The Manhattan residential real-estate market has made millionaires out of average homeowners, thanks to a checkbook-boggling 200 percent price surge in the past decade.
A 10-year sales trend analysis released by Prudential Douglas Elliman shows that the average apartment price has risen from $430,927 in 1997 to $1.3 million last year.
Also reaching dizzying new heights is the price per square foot at its present level of $1,031, up 214 percent from 10 years ago.
Showing the biggest jump of all is the median sales price (the middle price between the highest and lowest), which increased 247.3 percent from $239,000 in 1997 to $830,000.
While home prices across the country have slumped 2.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 – compared to the fourth quarter of 2005 – New York continues to do well.
“It’s been an amazing run,” said one Prudential Douglas Elliman broker. “I would have never guessed that the market would prosper beyond the dot-com demise or the 9/11 attacks.”
According to the report, compiled by appraisers Miller Samuel Inc., the average sales price, median sales price, and average price per square foot have all set new records through 2006.
But it also reveals that while prices continue to climb, they’ve slowed considerably in the past two years – from an annual appreciation of 21.6 percent in 2004 to 6.1 percent this year.
Other top brokerage firms, including the Corcoran Group, have come up with similar numbers.
“It speaks strongly to the long-term health and viability of the Manhattan real estate market,” said Corcoran CEO Pamela Liebman.
“Real estate in New York City operates in its own universe and cannot be compared to other places across the country.”