Townhouse Prices Tumble In Ritzy NYC Neighborhoods, Report Shows

NEW YORK, NY — The high end of New York City's real estate market is coming down. Sale prices for townhouses in ritzy areas like the Upper East Side and Downtown Manhattan dropped in the second half of 2017, while those in up-and-coming areas climbed, according to a report published Thursday by Stribling, a luxury real estate firm.

The average sales price of a one- to three-family house on the Upper East Side fell to about $8.2 million, a 16-percent drop from the prior year, the report says. The tony neighborhood sold 20 townhouses in the last six months of the year for a total of $165.1 million, also a 16-percent drop from the prior year's total sales.

Downtown Manhattan saw a milder 2-percent slide in average price, ending the year at $10.7 million. But brokers sold just 13 homes in the area stretching from the Flatiron District to Tribeca, raking in $139.4 million — a 37-percent drop from the same period in 2016, the report says.

"For much of the year, we saw the 1-3 family market take a hit," Garrett Derderian, Stribling's director of data and reporting, said in a statement. "The more expensive markets, including the Upper East Side and Downtown areas, felt increasing pressure resulting in not only lower prices, but reduced volume in terms of total dollars."

But the numbers look different further uptown and in Brooklyn. The average sales price jumped 26 percent Upper Manhattan — an area that includes Washington Heights, Inwood and Harlem — ending the year at about $3.1 million, Stribling found. Sellers in the area raked in $69.2 million in the last six months of 2017, an 11-percent increase despite a 12 percent drop in the number of sales.

Northwest Brooklyn, an area stretching from Windsor Terrace to Brooklyn Heights, was the hottest townhouse market. Some 155 homes sold there, more than two thirds of the 226 sold in Manhattan and that part of Brooklyn in the second half of last year.

Those 155 sales generated a total of $519.7 million, 28 percent more than the year before, Stribling found. The area's average sale price rose 5 percent from the prior year to about $3.3 million.

The city's townhouse market sold more homes overall at the end of last year than in 2016, even though average and median prices fell, the report shows. Buyers willing to spend that much on a home have a "plethora of options, not only among townhomes but new developments as well," so sellers may have to adjust prices a bit to get properties off their hands, Derderian said.

"It is important to look at each market and price point individually, as the more expensive areas will continue to see a slowdown until the market strikes a balance," Derderian said.

(Lead image: A townhouse on Fifth Avenue is pictured in 2010. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)