Upper West Side Housing Prices Still Increasing, but at Slower Rate: Report

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The real estate boom in New York City may be slowing down, at least according to a StreetEasy report analyzing real estate data from July. The report's main finding: real estate prices are going up, but at the slowest rate in years.

Across the entire borough of Manhattan real estate prices increased just 2 percent year-over-year in July, which was the mildest increase since April 2012, according to the report. The median resale price for Manhattan in July was $994,458.

"Though prices are still climbing, sellers will need to continue to level expectations amid a less competitive market, while buyers have the opportunity to negotiate asking prices down even further amid slowing price growth and homes spending more time on the market," reads the report.

The study also used StreetEasy's metric "tipping point" to suggest that the market is more buyer-friendly than years past. The tipping point of a neighborhood is the number of years you'd have to spend in a home for it to be worth buying instead of renting.

Compared to the rest of the borough resale resale prices in the Upper West Side are rising at a greater rate, but are still milder compared to 2105. The data also shows that average sale price on the Upper West Side is much higher than the borough average.

On the Upper West Side the median resale price for homes in July was $1.69 million which represents a year-over-year increase of 13.1 percent. In July 2015 the average resale price was $1.49 million, a year-over-year increase of 23.6 percent. So, even though prices are higher in 2016 the real estate market is appearing to slow down.

The median rent in July 2016 was $3,500, 1.6 percent higher than last year. The tipping point decreased 35.1 percent to a value of 6.2, which suggests the area is more buyer-friendly than at this time last year.

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