Recently the New York Post has reported a new mind boggling deal at The Plaza Residences: $48 million for an apartment of about 600SF.
This is the highest price ever paid for a condo unit in New York City.

appraisals
The newly found volume of sales is positively affecting the mortgage industry.
When the market basically stalled two years ago and prices went down, the benchmarks necessary to appraisers for a solid valuation of the apartment were scarce. Therefore sometimes the bank wouldn’t finance the deal, since appraisals were coming in too low.
Today the situation has changed: the higher number of deals that occurred in the past months has allowed appraisers to collect enough data on the most recent comparable sales in order to get a valuation in line with what is expected by the banks.
Finally appraisals are more realistic and mortgages are granted with less hassle.

good news for the investors
Asking prices for rentals have been going up over the last couple of years.
Data from the website StreetEasy shows that the median price for a studio in Manhattan went up $162 from April 2009 ($2,038) to April 2011 ($2,200); while the median price for a one-bedroom apartment went up $100 over the same period.
For what concerns the rental average price per square foot for studios and one-bedrooms combined, the data I have elaborated, from the appraisal firm MillerSamuel, reveal that it went up 5% from the last quarter of 2009 to the last quarter 2010.

The Real Deal magazine reports that some residential buildings in the process of being built are starting to get marketed before their completion. This trend basically disappeared during the recent downturn. Now that new constructions are scarce and the market is improving, some investors dare once again to sign a contract before seeing their unit completely finished, basing their decision on the actual phase of construction and all the information provided by the listing broker.
It is the case of the new condo called The Yard, in Long Island City, just outside Manhattan. Eric Benaim, the marketing agent here, tells the magazine that his team started selling in December. Despite the frigid temperatures and the blizzard we saw this past winter, 13 units of the total 83 were already in contract in few weeks.

Also, several brokers in Manhattan witnessed international investors putting in offers and buying apartments without seeing any; sometimes just asking the agent to take and send photos via email. These buyers want to catch a project in the initial phase so they can get a nice deal. In fact, prices are usually lower for the first buyers, or at least the negotiability is higher since the developer has to get the project moving and therefore there’s more incentive to offer discounts.

the commercial leasing segment is back
It is important to note this month that commercial leases asking prices are going up.
Particularly, there were 2 events that ignited this trend recently.
The first has been the duel between Wells Fargo and Bloomberg LP, for office space at 120 Park Avenue. Bloomberg prevailed.
The second contest, for office space at 825 Eight Avenue, was between Nomura, an investment bank, and WilmerHale, a law firm. Nomura was the winner this time.
From these facts many landlords and their brokers began to notice the broader competition between prospect tenants and therefore revaluated and increased the asking prices.
Most recent data from CB Richard Ellis show that the average asking price per square foot went up $1.30 to $49.61 in February.

This is it for today dear readers.
I am always available to answer your questions regarding your next real estate investment in New York City.
Till next time.

Warm Regards,
Riccardo Ravasini