The latest metrics about the cost of housing in Lower Manhattan contain some good news and some bad news — depending on whether you rent or own your apartment, and whether you live here now, or are hoping to move here.
A summary of third-quarter activity compiled by PropertyShark, a real estate web site and search engine that tracks sales and price data, finds that Tribeca is no longer the most expensive neighborhood in the five boroughs of New York City. That titled has been stolen by the Flatiron District, where the median sales price has more than doubled since the third quarter of 2016, to $4.39 million. Tribeca has slipped to second place, with a media price of $4.09 million, which represents a 9.0 percent drop from the same period last year.
The Financial District is now tied for 19th most expensive community (an honor it shares with Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn), down from the sixth priciest earlier this year. In FiDi, the median apartment price is $1.25 million, which is a 15 percent jump from 2016.
And Battery Park City is now ranked number 22 in PropertyShark’s tally (down from ninth place in the second quarter), with a media price of $1.41 million, which represents a surprising 26 percent drop from the same period in 2016.
When ranked in terms of mean household income, however, Lower Manhattan’s scores jump. According to an analysis by real estate website Curbed.com, Tribeca (when grouped with Soho and Little Italy) is the second richest community in New York, with an average household income of $235,555. The combined communities of Battery Park City and the Financial District rank fourth, with a typical take-home of $185,275.
Meanwhile, a third report, from the online real estate database company StreetEasy, finds that Battery Park City is the community with the second-greatest number of apartments for sale, on which the price has been cut. This analysis found that fully 59 percent of all condominium units in the neighborhood has reduced their asking price. (For clarity, this does not mean that the average apartment — or any apartment — has gone down 59 percent in price. Rather it means that more than half of all units on sale have posted reductions of various percentages in their asking prices.) The data gurus at StreetEasy attribute the high incidence of price cuts to the large inventory of units currently being shopped in the neighborhood.