Upper West Side Had Most Expensive Real Estate Market in 2021
With 11 of the priciest real estate sales in 2021, New York City’s Upper West Side reigned supreme across the luxury real estate market in 2021. Crain’s recently published a list of the most significant real estate sales between the second quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022, and the UWS had more than double the number of high-value sales than that of the runner-up. Tribeca, the city’s second most popular neighborhood for luxury properties, had five sales make the list.
The top residential real estate sale on the list was a property at 15 Central Park West, which sold for $46.7 million. The 5,900-square-foot home features five bedrooms and 6.5 bathrooms, and it was the only one on the list to exceed $40 million. The next most expensive property was a 7,700-square-foot co-op at 990 Fifth Avenue. Across the list, the average price stood at $19.8 million. The typical property offers around 5,700 square feet and has 11.4 rooms. On average, the properties have 5.1 bedrooms and 5.3 bathrooms. The vast majority – 56% of all properties – were condos. Roughly 26% of properties were single-family homes, and only 17% were co-ops.
The signs have been there for a while, but there’s no question: New York City’s luxury housing market is back. After being quashed by the pandemic that started in the early spring of 2020, the city’s luxury housing market is bigger than ever – and it’s smashing records left and right.
As the pandemic took hold in early 2020, many New Yorkers fled the city in favor of far-flung suburbs offering roomier homes. Many who left were quite affluent and had the means to acquire new homes in Connecticut and elsewhere outside NYC. Now, many of those same people are ready to come back to the city and scoop up luxury properties en masse. With international travel picking up again, demand for high-end housing across NYC is sure to intensify – especially if foreign investors return to the fray, which they are apt to do before too long.
Indeed, between March 2020 and June 2021, more than 250,000 households left New York City – a 106% increase over pre-pandemic numbers. However, net migration from the city eased considerably by July 2021 – especially in wealthy neighborhoods like the Upper West Side.
Incredibly, more apartments were sold in Manhattan in the third quarter of 2021 than at any other time over the last 32 years. More incredibly still, real estate sales in Brooklyn and Queens broke even more impressive records, demonstrating that previously affordable areas are quickly becoming anything but.
By mid-December of 2021, 1,877 contracts for luxury properties priced at or above $4 million were signed – three times as many as in 2020 and the most signed since 2006. Incredibly, 400 contracts were for properties listed at $10 million or more. Clearly, demand for ultra-high-end luxury homes in NYC is back – and it’s likely to keep increasing throughout the rest of 2022.
The pattern occurring in the Upper West Side and throughout NYC is being mirrored across the US as a whole. In June, the median sale price for a house in the US hit $386,000, an increase of 24% versus the same period in 2021. During the third quarter of 2022, Manhattan had more than 4,500 apartment sales, and the median price stood at more than $1.1 million – a 9% increase over the same period in 2019 before the pandemic struck.
As of the first quarter of 2022, the median sale price for homes in Manhattan stood at $1.4 million – a year-over-year increase of 25%. The median price per square foot stood at $1,328, a 13% year-over-year increase. During that period, 364 sales transactions were recorded across the borough, a 30% year-over-year increase. As the year has gone on, the trend has not only held up but intensified. Incredibly, sales prices for properties on the Upper West Side and Upper East Side have been outshining those of properties in downtown neighborhoods, demonstrating that demand for addresses in the city’s ritziest neighborhoods is stronger than ever.
As of December 2021, a townhouse at 248 Central Park West was under contract with a sale price of $30 million. The nearly 10,000 square foot property sold for $16.2 million in 2019 but has been extensively remodeled. The townhouse features six bedrooms, seven full bathrooms, two half bathrooms and a 1,875-square-foot wellness center with a jacuzzi, lap pool, sauna and hydrotherapy steam and massage showers.
Properties across the Upper West Side and Upper East Side continue to sell for record amounts well into 2022, even as mortgage rates climb. Those rates are expected to keep climbing over the next year, but that doesn’t seem to deter people interested in buying luxury apartments, condos and co-ops across New York City.
Those looking to save money by renting instead of buying are in for major sticker shock these days too. Rent prices across NYC have surged, and the trend is expected to keep up for the foreseeable future. On the Upper West Side, the median rent as of the first quarter of 2022 stood at $3,875 – a 40% increase over the same period in 2021. Incredibly, the UWS only ranks 22nd for rent prices; in other words, 21 other neighborhoods have higher rents. For example, brokers for properties in Central Park South and Tribeca are listing properties with average asking rents of around $7,000 per month.
Meanwhile, real estate sales in the Upper West Side continue smashing records. As of the first quarter of 2022, the median asking price was $1.6 million, representing a more than 14% increase year-over-year versus 2021.
As 2022 rolls on, additional records could easily be broken for real estate sales across the UWS and throughout NYC. However, as mortgage rates keep rising, prices may start stabilizing over the next year or so. Then again, given how on fire real estate conditions have been, there may be no end in sight to rising real estate sales and rental prices throughout the region.