Jun. 8, 2009 - new listing + sales data OH NOES / (over) optimism stopped by Dreaded Data Discontinuity

can this data set be saved?
In my announcement that Manhattan Loft Guy (the guy, not the blog) has found a new home at Corcoran (June 4, ch ch ch changes ... the Guy moves to Corcoran in Soho) I offered very optimistically that I did not think there would be much impact on the data reporting in MLG from the move from an OLR-based system to Corcoran's TAXI:
 

Gulp .... I need to ask some questions at The New Firm, but as of now it appears that

"loft" category is much smaller than

(as I got only 4 new listings and less than 600 lofts in inventory) and that I cannot (easily? at all??) count loft sales for the last 7 days. If true, there will be

continuity (comparability) in my sets of weekly Manhattan loft new listings, closed sales and inventory

and CE (that is Before Corcoran Era and Corcoran Era, of course). The drawing board may await.

.

Stay tuned ....

Jun. 2, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of May 31 = 983

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, up a bit this week after two weeks of slight dips: 
 

This is up 7 in a week, while up 303 since my recorded low in mid-August. The inventory number has been within a fairly narrow range since climbing into record territory in late March (between 973 and 1,024).

See my May 19, 2008 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Jun. 1, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 15 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 9 as sold
• 8 of the 15 new ones are offered between $1mm and $2mm, while 8 of the 9 sales were offered below $2mm (all 9 were below $2.5mm)
• none of the 15 new loft listings are in new development, and only 1 of the 9 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 15	Sold = 9
  $500k to $999k	2	3
  $1mm to $1.99mm	8	5
  $2mm to $2.99mm	2	1
  $3mm to $3.99mm	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 15	Sold = 9
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	2
  Central Park South	1
  Clinton
  East Village
  Financial District	1
  Flatiron	1	1
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	1	2
  Kips Bay	1
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill		1
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo	2	1
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	2	1
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	1	3

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments
• 
  

  none

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  311 West Broadway (Soho Mews)

  1

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.This week I adjusted for two Chelsea new loft listings that had duplicates; the dupes will probably show up in tomorrow's inventory numbers but i don't want to get into scrubbing those (much larger) numbers.

May. 26, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of May 24 = 976

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, but is down again this week off the record high: 
 

This is down 14 in a week, while up 296 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19, 2008 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

May. 25, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 18 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and (again) only 8 as sold
• 13 of the 18 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 7 of the 8 sales were offered below $2mm 
• 2 of the 18 new loft listings are in new development, and 4 of the 8 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 18	Sold = 8
  $500k to $999k	4	3
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	4
  $2mm to $2.99mm	8
  $3mm to $3.99mm	1	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 18	Sold = 8
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea		2
  Clinton	1	1
  East Village	1
  Financial District	3	3
  Flatiron	2
  Gramercy
  Greenwich Village	2	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo	2	1
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	4
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	1

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments
• 
  

  15 William Street (William Beaver House)	1
  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	1
  90 William Street (be@William)	3

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

May. 18, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of May 17 = 990

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, but is down 3% this week off the record high (back to where it was on April 12): 
 

This is down 34 in a week, while up 310 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19, 2008 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

May. 18, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were (only) 14 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 8 as sold
• 11 of the 14 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3.5mm, while all of the 8 sales were offered below $3mm 
• none of the 14 new loft listings is in new development, and none of the 8 closed sales was in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 14	Sold = 8
  $500k to $999k	1	2
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	2
  $2mm to $2.99mm	3	4
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+	2

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 14	Sold = 8
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	2
  Clinton
  East Village	2	1
  Financial District	1
  Flatiron	1	1
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	2	2
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side	1
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo	4	1
  Sutton Place		1
  Tribeca		2
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments
• 
  

  none

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  none

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

© Sandy Mattingly 2009

May. 12, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of May 10 = 1,024

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, up again very slightly to a record high: 
 

This is up 14 in a week, while up 344 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19, 2008 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

May. 11, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

 This is the eightieth Manhattan Loft Guy report on the number, price distribution and neighborhood distribution for Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market or as closed sales in the last 7 days.

