Average Manhattan apartment now costs over US$1m: report

[NEW YORK] The price of an average apartment in the New York borough of Manhattan has passed the US$1 million mark for the first time, according to a study published Wednesday.

The median price - at the midpoint of all sales prices - is now US$1.1 million, up 11 per cent in a year, said the CityRealty website, which reports on real estate data.

Prices in Manhattan have surged by 60 per cent over the past 10 years.

The mean price - the average of all sales prices - is now US$1.9 million, up 5.5 per cent from last year and 72 per cent from 2005.

Total real estate sales in Manhattan this year should reach US$24 billion, a 4.2 pe rcent year-on-year increase, according to CityRealty's projections.

Some 190 Manhattan apartments were sold this year for more than US$10 million, a slight decline from the 214 sold in 2014.

The borough's market is traditionally composed of co-ops, in which apartment owners become shareholders with a voice in the corporation that owns their building, and condominiums, or "condos," where the owner has a right to use common areas but has less of a voice in building rules or practices.

Condos accounted for a majority of the new construction this year.

But 57 per cent of sales were of co-ops, with condos accounting for the remaining sales.

According to CityRealty, the average price per square foot of a Manhattan condo was US$1,732 (US$18,530 per square meter), a 5 per cent rise from 2014. The site did not publish a corresponding figure for co-ops.

The price of new construction was higher, at US$2,073 a square foot, though this was down by 5.4 per cent from the previous year.

Certain sought-after addresses went for far more than that, notably the new One57 development, a 300m tall luxury apartment tower on 57th Street in midtown Manhattan.

The average cost per square foot of the 26 apartments sold there this year was US$5,149.

But the most expensive address in all Manhattan was 15 Central Park West, a building completed in 2008 that overlooks the world's most famous park. The six apartments there that changed hands this year sold for an average of US$6,292 per square foot.

AFP