Manhattan apartment sales see worst decline in 30 years

Manhattan apartment sales went down by 54 percent in the second quarter of this year, marking the steepest decline in 30 years, according to a report from Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman obtained by multiple media outlets.

The median sales price fell 18 percent to only $1 million, the biggest decline in a decade. A study from Compass found there were only 1,147 sales in Manhattan in the second quarter, the lowest number on record.

The report noted that it took course over a period which overlapped with New York’s ban on in-person apartment tours, an “unprecedented shutdown [that] skewed the results.”

“Manhattan was effectively shut down throughout the second quarter until the final week,” the Miller Samuel-Elliman report said.

The ban on in-person apartment showings in New York was lifted last week. Any increase since June may not have materialized by the time the report was published.  

“Agents are going nonstop right now,” said Bess Freedman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, told CNBC. 

Freedman said that sellers “can’t be married to pre-pandemic prices” and will have to negotiate under the current conditions, as more people are currently leaving the city than moving in.

“There is going to be an incredible supply of rentals,” Freedman said. “We are going to see a lot of negotiating and landlord incentives.”