at this time of year, but the magnitude of inventory loss in Manhattan last month was greater than anticipated," said Alan Lightfeldt, senior data analyst at StreetEasy. "Buyers will be chasing after fewer available units this winter, ensuring the markets will remain competitive and the discounts buyers were hoping for in this traditionally slower season might not happen. But price growth in the New Year is expected to be a fraction of what we saw in 2015."

Upper Manhattan saw the steepest Y-O-Y loss of sales inventory across Manhattan and Brooklyn, falling 33.4% from November 2014. The Upper East Side and Upper West Side declined by 16% and 13.3% from last November, respectively. In Brooklyn, sales inventory fell 3.2% from the year prior, due to a 23.4% decline in inventory of co-op units.

StreetEasy says that newly-listed inventory was particularly sparse in November, historically a slower time since many sellers wait until spring to list their homes. In Manhattan, the number of newly listed units for sale fell 42.8% between October and November, compared to Manhattan's five-year historical average monthly decline of 33.5% in November.

In keeping with lower inventories, prices increased. November's median resale price in Manhattan rose 6.6% Y-O-Y to $992,111, for the strongest annual growth since January of this year, according to StreetEasy. The median resale price grew the fastest in the Upper Manhattan submarket, at 19%, followed by the Upper West Side (9.5%) and Downtown (6.1%).