Manhattan home sales sizzled last month, pushed to a seven-year high by NYC bargain hunters taking advantage of pandemic pricing.
Contracts were signed for more than 900 condos and co-ops, representing the best January since 2014 and a 28% increase over the 711 apartments sold in January 2020, a Corcoran Group analysis showed.
“New York has not lost its luster as the capital of the world. It’s gotten beat up with COVID, but it’s not going away,” Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman told The Post. “As soon as Manhattan gets dressed up again and at full speed, I think it’s going to soar.”
The spike follows a dip early in the COVID-19 outbreak, including a 54% drop in sales between May and June, that led to dirt-cheap prices, according to a report by appraisal firm Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
“I would say this is extraordinarily positive for New York real estate and I think highly unexpected,” Liebman said. “I’m really surprised it happened so quickly.”
Many buyers who spent more time at home in 2020 are upgrading for bigger apartments with better amenities, she said. Others are Long Island, New Jersey and Connecticut families buying pieds-à-terre.
Interior designer Gabriela Gargano is trading up. She and her husband have a buyer for their newly renovated, three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath penthouse at 176 Mulberry St. in Little Italy — and they’re buying a four-bedroom, three-bathroom duplex at 28 E. 10th St. in Greenwich Village. They plan to move in with their 9-month-old daughter once renovations are completed.
“I’ve found when the market is volatile, it’s a great time to do a reassessment,” said Gargano, 38, owner of Grisoro Designs.
They bought below asking price, but they sold below asking price, too.
“I truly believe had the pandemic not hit, there’s no way we would have been able to get the apartment that we’re purchasing at the price that we are,” she said.
Co-op deals totaled 539, up 22% from the previous January, according to Corcoran. Condo resales numbered 279, a 42% jump.
Some co-ops are shaking things up to go toe-to-toe with condos, said Steven James, Douglas Elliman’s CEO.
Prestigious 1 Sutton Place South, for example, had accepted only cash transactions for the past half-century — until last year, James told The Post.
“That is almost an earthquake,” he said. “That just goes to show you how the co-ops are having to adjust and change and reflect on the competition from the condos.”
Sales were up across all price categories — including ultra-luxury, Corcoran reported. Four Manhattan properties sold above $20 million last month, compared with just one in January 2020.
The penthouse at 20 East End Ave. in Yorkville, priced at $35 million, went into contract just before the new year.
“The current environment represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for discerning buyers who believe in NYC’s future to purchase the highest and best quality real estate, as seen with this deal,” said developer Ryan Freedman of Corigin Real Estate Group.