MANHATTAN — One in five homes for sale in both Manhattan and Brooklyn are considered luxury properties, according StreetEasy’s new luxury price tier metric that's part of the third-quarter market report released Friday from StreetEasy.
In Manhattan, the price of luxury is considered $3.59 million, up from last year’s cutoff price of $3.35 million.
In Brooklyn, luxury is anything priced at or above $1.39 million, up from last year’s $1.24 million.
The luxury tier cutoff price is derived from a 12-month average of recorded sales prices in the top 10 percent. In the past five years, the number of homes in Manhattan’s luxury tier averaged 17 percent. So the increased share of luxury homes shows how the entire market is shifting upward in price.
It highlights "the extent to which luxury units have saturated the marketplace," StreetEasy data scientist Alan Lightfeldt said.
Overall, the median sales price — which represents the middle of the market — for Manhattan rose 6 percent from last year to a record $982,958 and is expected to hit just under the $1 million mark this month, StreetEasy predicts.
Brooklyn median prices jumped 9 percent over the past year to a record $545,139.
The luxury market seems to be running on a slightly separate track though, with listings in the top echelon taking 45 days longer to sell in Manhattan than the typical listing and 18 days longer in Brooklyn — but that doesn't help most buyers.
"With existing luxury listings lurking about for a longer period of time and more luxury product introduced by developers, there is a crowding-out effect at play," Lightfeldt said. "For buyers who are not shopping in the luxury market, this inevitably means fewer options and tight competition. Homes in the bottom price tier in both boroughs were the quickest to sell of all price tiers, a strong indicator of high competition among buyers."
The rental market in Manhattan continues its upward trajectory, rising nearly 10 percent over the past year, to a record high of $3,339 a month for median rents.
The jump in the borough’s annual rent was the largest since the real estate search site began collecting rent data in 2008.
The main driver, the report noted, was the steep increase in asking rents for one-bedrooms, which skyrocketed nearly 11 percent over the past year.
“Renting in Manhattan is more expensive than it’s ever been — a fact that weighs heavy on the city’s long-term housing affordability,” Lightfeldt said.
“In the face of overcrowding, high rents, and growing competition in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn,” — where rents jumped 1.5 percent to $2,600 a month — “more New Yorkers will have to turn their attention to South and East Brooklyn, and above 110th Street in Manhattan to lower their rent burden.”
