Fewer listings and stubborn sellers leaves Manhattan a 'very thin marketplace' for deals

By Brick Underground | April 15, 2020 - 2:00PM

The number of new listings coming to the Manhattan market continued to decline as New York entered the fourth week of the shutdown and sellers retreated to the sidelines.

In fact, the number of new listings is falling at a faster pace than new deals, according to UrbanDigs' weekly report on total new listings, contracts signed, and off-market listings for Manhattan for the second week of April compared to the year-ago week.

While new sellers are choosing not to list their apartments and houses, sellers who are already in the market are largely not budging on prices. When buyers look for steep discounts, “they are increasingly met with sellers who are likely to wait it out and bide their time,” says Noah Rosenblatt, CEO of UrbanDigs, who described the situation as a “very thin marketplace to do deals in.”

There were 52 new listings compared to 476 during the same week in 2019, a decline of 89 percent. Contracts signed were 55 compared to 243, a drop of 77 percent.

Listings coming off the market were 157, compared to 134 in 2019.

The number of listings being taken off the market is rising, but at a slower rate compared to previous weeks. Rosenblatt says that’s because the majority of sellers who wanted out of the market already left in earlier weeks.

“The combination of rising off-market [listings] and fast declining new inventory continues to put pressures on inventory, making us wonder how far it can go by the time we get out of this,” he says.

Other weekly reports

Compass’ Brooklyn luxury weekly report for properties priced $2 million and up notes five contracts were signed for the week ended April 12th, an increase from the previous week in which two were signed. The average discount for these five deals was 1 percent.

The highest-priced contract signed was for a $3,495,000 townhouse at 199 Saint John’s Place in Park Slope. The 1881 townhouse was on the market for 80 days and saw a 5 percent price cut in early March.

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