New Jersey Real Estate Report

(Karen Weaver from Deutsche Bank provided a similar forecast a little over two weeks ago.)

From CNBC:

US Home Prices Seen Falling 40% Overall: Analyst

U.S. housing prices will fall by a double-digit percentage from already beaten-down levels, resulting in an overall 40 percent plunge by the time foreclosures peak in the second half of 2010, Barclays Capital economist Michelle Meyer said.

Meyer issued her forecast two days after the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes showed for April an 18.1 percent year-to-year decline, compared with 18.7 percent in March, in the rate of home price declines in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas.

The indexes have tracked the prices of U.S. single-family homes since 1987.

“While the early signs of improvement are in place for housing, the market will likely remain out of balance for some time, given the flood of foreclosures,” Meyer wrote.

“Home prices are likely to continue to fall, albeit at a slowing pace, even after the economy technically emerges from the recession.” Home prices have fallen 32.6 percent from their peak three years ago, S&P/Case-Shiller said.

On that basis, they would need to fall another 11 percent for an overall 40 percent peak-to-trough decline. Further declines could imperil metropolitan areas that have yet to experience the worst of the nation’s housing slump.

According to S&P/Case-Shiller, New York was the only major market to have above-average, month-over-month housing price declines in both March and April and also have a below-average decline for the year ended in April.

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Foreclosures to Peak in Late 2010, Meyer Says

U.S. foreclosures will peak in the second half of 2010 and home prices will continue to decline through the end of that year, according to Barclays Capital.

“Home prices are likely to continue to fall, albeit at a slowing pace, even after the economy technically emerges from the recession,” Michelle Meyer, an economist at Barclays Capital in New York, said in a report today. Prices may drop another 7 percent, she said, based on the S&P/Case-Shiller home price index of 20 U.S. cities.

The three-year-old housing slump has slashed U.S. home prices 33 percent since their July 2006 peak, according to S&P/Case-Shiller. Prospective buyers are constrained by rising mortgage rates, the highest unemployment since 1983 and the longest recession of the post-World War II era.

U.S. homeowners trying to sell are competing with a glut of discounted foreclosures. It would take about 9.6 months to sell the nation’s 3.8 million unsold homes at the current sales pace, according to the Chicago-based National Association of Realtors.

From Bloomberg:

Manhattan Apartment Prices Drop as Lehman Effect Hits Home

Manhattan apartment prices dropped for the first time since 2002 in the second quarter as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. caught up to property owners in the nation’s most expensive urban market.

The median price fell 18.5 percent from a year earlier to $835,700, New York appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate said today. The number of sales plunged by half, the most since Miller Samuel began keeping data in 1989.

“The standstill that existed after Lehman Brothers has been broken, and it was the sellers that cried ‘Uncle,’” Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of New York-based property broker the Corcoran Group, said in an interview.

Values are falling broadly in Manhattan for the first time in the almost four-year U.S. housing recession, with declines now seen in co-operatives and condominiums of every size and price. Private-sector employment in the city dropped by 91,200 jobs, or 2.8 percent in the 12 months through May as Wall Street losses and asset writedowns topped $1.4 trillion.

The price of studio apartments declined 16 percent from a year ago to a median of $405,000, according to Miller Samuel. One-bedrooms dropped 17 percent to $650,000 and two-bedrooms fell 23 percent to $1.27 million. Three-bedroom units fell 37 percent to $2.35 million and four-bedrooms plummeted 47 percent to a median of $3.92 million.

The Miller Samuel-Prudential data reflect for the first time what sellers have known for at least six months: The way to lure a buyer in the current market is to cut your price.
…
About 32 percent of second-quarter listings included discounts from the original asking price, according to StreetEasy.com, a Web site that gathers Manhattan property listings from brokers. The deepest concessions were on Central Park South and in the Financial District, where list prices were pared by an average of 10 percent.

“The sellers who want to sell are reducing their prices,” Liebman said. “The ones that aren’t, are either sitting on them overpriced or waiting for another day.”

From the Record:

20% of construction jobs vanish

One of every five construction jobs in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties disappeared over the past year, as building activity plummeted in the face of a recession and housing bust, federal labor officials said Wednesday.

The 21 percent drop in North Jersey construction jobs from May 2008 to May 2009 — from 32,700 to 25,800 — was a record in the 19 years that the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics has been keeping track, according to Martin Kohli, an economist with the BLS’s New York office.

