Manhattan Apartment Prices Hit Record High

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

While most of the nation plods through a housing slowdown, Manhattan is experiencing its highest prices in history.

The average price of a Manhattan apartment in the first three months of this year was $1.7 million, up 33.5 percent from the same period last year, according to the real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel Inc., which processed the numbers for the brokerage firm Prudential Douglas Elliman.

But the record prices do not tell the entire story of Manhattan’s real estate. Although prices are rising, sales are slowing, and executives of the four largest brokerage firms in Manhattan said they see some trouble, though not disaster, ahead for Manhattan’s real estate.

The huge price increase reflects the sale of an unusually large number of very expensive apartments, which skewed the average. In this year’s first quarter, 71 apartments sold for more than $10 million, compared with 17 apartments in that range for all of 2007. This year’s first quarter also included the sale of dozens of apartments at the extremely high-priced 15 Central Park West and the Plaza Hotel.

A number of brokerage firms released data about the first quarter that generally showed the same trends. All showed that the median price of an apartment grew. According to Miller Samuel, it was up to $917,000 from $840,000, suggesting high prices for many types of apartments.

Keep Reading here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/nyregion/02prices.html