In Some Manhattan Neighborhoods its.....

....2007 all over again!


BEFORE the financial markets’ most recent drubbing, New York City’s real estate prices had been flat for the better part of a year. But over the spring and summer, prices in certain pockets of property sprinkled around Manhattan and Brooklyn had rebounded to or beyond pre-recession levels.

These micromarkets could turn up along a particular avenue or even in a specific building, and they tended to be in what brokers describe as prime locations, in neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Chelsea in Manhattan, and Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope in Brooklyn.

They fell into a few general categories, namely: apartments in move-in condition; family-size apartments with three or more bedrooms; apartments with unusual features like helicopter-level views of Central Park; and almost-new condos in their first resale. Having one of these traits did not guarantee a record-setting price, but apartments achieving that milestone tended to have one or more of them. The apartments often also generated multiple offers, though not quite the frenetic bidding wars that were routine in 2007 and 2008.

The latest round of economic turmoil will no doubt give buyers pause and may portend a double dip for the real estate market.

“Consumers are going to look at all this economic uncertainty and they’re going to be more wary about buying,” said Jonathan J. Miller, the president of the appraisal firm Miller Samuel and a market analyst for Prudential Douglas Elliman. “It’s going to delay the recovery, which was already challenged, and it will probably take the edge off some of the areas that have already seen improvement.”