The stats as of Sunday night:

• there were 21 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 9 as sold
• 11 of the 21 new ones are offered below $2mm, while 4 of the 9 sales were offered between $1mm and $2mm 
• 5 of the 21 new loft listings are in new development, while 2 of the 9 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 21	Sold = 9
  $500k to $999k	4	1
  $1mm to $1.99mm	7	4
  $2mm to $2.99mm	1	2
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3	2
  $4mm to $4.99mm	3
  $5mm+	3

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 21	Sold = 9
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea		2
  Clinton
  East Village	2
  Financial District	1
  Flatiron	1	2
  Gramercy
  Greenwich Village	2
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy	1
  Lower East Side	1
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill	1
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo		3
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	8	2
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side	1	1
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	2

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments
• 
  

  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	1
  60 Beach Street	4

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  311 West Broadway (Soho Mews)

  2

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

© Sandy Mattingly 2009
 

May. 5, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of May 3 = 1,010

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, with most of the increase this week in the low and very high end of the market: 
 

This is up 15 in a week, while up 330 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

© Sandy Mattingly 2009

May. 4, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 27 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 8 as sold
• 19 of the 27 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 6 of the 8 sales were offered below $2mm 
• 5 of the 27 new loft listings are in new development, while 5 of the 8 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 27	Sold = 8
  $500k to $999k	5	3
  $1mm to $1.99mm	11	3
  $2mm to $2.99mm	3	1
  $3mm to $3.99mm	1	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm	4
  $5mm+	3

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 27	Sold = 8
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	6
  Clinton		1
  East Village	1
  Financial District	3	1
  Flatiron	4
  Gramercy		1
  Greenwich Village
  Kips Bay	1	2
  Little Italy	1
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo	2	1
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	3	1
  Turtle Bay	3
  Upper East Side		1
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	2

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments
• 
  

  120 Eleventh Avenue	1
  20 Pine Street (The Collection)	1
  250 East 49 Street (The Alexander)	3

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  406 West 45 Street (Thorndale Condominium)	1
  90 William Street (be@William)	1
  15 East 26 Street (15 Madison Square North)	2
  60 Beach Street	1

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

Apr. 28, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of April 26 = 995

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, though (again) essentially flat this week: 
 

This is up 5 in a week, while up 315 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Apr. 27, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

 
This is the seventy-eighth Manhattan Loft Guy report on the number, price distribution and neighborhood distribution for Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market or as closed sales in the last 7 days.

The stats as of Sunday night:

• there were 18 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 10 as sold
• 10 of the 18 new ones are offered between $1mm and $2mm, while the 10 sales were offered between $1.125mm and $3.25mm 
• only 2 of the 18 new loft listings are in new development, while 4 of the 10 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 18	Sold = 10
  $500k to $999k	2
  $1mm to $1.99mm	10	3
  $2mm to $2.99mm	2	5
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3	2
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 18	Sold = 10
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	3	2
  Clinton	1
  East Village
  Financial District
  Flatiron	1	1
  Gramercy
  Greenwich Village	6	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill	2
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo		3
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	3	1
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side	1
  Upper West Side		2
  West Village	2

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 79 Worth Street

  2

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	1
  475 Greenwich Street (Zinc)	1
  243 West 60 Street (Adagio)	2

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

Apr. 21, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of April 19 = 990

Number of Manhattan residential lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, though essentially flat this week: 
 

This is up 1 in a week, while up 310 since my recorded low in mid-August.

