Upper West Side Market Report

Dear Friends:

This morning I attended a REBNY West Side Committee meeting where the keynote speaker was Mr. Michael Vargas from Vanderbilt Appraisal discussing the latest market reports. Here are some relevant statistics he mentioned which I wanted to share with you regarding the market on the Upper West Side.

- There were a total of 2000 closed sales in 2009 on the Upper West Side. In 2010, we are on pace for 2200 sales – an increase of 10% in deal activity.

- Average sales price on the Upper West Side in 4Q 2009 was 1.4M. 1Q 2010 is 1.47M – an increase quarter over quarter of 5%.

- Average price for an Upper West Side Studio went down 7-8% between 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010. Call your studio buyers with this good news and educate your studio sellers to price correctly.

- Average price for an Upper West Side 1BR went up 8% between 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010. Call your 1BR sellers who were sitting on the fence last year and tell them it’s a much better time to sell.

- Average price for an Upper West Side 2BR went up 3.5% between 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010. Call your 2BR sellers who were sitting on the fence last year and tell them it’s a much better time to sell.

- Average price for an Upper West Side 3BR+ went down 7% between 4Q 2009 and 1Q 2010. Call your 3BR buyers with this good news and educate your 3BR sellers to price correctly.

Overall, it is believed that the market has hit bottom and has stabilized. We are seeing this based on increased activity and some modest price appreciation in select market segments (price increases or decreases vary based on apartment sizes, neighborhoods etc.). Over the next several months we expect deal volume to increase, inventory to shrink, time on the market to diminish and several bidding wars to occur and then, as the press starts talking about increased activity, many sellers would start demanding higher prices. NEVERTHELESS, WE MUST EDUCATE OUR SELLERS TO PRICE CORRECTLY or we may go back into the same dark hole of late 2008 and early 2009 when the gap between asking prices and bidding prices was too wide for us brokers to overcome. Let’s keep this in mind and price competitively, encourage our buyers to take advantage of the opportunities and ride this positive wave well into the end of the year.

Sincerely yours,

Barak Dunayer

212.799.0343

barak@BarakNY.com

200 West (with Trader Joe's Coming Soon) Opens Monday

We're very excited over here at BARAK Realty's West Side office for the new Trader Joe's to open across the street at 200 West, (nicknamed "The Corner")

Real estate blog Curbed gave a great wrap up of the Saga of 200 West, complete with "flashy" pictures. Way back in July, we took some pictures out the window of the building, (also featured on Curbed), and today, decided to brave the rain to take a new set of the building with no scaffolding.



Let's start at the beginning!

Before 200 West existed, it was just a rendering:

Then it got a shell...

Scaffolding was the last to go.....



And this week.... the scaffolding disappeared!
The tenant's will be a Bank of America on the first floor and Trader Joe's in the basement!
This woman is excited about Trader Joe's too

And now, for the "From Our Window" Series:

Last July

Last August

Today!
And a bird's eye view of the Resident's Entrance (which didn't look finished as we walked past)

...but should end up looking like this:

We promise to keep our Twitter updated with any new developments with the Trader Joe's.

Have a great weekend! Rain or Shine, our open houses will go on as planned. Check them out here!

And thanks to Curbed.com for some of the pictures :)