Manhattan Luxury Real Estate Recorded Its Best Week in at Least 15 Years
More than $600 million of luxury real estate went into contract in Manhattan last week, making it the strongest-performing week in at least 15 years.
There were 67 contracts signed for residences in the borough priced at $4 million or more in the week ending Nov. 21, the most sales recorded in a single seven-day stretch so far this year, according to a report Monday from Olshan Realty. In fact, there were seven more contracts signed than the previous record, set the prior week.
“For the fifth time this year, 50 or more contracts were signed,” wrote Donna Olshan, president of Olshan Realty and the report’s author. The volume of $613.74 million “was the luxury market’s strongest performance since this report was launched in 2006.” The previous sales volume record was in mid-December 2013,, when 72 deals went into contract totaling $576.18 million.
Additionally, 127 homes have gone into contract in the last two weeks for a total of nearly $1.2 billion in sales, the data showed. Of those deals, 51 units were sold by developers.
Despite that, townhouses topped the list of the biggest contracts signed last week.
The No. 1 deal was a 23,450-square-foot townhouse on East 68th Street that was listed for $29.5 million, according to the report. The six-story, 39-foot-wide house has been divided into 13 rental units and needs to be renovated.
The second-priciest deal last week was just a block away, on East 67th Street. The 13,300-square-foot home was most recently asking $27.5 million, an $11.5 million discount from its original listing price in March 2018. The home features a limestone facade, seven bedrooms, nine-and-a-half bathrooms, 10 fireplaces and more than 2,200 square feet of outdoor space.
Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone owned the townhouse, having purchased it in 2004 for nearly $10.4 million. Mr. Falcone was charged with securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2012, and accepted a settlement the following year. The property was headed for a foreclosure auction earlier this year, but it was canceled after an appeal from Mr. Falcone.