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

© Sandy Mattingly 2009

Apr. 20, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 22 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 3 as sold
• 17 of the 22 new ones are offered below $2mm, while the 3 sales were offered between $2mm and $5mm 
• only 1 of the 22 new loft listings is in new development, while 2 of the 3 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 22	Sold = 3
  $500k to $999k	7
  $1mm to $1.99mm	10
  $2mm to $2.99mm	3	1
  $3mm to $3.99mm	1	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1	1
  $5mm+

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 22	Sold = 3
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	5
  Clinton
  East Village	1
  Financial District	2
  Flatiron	1
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	2	1
  Kips Bay		1
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho
  SoHo	2
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	4	1
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	2

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 80 Leonard Street

  1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  415 East 26 Street (15 Madison Square North)	1
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	1

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

Apr. 14, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of April 12 = 989

Number of Manhattan lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, though -- once again -- down ever so slightly: 
 

This is down 11 in a week, while up 309 since my recorded low in mid-August, and the second week in a row with a slightly reduced inventory in my limited data set (since June).

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Apr. 12, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 16 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 5 as sold (continuing a strong trend of weak sales numbers: after previous weeks of 13, 7, 7, 12, 7, 9, 7, 3, 7, 14 and zip)
• 14 of the 16 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 3 of the 5 sales were offered between $3.5mm and $4.2mm 
• only 1 of the 16 new loft listings are in new development, while 3 of the 5 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 16	Sold = 5
  $500k to $999k	4
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	2
  $2mm to $2.99mm	5
  $3mm to $3.99mm		2
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1	1
  $5mm+	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 16	Sold = 5
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea
  Clinton	1
  East Village
  Financial District
  Flatiron		3
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	1	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side	1
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho	1
  SoHo	6	1
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	3
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side	1
  Upper West Side
  West Village	1

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 34 Greene Street

  1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  140 West 22 Street (Clement Clarke)

  3

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

© Sandy Mattingly 2009
 

Apr. 6, 2009 - Manhattan loft inventory as of April 5 = 1,000

Batting a thousand: Number of Manhattan lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night continues to reflect a bulging inventory, though down ever so slightly: 
 

This is down 4 in a week, while up 320 since my recorded low in mid-August, and it breaks a new streak of 5 weeks in a row with record inventory in my limited data set (since June).

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Apr. 6, 2009 - was the Manhattan coop loft market dead in 1Q09? Miller nugget provokes arithmetic angst

once more into the breach
This may be my last nugget from the Manhattan real estate market reports from the first quarter of 2009. Honors go to Miller Samuel:
 

Wow! By The Miller's count, only one of every four lofts sold in Manhattan in the quarter was a resale. Put another way, there was essentially no market for Manhattan lofts in coops to start 2009 (some of those resales were condos, of course, while none of the new developments were coops). With only 89 loft sales in the quarter counted by The Miller, no more than 23 loft coops traded. While there may have been a pulse, the coop loft market was essentially dead for the quarter.

Not to (over) indulge in sycophancy, but I trust the numbers from The Miller as much as I trust any Manhattan real estate data, as even the most casual reader of Manhattan Loft Guy would know. So this datum is highly credible to me -- and troubling for what it means about an important part of the loft market, since a large majority of "classic lofts" are in coops, not condos. It is also troubling for the way it conflicts with the data I have been collecting (and reporting) about loft sales on a real time basis.

angst alert
In contrast to the no-more-than-23 resale lofts counted as sold in the first quarter by The Miller, I counted 21 from March 12 to February 11 and another 13 in the prior 30 day period, plus another 22 in the 30 days prior to January 11, at least some of which were in 2009 (see my April 1 post), for a likely projected total for the quarter of 55 or so loft resales. The fact that I count more than twice as many as The Miller ... makes me nervous.

This is troubling because it is yet another instance of the difficulty of reconciling market data in our still-oh-so-secret market. It is troubling because it points up a potential conflict between my own reporting modes about real time Manhattan loft sales, one which I have been aware of for a while but have not explained before.

how much does a crappy source determine garbage out?
As I have explained about my weekly "as of Sunday night" counting of new loft Manhattan listings and loft sales (my last such report was posted last night), my source is the inter-firm data-base, which has several structural defects for tracking the loft niche in the Manhattan market. First, it depends on agents updating the status of a listings as Sold & Closed to come to my attention as a recent sale. As is often the case, agents may take a while to update the data-base, if they update it at all. So, while I have been careful about reporting the number of Manhattan lofts "reported as sold" in the last 7 days, that is a subtlety likely to be missed by many readers (I still think it is a useful proxy for 'actual' sales; but more on that later).

