Pricey Manhattan neighborhoods offer home buyers more negotiating power

Central Park South offers those buying home more negotiating power. Photo Credit: Craig Ruttle

Affordably priced homes can seem like a mirage: here today, gone tomorrow, a new survey shows.

Pricey neighborhoods in and near central Manhattan continued to dominate StreetEasy’s annual list of the top 10 markets for home buyers, which the listings website planned to release Thursday.

People looking in lower price ranges tend to find themselves in more competitive markets because of the demand for affordable homes, said StreetEasy’s senior economist, Grant Long. Long said this inventory tends to move off the market quicker and with fewer, if any, discounts — giving buyers less negotiating power.

“There is acknowledgement that there is a lot of pent up demand at affordable price points,” said Long, who helped compile the rankings by looking at neighborhoods with more than 100 StreetEasy listings in 2017 and assessing the median days listings in that area were on the market, how many had price cuts and the differences between their asking and final prices. “I think we’ll continue to see construction throughout the five boroughs that reflects that.”

But for now, buyers can expect to exercise the most sway in high-end areas in lower Manhattan and just across the East River.

Here are the best buyer’s markets, according to StreetEasy:

Midtown

Central Park South

Midtown South

Dumbo

Tribeca

SoHo

Financial District

Chelsea

Long Island City

Midtown West