Manhattan’s investment-sales market tumbled 60 percent year-over-year during the second quarter to $13.8 billion, and there are strong headwinds pushing back against any potential rebound in the market.
Activity does seem to have picked up lately. During the second quarter, there were 66 deals recorded at a price of $10 million or more, compared to 71 deals for all four quarters ending in July, according to a new report by Avison Young cited in the Wall Street Journal.
That’s still quite a decline from the average of 141 deals per quarter that the market saw between the third quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2016. Sales in the second quarter of this year climbed to roughly $5.6 billion, a 74 percent increase over the $3.2 billion recorded in the beginning of the year.
A significant portion of that bump, however, is attributed to HNA Group’s $2.21 billion purchase of 245 Park Avenue.
According to Avison’s report, the “slumping market is far from dead.” But factors such as rising interest rates, the wall of maturing commercial mortgage backed securities and the Chinese government’s clamp down on overseas spending all have the potential to keep transaction figures low. [WSJ] – Rich Bockmann