Interest rates on home loans affected home sales. New home sales soar.

0:00 Speaker 1 What is today? Suzanne Miller. She is the founder of Empire State Properties, a boutique real estate firm in New York, and she’s with us to give us an update of what the heck is going on in real estate in New York with interest interest rates fluctuating? Are they going down?

0:17 Are they going up? Susanne Miller, you tell us what’s going on?

0:23 Speaker 2 Hey, John, thanks for having me. Love WABC Roundtable Cats on Sunday. It’s a very interesting time because I guess we’re going to survive till twenty five. Right now, on the residential side, there’s just not a lot going on.

0:36 Transactions are down like thirty percent. I think people are afraid. We have an election year going on, so sellers are afraid to list and buyers are afraid to buy. So we’re just sitting with like thirty percent less deals this year than last at this time. And what we’re not seeing, what people are not talking about, is that on the

0:55 sales side, there’s a lot of private deals.

0:58 Speaker 3 Going on, Like sellers are not discussing.

1:00 Speaker 2 That closing costs, the giving back money after closing, they’re charging extra furniture. So the market’s down about ten percent and that is just but we’re not really seeing what’s.

1:10 Speaker 3 Truly going on on the sales side.

1:14 Speaker 1 Understood. Uh, So the marketer you’re saying that the market is thirty percent softer than you felt in the past in the.

1:22 Speaker 2 Last year, it’s it’s thirty percent after regarding closed deals.

1:27 Speaker 3 But this sales.

1:28 Speaker 2 Price is down at ten and that does not include the private deals happening between the landlords and the buyers and sellers the private so that it doesn’t bring down the value of property.

1:42 Speaker 3 You know what I mean?

1:44 Speaker 1 Now we we we on the rest of the real estate market besides apartments. Uh, are sales up or down? Because it’s kind of a I mean, if somebody’s going to pay seven or eight percent of interest rates to the bank, Uh, it would have to be a much better deal.

2:02 Speaker 2 Can say, you know it should be a better or to see that is if people just not listening they’re afraid to their property. Did you think. I’m not sure sure all of your listeners saw the six minutes this day about the saying VA can see on the office down thy percent.

2:18 Speaker 3 I’m sure you saw that they be.

2:21 Speaker 2 Buildings, but they didn’t talk about and this is an interesting thing, is that the high end buildings like two forty five Park Avenue, they’re getting like one hundred and fifty dollars a foot. So the high end buildings are doing so well, But most of the the fifty percent that they’re talking about are the B and C buildings,

2:42 which is that I hope are going to change and make and convert them.

2:45 Speaker 3 There’s so many sitting around.

2:47 Speaker 1 Understood anything else you want to tell all the New Yorkers about New York real estate.

2:54 Speaker 2 I think it’s interesting that in the you know, this whole suits thing in COVID, it’s interesting that the people that were living around Park Avenue and the downtown area have a lot of them moved to Westchester. So that’s why the Park Avenue South location, those buildings are not doing well because so many of those yuppies left and

3:12 they all went to Westchester. So the buildings around and Central are doing so well. That is why Midtown around the forties is like on fire. They we’re getting like one hundred and fifty dollars a foot, and I think that’s interesting to see the gentrification of people moaning out of the city.

3:27 Speaker 3 That’s what I’m following.

3:29 Speaker 1 In other words, because of Grand Central Terminal being there and people can go to Long Island or or wherever they else.

3:38 Speaker 2 State west Chester value went great, it went sky high right.

3:42 Speaker 1 Now, So it became transportation oriented increases exactly.

3:49 Speaker 3 And that’s why I find that very interesting, and I’ve been watching that like city.

3:52 Speaker 1 That’s that’s a new word that real estate people can use. Transport transportation orient did increases.

4:01 Speaker 2 We’re gonna quote Johncaster Matidi’s Oriented real Estate.

4:06 Speaker 1 T A R T A R. Thank you, Susan and Miller will catch up again real soon. Thank you so much.

4:13 Speaker 3 Thanks John so much,