When it comes to Manhattan’s luxury $5-million-and-above real estate market, last year turned out great. Record-breaking, in fact.
But that’s due only to strength in the year’s first half. After that, things changed.
“That’s an understatement,” said Kirk Henckels, Stribling’s executive vice president and director of private brokerage, saying there was still an “absurd amount of money in the market and luxury spending was unabated” in 2008’s first six months.
Then Wall Street melted down and news broke about Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme. That helped drag down co-op sales 37.9% in the second half, compared to a year earlier, while condominium re-sales fell about a quarter, Stribling reported. Townhouses were a bit luckier, slipping 8.2%.
New York City 2010
