Picture an empty apartment — there are thousands in Manhattan’s new towers — and fill it with the city’s chattiest real estate developers. How do you quiet the room?
Ask about their sales.
Among the more than 16,200 condo units across 682 new buildings completed in New York City since 2013, one in four remain unsold, or roughly 4,100 apartments — most of them in luxury buildings, according to a new analysis by the listing website StreetEasy.
“I think we’re being really conservative,” said Grant Long, the website’s senior economist, noting that the study looked specifically at ground-up new construction that has begun to close contracts. Sales in buildings converted to condos, a relatively small segment, were not counted, because they are harder to reliably track. And there are thousands more units in under-construction buildings that have not begun closings but suffer from the same market dynamics.
Projects have not stalled as they did in the post-recession market of 2008, and new buildings are still on the rise, but there are signs that some developers are nearing a turning point. Already the prices at several new towers have been reduced, either directly or through concessions like waived common charges and transfer taxes, and some may soon be forced to cut deeper. Tactics from past cycles could also be making a comeback: bulk sales of unsold units to investors, condos converting to rentals en masse, and multimillion-dollar “rent-to-own” options for sprawling apartments — a four-bedroom, yours for just $22,500 a month.
Spacious 1700 sq ft beautiful 4 Bedroom 2 Baths available now . Live on a lovely wide block with a shared front garden. Large contemporary kitchen with granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances including a huge refrigerator, vented gas range and dishwasher. Bathrooms are pristine with lovely subway tile and pedestal sinks. Apartment has a full size washer and dryer. Also, Large closets and basement storage available at no extra charge. High ceilings, wonderful light and just above the trees views on the third floor, two flights up.. Only 2 blocks from the F train and zoned for PS58. Near all the great restaurants on Court and Smith in Carroll Gardens.
Wealth inequality between homeowners and renters is striking: homeowners median net worth is 80 times larger then renters’ median net worth.
Thats just one of the findings of the recent U.S. Census Bureau report and detailed tables on house hold wealth in 2015 that reveals wide variations across demographic and socioeconomic groups.
In 2015, 37% of households did not own a home and 47.1% of households did not have a retirement account. This gap in two key assets contributes to wealth inequality.
New household wealth measures became available with the release of the redesigned Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). The SIPP’s sample size enables comparisons of the assets of many populations and groups, such as low-income households and households with or without children.
Household Wealth Highlights
Biggest contributors: Just two assets — home equity and retirement accounts — accounted for 62.9% of households’ net worth in 2015.
While many households owned these assets, others did not: 37% of households did not own a home and 47.1% of households did not have a retirement account. This gap in two key assets contributes to wealth inequality.
Bank accounts: Some commonly held assets make up a small portion of household wealth.
In 2015, 90.9% of households held accounts at a bank or credit union. However, the accounts were only 8.5% of total household net worth.
Health insurance: Households in which people were without health insurance all or part of the year had dramatically lower median wealth: $16,860, compared with $114,000 for households in which all members had health insurance for the entire year.
Age and gender: Unmarried female householders (the person who owns or rents the home) ages 35 to 54 had a median wealth of $14,860. That represented 39.5% of their unmarried male counterparts’ wealth.
The difference disappeared at ages 55 to 64, when both unmarried women and men who were heads of households had a wealth of about $60,000.
Race and Hispanic origin: Non-Hispanic white and Asian householders had more household wealth than black and Hispanic householders.
Non-Hispanic whites had a median household wealth of $139,300, compared with $12,780 for black householders and $19,990 for Hispanic householders.
Asians had a median household wealth of $156,300, which is not statistically different from the estimate for non-Hispanic whites.
Education: Higher education is associated with more wealth. Households in which the most educated member held a bachelor’s degree had a median wealth of $163,700, compared with $38,900 for households where the most educated member had a high school diploma.
Employment: The unemployed and those who work part-time have less wealth.
Households in which at least one person had a full-time job for the entire year had a median wealth of $101,000, compared with $61,690 for households where one or more members had a part-time job during the year, and $22,100 for households where one or more were unemployed.
The Census Bureau will be continuing to release subsequent years of wealth data to the public. SIPP data on wealth in 2016 will be released early this fall.
Jonathan Eggleston is an economist and Donald Hays is a survey statistician in the Social, Economic and Housing Statistics Division at the Census Bureau.
