Credit: Extell Marketing Group
New York residents are forgoing high-rise apartments for suburban houses.
High-rise apartments, co-ops, and condos in Manhattan, one of New York City’s wealthiest boroughs, are going unsold as residents flee from the tightly-clustered city life. Last month, apartment contract deals were down 57% compared to the same time last year according to reports from real estate appraisal companies Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman. The more opulent co-ops and condos of the borough, which can go for as high as $10 million, have been hit especially hard by this loss of interest, with deals down by 75%.
The obvious reason for the decline in apartment signings is the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Due to New York still being under lockdown, it is difficult, if not outright impossible, for realtors and brokers to showcase expensive apartments to prospective renters. Even if they could, though, many of Manhattan’s wealthiest have chosen to flee the city while the pandemic is still surging, opting instead for the more spacious suburban neighborhoods.
“The city is less of an anchor now,” said Miller Samuel CEO Jonathan Miller. “It’s going to take longer for the city to recover than the suburbs.”
Credit: Trulia
With wealthy patrons flocking to the suburbs, sales and rentals in suburban neighborhoods are on the rise. Contracts in the Hamptons and Westchester County doubled last month to 267 and 987, respectively. Some New Yorkers have even decided to leave the state entirely, renting homes in the suburbs of Connecticut. Connecticut’s Fairfield County saw an impressive 1,200 new contracts signed in July alone.
“Anything within a two-hour radius of the city is as busy as it’s ever been,” Douglas Elliman president and COO Scott Durkin said. “There’s just this fear of density right now.”
Despite this mass exodus from the city, real estate brokers are confident that once a vaccine begins circulating and life starts returning to normal, business will return to its usual clip fairly quickly.
“We had price cuts before Covid,” Durkin said. “With interest rates so low, prices may not be as negotiable as some buyers might hope. But there will be people in different situations, and some might need to sell.”
