June 27, 2020
With NYC now in phase two of reopening and surrounding areas preparing for even more restrictions to be lifted, the residential market’s June performance is of heightened interest. This comes after the uncertainty and upheaval of March, an April marked by historical lows in sales activity and the strongest pricing trends of 2020, and the tentative return of transactional activity seen in May.
June’s first half however presents a whole new picture with strengthening sales trends and the first significant year-over-year price drop.
Transactional activity, of course, has trended negative since the start of the crisis. March kicked off with sales activity in its first week 15% higher than the same period last year, only to see it drop 36% year-over-year by the end of the month. Sales activity bottomed out in April at 61% below April 2019, with a mere 1,549 deals recorded in the four boroughs in the entire month.
May, however, brought a tentative return of transactional activity, with a total of 1,337 sales recorded. While that figure may have been lower than April’s 1,549 deals, year-over-year, May marked a 52% drop in sales activity, as opposed to April’s 61%. June 2020 will be a curious month to watch for transactional trends, considering that June 2019 saw surging sales activity as NYC buyers and sellers rushed to close deals before the new mansion tax went into effect in July 2019.
As a result, 813 deals were registered in the first week of June 2019, making it one of the most active weeks in term of sales activity in the first half of the year. By comparison, between June 1 and June 7 of the current year, 409 deals were recorded, representing a 50% year-over-year drop, but also a 48% week-over-week upsurge in sales activity.
Those first 409 deals were followed by 428 deals in the second week of June for a 5% week-over-week increase in sales activity, followed by an 11% gain in the third week of June. A total of 476 sales were registered between June 15 and June 21, representing a 36% year-over year drop – the same as the last week of March. All in all, this marked the third consecutive week of tangible growth in sales activity, for the first time since February.
Meanwhile, pricing trends were firmly positive throughout the crisis, and the median sale price in NYC remained steadily above the same period last year. Specifically, both March and April boasted a 5% year-over-year price expansion. What’s more, each week of March also posted a median sale price higher than the same period in 2019 — a trend that remained steady throughout April.
Overall, May 2020 kept up with that trend too, with the exception of one week, which came in a -3% year-over-year. Despite that, May closed with a median sale price of $705,000, marking a 4% gain over May 2019. Additionally, this also made May the second-most expensive month in NYC this year, surpassed only by April’s $712,000 median.
June kicked off with the strongest pricing trends so far this year, posting a median sale price of $743,000, for the highest figure year-to-date. That represented a 2% gain over year-ago figures, a notable achievement considering June 2019 featured the strongest pricing trends of H1 2019.
The second week of June 2020, however, posted a median sale price of $679,000, for an 11% year-over-year drop – this was also only the second time that 2020 weekly pricing figures were lower than their year-ago correspondents.
The third week of June closed with a median sale price of $700,000 for a 3% week-over-week gain. However, while it was one of the highest weekly median sale prices in 2020, it still came in 2% below year-ago levels.
All in all, year-to-date NYC saw a total of 13,859 sales, 24% fewer than during the same period last year. Pricing trends, however, were positive, with the year-to-date median sale price across the four boroughs coming in at $685,000, for a 2% gain over the same period last year.
See original article – https://www.propertyshark.com/Real-Estate-Reports/2020/06/23/nyc-real-estate-covid19/