Manhattan home prices fall to lowest in 4 years

Bloomberg

Manhattan resale home prices tumbled by the most in more than four years, a sign that sellers are lowering their expectations in a slowing market where buyers have the option to walk away.
The median price of previously owned condominiums and co-ops fell 6.3 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to $900,000, according to a report on Wednesday from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the first annual decline since the beginning of 2015, and the biggest since the third quarter of 2012, when resale prices dropped 8.1 percent.
Manhattan apartment sellers who set aggressive price goals over the past few years are coming back down to earth as inventory mounts.
They’re adjusting to a market in which the number of resales has been dropping for five quarters and buyers are turning away from listings viewed as too expensive. In the fourth quarter, the average discount off the last asking price was 4.7 percent, compared with a 3.1 percent cut a year earlier, the firms said.
“Maybe we’re heading out of the period when there was no shame in overpricing your home,” Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, said in an interview. “We’re moving away from that and into something more pragmatic: Do you want to actually sell your property or do you want to pretend? Part of selling is pricing correctly or being more negotiable.”
Buyers agreed to pay more than the asking price in just 13 percent of all sales that closed in the quarter, down from 29 percent a year earlier, the firms said.