“The housing bubble burst sooner in other parts of the country than it did here, but it seems to have come with a vengeance to Bergen, Passaic and Hudson,” Kohli said.

Even as housing construction nationwide slowed dramatically, building continued at a healthy pace in Bergen and Hudson counties until mid-2008, especially along the Hudson River waterfront. But last summer, construction fell off there as well.

Overall, Bergen, Passaic and Hudson employment shrank by 26,200 jobs, or 2.9 percent, to 884,300 jobs in May 2009. Aside from the construction losses, Bergen, Passaic also saw substantial job cuts in professional and business services, information and financial activities. The decades-long loss of factory jobs also continued.
…
The overall New York metropolitan area, including North Jersey, lost almost 233,000 jobs — 2.7 percent of the total — from May 2008 to May 2009.

While the job losses were painful, they were less severe than the nationwide employment contraction of 4 percent. In the region as a whole, the biggest job losses came in construction and manufacturing.

The finance sector also lost jobs, but not as many as expected, Kohli said. Financial employment declined by 4.7 percent in the New York metropolitan area as a whole, and 5.7 percent in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson.

“Last fall, we had an unprecedented financial crisis,” Kohli said. “We expected to see the bottom fall out of financial employment in the area.”

The New Jersey Home Price Index Tracker has been updated to include:
* April S&P Case Shiller (Aggregate, Tiered, Condo)

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

S&P Case Shiller NY Metro Commutable Area Home Price Index

Low Tier (Under $283721) - Peaked in October 2006 and is down 24.5% from peak

Mid Tier ($283721 - $416284) - Peaked in September 2006 and is down 22.42% from peak

High Tier (Over $416284) - Peaked in June 2006 and is down 17.39% from peak

Aggregate (Overall Market) - Peaked in June 2006 and is down 21.08% from peak

Condo-Only Index - Peaked in February 2006 and is down 12.85% from peak

NY Metro Area Aggregate Year over Year Changes

Apr 08 -7.98%
May 08 -7.74%
Jun 08 -7.04%
Jul 08 -7.04%
Aug 08 -6.61%
Sep 08 -7.13%
Oct 08 -7.71%
Nov 08 -8.72%
Dec 08 -9.17%
Jan 09 -9.74%
Feb 09-10.33%
Mar 09 -11.85%
Apr 09 -12.53%

The NY Metro Area saw price declines continue to accelerate to the fastest pace yet this cycle.

Bonus Graphs from Veto and Kettle:

(click to enlarge)

More can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/nsgq2f

Due out at 9am this morning, post will be updated as news/info becomes available.

From Bloomberg:

Home-Price Declines in 20 U.S. Cities Eased in April

Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas fell in April at a slower pace than forecast, a sign the plunge in real-estate values is abating.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index decreased 18.1 percent from a year earlier following an 18.7 percent drop in March. The measure declined 19 percent in January, the most since the data began in 2001.

Price declines are likely to keep moderating as demand steadies and distressed properties account for a smaller share of transactions. Still, the highest jobless rate in 25 years is contributing to record foreclosures, which are likely to keep depressing values for months to come even as home sales steady.

“It is looking a little bit better,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. “The largest declines are probably past. When prices stop falling the erosion in household wealth will come to an end.”

Economists forecast the index would drop 18.6 percent, according to the estimates of 33 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Estimates ranged from drops of 17.7 percent to 19.4 percent.

From MarketWatch:

U.S. home prices down 18.1% in past year

U.S. home prices were down 18.1% in the year ended April, according to the national Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday. On a month-to-month basis, prices in 20 selected cities fell 0.6% in April, with declines in 11 cities. Still, the overall pace of decline slowed in April, said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee for Standard & Poor’s, which compiles the Case-Shiller index. “Every metro area, except for Charlotte, recorded an improvement in monthly returns over March,” Blitzer said. “While one month’s data cannot determine if a turnaround has begun, it seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions.”

From the WSJ:

Home Prices Drop at Slower Pace

U.S. home prices continued their multiyear tumble in April, according to the S&P Case-Shiller home-price indexes, although the indexes showed their third-straight month of slightly smaller declines.

Seventeen of 20 major metropolitan areas posted price declines of more than 10% from a year earlier, with the Sun Belt continuing to be hit hardest. Nationally, home prices are at levels similar to the middle of 2003.