Second, my report counts only those "lofts" identified by agents as "lofts" (as opposed to being identified as, e.g., a "2 bedroom" or "3 bedroom" apartment). This means my numbers are both over-inclusive (when an agent calls an "apartment" a loft) and under-inclusive (when a true "loft" is not identified as such). I have been willing to tolerate this messiness because I see no other way of providing real time information and I think that directionality is useful, as the messiness should be equally distributed and should not obscure trends.

But when I see such conflict with hard numbers from Miller Samuel it makes me wonder.

MLG 7 vs. MLG 30 / smackdown or love-fest?
In addition to my weekly "as of Sunday night" counting of new loft Manhattan listings and loft sales, I have now had four sets of reports of last-30-days-of-actual-loft-sales (my last such was as of March 12, posted April 1, as noted above). These reports start with the same inter-firm data-base, but I have supplemented those reported sales with other sales that I see publicly reported as having closed in the relevant 30 day period, and with lofts reported in the data-base as 'recently' sold that turn out to have closed in an earlier reporting period of mine. As I clean up and supplement my 30 day spreadsheets, they become more accurate as I add public information on deeds filed and closing prices and the extent to which there are lofts included that have not yet been publicly confirmed becomes clear.

The Manhattan Loft Guy dirty little secret is that I suspected after the second 30 day report that my 30 days reports might not match my 7 day reports. The reporting periods don't line up exactly, but I was afraid I was getting different numbers.

So I tested the conflict from the periods that are in the first quarter of 2009 (including both new developments and resales, and using my updated 30 day totals):

total loft sales counted in 30 day reports, 30 days from

total loft sales counted in weekly reports, totals from weeks ending

too much inside baseball, or refreshing transparency?
It is my blog, so I can be as self-reflective (self indulgent?) as I wish.... This is the first time I have actually put the two reporting periods side by side, and they come out closer than I feared they would. There's enough congruity to make me satisfied -- if not ecstatic -- about the internal consistency of the data (so far). The fact that my stuff is roughly compatible is less troubling than I feared, though the mis-match with the Miller Samuel numbers worries me.

Overall, I don't think the data difficulties make my various counting efforts worthless, just rather imperfect. Provisionally, I will continue to go forward as before, in the belief that my counting identifies trends, and more valuably as the length of the reporting period gets longer. But I do wonder if this will prove to be distracting and irrelevant. I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place here.

Enough navel-gazing (for now).
 

Apr. 5, 2009 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 26 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 13 as sold (continuing a strong trend of weak sales numbers: after previous weeks of 7, 7, 12, 7, 9, 7, 3, 7, 14 and zip)
• 15 of the 26 new ones are offered below $2mm, while 8 of the 13 sales were offered between $1mm and $2mm 
• 6 of the 26 new loft listings are in new development, while 4 of the 13 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 26	Sold = 13
  $500k to $999k	5	1
  $1mm to $1.99mm	10	5
  $2mm to $2.99mm	4	3
  $3mm to $3.99mm	6	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1	2
  $5mm+	0	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 26	Sold = 13
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	3	2
  Clinton	2
  East Village
  Financial District	1
  Flatiron	2
  Gramercy		1
  Greenwich Village	4	2
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy	1
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  Noho		1
  SoHo	5	1
  Sutton Place
  Tribeca	5	4
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side		2
  West Village	2

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 27 West 19 Street (The Emory)	2
  34 Greene Street	3
  311 West Broadway (Soho Mews)	1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  60 Beach Street	2
  243 West 60 Street (Adagio)	2

  
  For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days. For my rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.