Median Price of New Manhattan Condos Drops Nearly 20%

Rising mortgage rates have put a dent in sales and median prices of new condos in Manhattan in Q1 2023, which a year ago were fetching median sale prices of more than $2.3M.

According to the latest Condos and Co-Ops report from Elliman, the median price for a new condo in Manhattan in the first quarter was $1.6M, a 19.3% drop from the Q4 2022 median price of $1.98M.

The number of units that closed sales decline by nearly 12% in Q1 2023 to 2,242 from 2,546 in Q4 2022.

“With lower sales coming out of the pandemic boom, the pace of the market has been at its slowest rate in two years,” the report said.

The months of supply, defined as the number of months to sell all listing inventory at the current sales rate, rose to 9.4 months, up from 7.7 months in Q4 2022 and 5.8 months in a YOY comparison. The 20-year quarterly average for months of supply in Manhattan is 8.4%.

“The housing market continues to transition out of the pandemic-era boom a year ago as mortgage rates are more than double last year’s” the report said.

“The economic uncertainty has kept listing inventory low despite the annual decrease in sales as would-be sellers remain married to their record-low mortgage rates received during the pandemic era through refinances or purchases.”

Despite a significant decrease in sales, active listings only expanded by 1.3% to 6,998 in Q1 2023, in a year-over-year comparison to Q1 2022.

With the modest increase in supply and significant decline in sales, the bidding war market share was 5.3% in the first quarter, compared to 9.3% from the same period last year.

The average month maintenance fee for co-op sales was $2,511 or $2.38 per SF, a 4.8% YOY increase. The average condo common charge plus real estate tax total was $4,149 or $3.04 per SF, a 5.6% annual increase, consistent with the inflation rate.

Elliman reported that the starting point for the luxury market was nearly $4M in the first quarter, about 9% below the prior-year quarter. Luxury listing inventory ticked up 2.3% in the first quarter to 1,493, compared to Q4 2022.

“Despite mixed price trend results and more luxury inventory, bidding wars in the luxury market rose to a record of 11.3%, more than double the overall market share,” the report said.