From the AP:

Home prices post 18.1 percent annual drop in April

A key housing index shows a clear trend that home price declines are moderating.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday showed home prices in 20 major cities tumbled by 18.1 percent from April 2008. The 10-city index fell 18 percent from the year before.

April, however, marked the third straight month both indexes didn’t set record price declines. And yearly losses in 13 metros improved compared to March.

Still, the 20-city index is off almost 33 percent from its peak in the second quarter of 2006, and the 10-city has dropped by almost 34 percent, which means home values are now around 2003-levels.

From CNBC:

Five Reasons Housing Market Still Hasn’t Recovered Yet

What happened to the housing recovery?

Despite hopes that the market would begin showing signs of life this spring, the latest housing data suggests otherwise. Instead, the sector remains stubbornly moribund—trapped in a spiral of declining prices, increasing mortgage rates, unemployment and several unforeseen factors.

And with many experts believing that a real estate rebound is critical for the overall economy to recover, patience with housing is beginning to wear thin.

“We’re dealing with a problem that probably took us eight years to get into and expecting to get out of it in eight minutes, and it’s just not going to happen,” says Rick Sharga, analyst for RealtyTrac, which follows real estate trends. “The frustration might be more self-induced or self-inflicted than necessarily something the real world would create.”

Experts cite various reasons for the continuing problems with housing and say it’s unrealistic to expect a full recovery anytime soon.

Economists have all been pretty consistent in that they expect the housing market to bottom out at the end of this year or the beginning of next year,” Sharga adds. “It’s not going to be a rapid recovery.”

Experts break housing’s problems into five key areas.

1) Unemployment
…
2) Credit Availability
…
3) Price Pressures
…
4) Appraisals
…
5) Short Sales

From CNBC:

Rebound In Housing Hampered By Slowdown in ‘Short Sales’

When Vasco and Mrjama Lukic’s American housing dream turned into a nightmare, they managed to escape through a long and complicated process known as a “short sale.”

The Yugoslavian-born couple and their sons built a home in West Orange, N.J., where they hoped to settle and enjoy the fruits of many hard hours of labor.

But when their son Goren was hurt in an automobile crash two years ago, he could no longer help his parents with the mortgage payments on the house. The couple quickly got behind on their mortgage—more than a year at one point.

With no other options, they turned to a short sale—in which the lender agrees to take less than the value of the mortgage to avoid the more onerous foreclosure process. For the Lukics, it was a long and emotional road that finally ended on Thursday, when they sold their home for less than half the original asking price.

“I couldn’t work anymore. They had to do everything on their own and they were struggling,” Goren Lukic said as he drove his parents to the closing on their home. “We called up the bank and said, ‘We can’t afford the house anymore, can you guys take it?’ They were like, ‘Why not?’”

Short sales, which have taken off in the past year, have become a way out for some Americans in trouble with their mortgage. But just as the concept is gaining favor, it is already running into problems—another reason why the housing recovery is taking longer than many had hoped.

Real estate industry experts say banks are becoming more reluctant to agree to short sales, in part because the change in mark-to-market accounting rules gives them less incentive to take less than the mortgage is worth. As a result, they say, banks are holding out for what Realtors say are unrealistic offers.

“Every Realtor I talk to tells the same sort of horror story making a buy offer,” says Rick Shargo, vice president of marketing at RealtyTrac, which follows housing trends. “Interminable delays of six weeks to three months are not uncommon, or banks rejecting a 20 percent discount at short-sale only to ultimately take the property back and market it at 40 or 50 percent lower.”

For their part, bankers say prospective buyers are trying to take advantage of the situation by offering prices that are too far below market value.
…
Indeed, not all of the accounts regarding short sales are horror stories.

Some, like the Lukics, were just happy to be able to be able to dump the property and get on with their lives. After putting the house on the market initially at a price that would help them recoup their investment, the family finally realized they needed to change their thinking.

“They weren’t able to sell it because they wanted too much money for it,” said Joel Zeichner, an agent with Jordan Baris Realtors in West Orange, which represented the family. “We convinced them they needed to come up with a more aggressive price.”

Don’t miss the meet-up tomorrow!

When: Friday June 26th, 7:30ish
Where: Fitzgerald’s 1928 http://www.fitzgeralds1928.com
13 Herman Street (off Bloomfield Ave)
Glen Ridge, NJ 07028
Google Maps Link

For drivers, this is right off exit 148 on the Parkway.
For those looking for mass transit, Fitzgeralds is 2 blocks away from the Glen Ridge Station on the Montclair Boonton Line.

