{September 2022} Is the Buyer’s Market Coming Back?
Another back to school season. My older one started 4th grade, which meant I needed to start thinking about middle school! This is the thing with NYC - so many choices. But along with choices, comes the stress. I have quite a few open houses to attend. Happy to share my experiences if anyone is in the same boat!
I was hoping that September would be a busy month like it usually was. But it didn’t quite turn out that way. After a short window of busy activities at the end of August, on the heels of a stock market recovery, our market quieted down again after the latest inflation reading disappointed and stocks crumbled as a result. I would have to think prices came down from April with the buyer base being much smaller. But the data on closed transactions have not shown much decline. Our inventory still remained tight at 5.7 months, after transactions slowed from June to September. A total of 809 listings went into contract in September. However, to put that into perspective, 1690 was the number for September 2021, 606 for September 2019, 636 for September 2018 and 670 for September 2017! So even though the market definitely felt much slower, it was actually on par with pre-pandemic years. There was a good reason for this: our prices never had the 40% appreciation from 2019 like many other places had. Also with rents being so high, the rent yields for NYC properties were approaching 3%, while they were historically in the low to mid 2s.
Good Read:
This has been a tough year! How about we lighten up on a different topic: how much real estate do you think the British royal family owns?
The NYC real estate market is at an interesting crossroad. On the one hand, we feel a lot of pent-up demand from buyers who have been watching and waiting for rates to go down.