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