By Yepoka Yeebo
DNAinfo Reporter/ Producer
MANHATTAN — Several expensive co-ops were bought during the spring selling season, driving the average price up by 10 percent in May and spurring hopes of a housing turnaround in Manhattan.
The average co-op price hit $685,000 last month, up 14 percent from last May when prices bottomed. The medium condominium price was $1.2 million, according to figures complied by the Wall Street Journal.
"A year ago I would never have been able to predict the pace of new deals we are seeing, it is amazing," Hall F. Willkie, president of the residential real estate brokerage firm Brown Harris Stevens, told the Journal.
Willkie said Brown Harris Stevens contracts signings were up 13 percent in May compared with the same month last year.
"There are new deals, and the market is popping," he told the paper.
However analysts caution that sales increased for higher-end properties, which, in turn, pushed up the average.
