February is always a pivotal month because of Wall Street bonuses. The expectation this year is that weakness in the financial sector will lead to a continued destabilized real estate market. Click here to read the report.
February saw a large increase in deal activity, especially in the one bedroom market with 123 new contracts signed. This is still an historically bleak number year to date, but a great improvement over the past three months. Contract prices continued to trend downwards in the one, two and three bedroom markets, but the luxury 5/6 bedroom segment of the market showed improvement in the number of contracts signed as well as a 54% increase in contract signed price from January. The greater volume of absorption this month is a direct result of lowered unit prices.
With the overall number of transactions remaining nominal, the market remains in a state of uncertainty and pause.