Brooklyn's record prices lure sellers back to the market
Both the median sales price and the average sales price hit new highs for the third, consecutive quarter, according to the Elliman Report.
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Sellers must like what they are seeing in the Brooklyn sales market: In the second quarter they netted record prices thanks to booming sales.
In fact, both the median sales price and the average sales price hit new highs for the third, consecutive quarter, according to the Elliman Report. The median sales price in the second quarter, $910,000, was up slightly from the first quarter and buoyed 11 percent from the second quarter of 2020. The average sales price, $1,135,332, followed a similar pattern.
There were 3,427 transactions, up a sharp 21.4 percent over the previous quarter and more than double the year-ago quarter.
The strength of the Brooklyn market is encouraging more sellers to get in the game, says Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller Samuel and author of the report. Listing inventory has been slowly returning, rising above the second quarter decade average, he says. Brooklyn listings were up 18 percent over the previous quarter and 26.8 percent over the second quarter of 2020.
Prices in Queens also set records as the numbers of sales more than doubled over the prior year, Miller says. The median sales price in Queens last month, $680,000, was up 3 percent over the previous quarter and 12 percent over the second quarter of 2020. The number of listings on the market was up year over year for the fourth, consecutive quarter.
SERHANT released second quarter reports for the Brooklyn market, Brooklyn new development, and Long Island City condos.
Brooklyn is a sellers’ market, plain and simple,” said Garrett Derderian, the director of market intelligence at SERHANT. “Like Manhattan, the velocity of new deals is squeezing supply.”
Derderian points out it’s the first time on record the number of Brooklyn transactions in a single quarter surpassed 3,000. The borough didn’t see the same slowdown in sales as Manhattan did during the pandemic, he says.
“So the fact deal volume is still this high speaks to the desirability of the borough. The only thing that could slow down momentum at this point is the lack of supply in the one-to three-family home market,” he says.
In its Brooklyn Market Insights Report for the second quarter, Compass charts demand for houses, noting they made up nearly 43 percent of market share.
“The pandemic incentivized buyers to purchase houses as many amenities in buildings remained closed,” the Compass report notes. “While we expect house sales to remain high, there may be a condo renaissance in the works.” There were low price discounts for condos, Compass notes—indicating rising demand for this type of housing.
Bess Freeman, CEO of Brown Harris Stevens, notes in the firm’s Brooklyn market report that "the number of contracts signed during the second quarter set a new record, so expect the number of closings to rise sharply” in the third quarter, she says.
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