The Big Apple: Condo prices, rents rise and more!

Condo prices rise 12 percent over May 2009, but pace seems to flag

The Radar Logic data firm reports that Manhattan condo prices went up 4.7 in January over a year earlier but that the rate of growth seems to be slowing.

Although prices have climbed 12 percent above the post-bust low in May 2009, the price recovery is “losing steam” or may simply reflect seasonal weakness in demand, according to the firm’s RPX Monthly report on Manhattan neighborhoods. The report said it was too early to know with any certainty what contributed to the increase.

Uptown neighborhoods fared better than downtown neighborhoods, with year-over-year increases caused by higher prices per unit as a result of a shortage in supply.

Apartments with a washer/dryer clean up when sold

One new value-enhancing amenity that’s catching on is allowing shareholders and unit-owners to install clothes washers and dryers in their apartments. Plumbing issues have been the usual reason for forbidding washing machines.

But one veteran real estate appraiser has estimated that a washer and dryer add approximately 5 percent to the value of any apartment, leading to the increasingly permissive attitude these days.

The rich are

The Big Apple: Luxury sales skew market. More!

LUXURY SALES COLOR THE HOUSING MARKET, WHICH IS MOVING ‘SIDEWAYS’ AND PROMPTING CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC FORECASTS

Sales activity in the second half–as measured by number of sales, median sale prices, average number of days on market and the number of Manhattan apartments on the market–settled comfortably into historic 10-year ranges, according to two separate market reports in Crain’s New York.

(via Prudential Douglas Elliman)

Despite a busy market for trophy properties, the pace of sales and median prices of Manhattan apartments slipped during the fourth quarter, the Wall Street Journal observed.

The number of sales fell by