NY Observer > Jonathan Miller

Brooklyn Market Report Now Online

Tom Acitelli — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:42:41 -0400

The Miller Samuel-Douglas Elliman second-quarter Brooklyn market report is now online as a PDF.

Earlier summary here.

How's The Economy? It Depends How Much You Make

Tom Acitelli — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:42:10 -0400

Jonathan Miller's Matrix blog alerted us to Gallup polling out last week on how Americans view the economy. It turns out that their annual income may have a lot to do with shaping that view (see above graph).

Basically, as Gallup notes, the more you make, the more optimistic you are right now. The less you make, the more pessimistic.

[I]t is not surprising that upper-income Americans are also generally less likely to rate the economy as "poor." For example, during the week of June 16-22, 40% of those making at least $90,000 a year gave this rating. "Poor" ratings were proportionally higher among those making $60,000 to less than $90,000 (42%), $24,000 to less than $60,000 (47%), and less than $24,000 a year (56%). read more »

Parsing the Manhattan Housing Numbers (Or: Why Quarter-to-Quarter Is What to Watch)

Tom Acitelli — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:28:47 -0400

Mild schadenfreude greeted the Bloomberg News story this morning that Manhattan home sales dipped in January and February compared to the same time period last year. See the thread of comments on Curbed here.

But a closer look at the perfunctory numbers reveals... what exactly? read more »

Manhattan Housing Market as Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Tom Acitelli — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:39:44 -0400

Next Tuesday is April 1, and the first-quarter housing market reports for Manhattan will start trickling out from brokerages like Halstead, Corcoran and Douglas Elliman. What will they say about home sales?

No one knows for certain, of course, but the speculation should pick up noticably in the next few days so here goes:

The first quarter of any year is usually relatively paltry in terms of the number of closed deals because those deals were cut in the winter months, which are normally among the slowest in Manhattan housing. read more »

STAT OF THE DAY: That Appraisal You Got? Worthless

Tom Acitelli — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:07:19 -0400

Manhattan-based appraiser Jonathan Miller in the Wall Street Journal:

"In my opinion, 70 percent to 80 percent of appraisals that were done during the housing boom are probably not worth the paper they're written on."

Hat tip Matrix.

Miller Samuel, Radar Logic Break Off Engagement

Tom Acitelli — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:08:34 -0400

Appraiser Jonathan Miller emailed late on Friday to say that his firm Miller Samuel would not be merging with data and analytics firm Radar Logic after all. The two firms announced last fall that Radar Logic would acquire Miller Samuel, but the deal never closed. Mr. Miller's firm will remain by its original name and will continue to produce those quarterly reports that are to the Manhattan housing market what those brackets are to the NCAA Tournament.

Manhattan Market Details Available

Tom Acitelli — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:43:51 -0500

Prudential Douglas Elliman's fourth-quarter Manhattan housing market report, authored by appraiser Jonathan Miller, is now available online (PDF). It showed, among other stats, that apartment prices had ascended to an all-time average high of over $1.4 million.

California Thumps New York (Or: Hello, Cleveland! You're Cheap!)

Tom Acitelli — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:10:13 -0500

We've already grown fond of Radar Logic's relatively new monthly report that tracks home prices in markets throughout the nation, including New York City, and then compares the markets to one another.

For instance, the September report, out today (PDF), shows that the Cleveland metro area remains the cheapest housing market among the 25 polled, with an average price per foot of $92.26. Cleveland has been the cheapest in 10 of the last 11 months, in fact, ceding only one time (in June) to St. read more »

Manhattan Third-Quarter Market Report: Yours with Adobe Acrobat

Tom Acitelli — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:50:32 -0400

Jonathan Miller's third-quarter Manhattan housing market report is available in full as a PDF. We referenced it here and here earlier this month.

Queens Home Prices, Sales Decline

Julia Heming — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:34:54 -0400

We’ve taken a look at the new third-quarter housing numbers for Queens from Jonathan Miller and Prudential Douglas Elliman, and it looks like prices kept falling through the summer into the fall--this time, along with sales.

The average home sales price did increase from the quarter before (when it was $482,971) to reach $484,847. But it's barely noticeable against the larger drop from the third quarter of last year, when the average was $499,388.

The median price also dropped, but more steeply. The third quarter's $455,000 is 3 percent lower than the second’s $469,000 and 9 percent below the $500,000 in the third quarter of 2006.

So, while the higher-end properties in the land of the 7-train may be sustaining high prices, the average property is getting cheaper.

But, in a change from last quarter’s sales increase, the Queens market slowed down over the summer. read more »