NYC real estate sales to remain competitive as market heats up ahead of summer

The city’s real estate sales market is heating up as the weather gets warmer, and experts predict fierce competition as buyers vie for apartments that fit their budgets.

Though new developments popping up around the city indicate a healthy economy, plenty of New Yorkers are not feeling the relief.

“There’s been downsizing in a lot of high-paying industries,” real estate group Citi Habitats president Gary Malin explained, referring to the city’s employment climate. “There’s not a deep pool of people who can afford prices as they are now.”

And prices are rising in most of the city, data from this winter shows.

The median Manhattan resale price rose 1.3% year-over-year to $990,142 in February, according to a market report from the listings site StreetEasy. In Brooklyn, the median resale price rose 5.2% to $569,429.

“Upper Manhattan and east Brooklyn are really driving the high-competition market,” noted Grant Long, StreetEasy’s senior economist. “People are really seeking good deals and value for their money.”

House-hunters looking in those neighborhoods should act fast however, as sellers are taking note of the demand and are raising prices to take advantage of it, he said.

The median resale price above 110th Street in upper Manhattan rose 7.8% year-over-year to $673,874 in February. In east Brooklyn, which includes neighborhoods like Crown Heights and Bushwick, that number rose 11% to to $492,688.

New developments include residences in the massive Hudson Yards project on the far West Side and One Riverside Park in Lincoln Square.

They’re booming in Brooklyn too, with buildings like the Oosten at 429 Kent Ave. in Williamsburg and the Pierhouse at 90 Furman St. in Brooklyn Heights.

Queens is also experiencing growth, with new offerings including The Harrison at 27-21 44th Drive and the Grand at Sky View Parc complex in Flushing.

But for those who can’t afford to buy property in a brand-new building, there is hope: a first-quarter market report from the real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman showed a widening gap between the prices properties are listed at and what they end up closing for.

Resale properties accounted for 84% of the market in the first quarter of 2017, up 7.7% from the same period in 2016, the report showed.

Meanwhile, the average purchase price was 4.2% below the asking price in the first quarter, which was double the rate in the same period in 2016 when the average difference was a 2.1% difference.

This indicates that sellers are compromising more to meet the financial needs of buyers, explained Jonathan Miller, CEO of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which compiles Douglas Elliman’s reports.

“When you have sellers more connected to market conditions you have more transactions, and that’s what seemed to happen in the first quarter,” Miller said. “That may be an indicator of what’s in store for us.”