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Manhattan condo resale prices reach record high

Prices for previously owned Manhattan condominiums rose to a record last month even as an increase in the supply of units eased competition among buyers.

An index of resale prices climbed 1.1 percent from June to reach the highest level in data going back to 1995, StreetEasy.com, a New York real estate website, said in a report today. The inventory of condos on the market grew 5.4 percent from a year earlier, the biggest annual gain since October 2009.

The market is still tight, with the number of available condos about 16 percent below the five-year average for Manhattan. That will continue to drive up prices, according to StreetEasy, which projects a 0.4 percent increase for August.

Manhattan "has been starved for more supply, and the growth in prices is a direct result of stubbornly low inventory that simply cannot keep pace with demand," Alan Lightfeldt, data scientist at StreetEasy, said in the report.

Resale prices last month were 10 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the index, which tracks repeat transactions for 60,000 units.

Condos that went under contract in July spent a median of 63 days on the market, up from a record low of 49 days in each of the three months of the market's busiest season, March through May, said StreetEasy, which is owned by Zillow Inc. Of the homes that were listed for sale in July, 45 percent were seeking $1.9 million or more.

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