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Prices of Upper East Side Apartments on the Rise, Experts Say

By Lindsay Armstrong | December 18, 2013 12:15pm
 The view from an apartment at Yorkville Towers, located at 315 East 86th St.
The view from an apartment at Yorkville Towers, located at 315 East 86th St.
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DNAinfo/Max Willens

UPPER EAST SIDE — Rents on the Upper East Side may have fallen in recent months, but sales prices in the neighborhood are on the rise — with prices for three-bedroom apartments up by nearly $1 million, reports show.

The median price for studio and two-bedroom apartments increased by 11 and 13 percent, respectively, to nearly $400,000 and $1.7 million, in the third quarter of 2013 compared to the same time last year, according to a report by Halstead Properties.

Prices for three-bedrooms shot up even more, with a 23 percent increase over this time, to nearly $4.7 million, the report said.

The growth was not limited to the Upper East Side. Median sales price for all Manhattan apartment types rose by 3 percent over the past year — to $870,000 — the highest it’s been in four years, the report stated.

Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers, also analyzed apartment sales numbers for the third quarter of 2013, but found that the median apartment price in Manhattan actually slipped somewhat in the third quarter. 

On the Upper East Side, Miller noticed little change to the price of studios in the third quarter this year compared to last year. But his data did show that the median price for one-bedrooms grew by about 6 percent, while the median price for three-bedrooms increased by more than 19 percent.

Miller cautioned against reading too much into the price of three-bedroom units.

“Is a 19 percent increase significant? Yes,” he said. “But the larger the apartment, the more volatile the market, because we’re dealing with a much thinner data set.”

Miller did agree that Manhattan’s residential real estate is currently in a seller’s market. This is largely due to the fact that inventory levels are the lowest they’ve been since he started measuring them in 2000, he explained.

"When the supply tightens," Miller said, "you’re going to get upward pressure on the prices."