—————————-

From the Huffington Post:

Roiling On The Rivers Of Real Estate

To every analyst, forecaster, and economist predicting they see the bottom of the real estate market, I respond as Vinnie Barbarino might: “Where? Where?” I know the bottom is there–we all do– but much like in a polluted riverbed, it is hard to spot and treacherous to reach.

More than three years ago, I saw the banks of the NY metro housing market erode from my vantage point as an attorney wading in its waters. I saw serial refinancers, living on their equity, and watched repayment-challenged buyers receive mortgages as easily as frogs catch flies. Appraisers inflated values in far from desirable areas, encouraging investors to leave multiple homes vacant while they slapped on a coat of paint and re-faced the kitchen cabinets before cashing out from the next no money down speculators.

Then the more-more-more river turned stagnant; occasionally, like a skipping stone, a transaction did skitter along, only to sink with an inglorious “thud.” In early spring, multiple pebbles started being flung furiously at the water, causing expert analysts to calibrate and celebrate the quantity of rocks, while ignoring the clunks that frequently still follow. The bottom must be close, they espouse: look at the volume of activity in the real estate market!

I’m still deep in the real estate waters, loudly hearing the sounds of sinking stones while those in the lifeguard towers think they hear surging surf. As the summer of 2009 begins, the latest wave of “can you help me?” calls I answer are no longer primarily from “sub-prime” borrowers. I’ve either helped them, or been unable to, and they’ve moved on. Nowadays the borrowers in a boatload of trouble and months behind in their mortgages formerly had better-than-decent credit, good jobs, and 20% or more money to put down (or a great deal of equity in their homes).

Some buyers, sensing blood in the waters, want houses upgraded and improved before they close. Sellers without the funds to accommodate these demands are deemed “unrealistic” as the buyers move on. Yesterday’s market was significantly overpriced, but today’s has very little negotiation, with a significant number of buyers regressing to their toddler years to get what they want. There’s something about a population of homeowners who came into title via temper tantrums that cannot bode well for smooth sailing back to a stable real estate market.

I also come across sellers who remind me of cartoon character grandfathers, preferring to live in “the good old days” when their homes were worth 15-20-25% more. Those days are gone, grandpa–it’s time to sell the ranch for whatever you can realistically get if you want to move on.
…
There’s definitely a bottom to the real estate market. But to finish with my water metaphors, the bottom is not clearly visible through yesterday’s floating wreckage and today’s murky transactions. We need to save the drowners, repel the sharks, and raise the level of the bottom feeders. Only then will we be able to plot a safe course home.

From the AP/APP:

Northeast home sales, prices drop in May

Home sales in the Northeast declined more than 13 percent in May from year-ago levels, the worst showing in the country, as the specter of job losses loomed over the region.

The median sales price in the Northeast dropped almost 13 percent to $243,600, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.

Nationally, sales of existing homes tumbled 6.6 percent in May from the previous year, without adjusting for seasonal factors. The U.S. median sales price slid almost 17 percent to $173,000.

But James Diffley, group managing director of IHS Global Insight’s regional services group, focused more on the 7.6 month-to-month sales gain in the Northeast.

“The numbers are giving some comfort that we’re at the bottom,” Diffley said. “We have a more optimistic view than just a few months ago.”

In fact, all nine major Northeast cities tracked in the Associated Press-Re/Max Monthly Housing Report showed monthly gains in home sales. But compared to last May, sales were down across the board with with seven metro areas recording double-digit declines.
…
Jitters are still running high in the suburbs of New York, where sales fell by 30 percent, the worst decline in the region. Excluding New York City, the median price in the area fell almost 8 percent to $388,000 as job losses on Wall Street rippled through the local economy.

Mark your calendars, the long awaited GTG

When: Friday June 26th, 7:30ish

Location: Fitzgerald’s 1928 http://www.fitzgeralds1928.com
13 Herman Street (off Bloomfield Ave)
Glen Ridge, NJ 07028
Google Maps Link

For drivers, this is right off exit 148 on the Parkway.
For those looking for mass transit, Fitzgeralds is 2 blocks away from the Glen Ridge Station on the Montclair Boonton Line.

————————————

From the Record:

Report: Housing market suffered “massive shock”

The housing market has suffered a “massive shock” and faces a difficult recovery in the face of job losses, foreclosures and tight credit, according to a report released today by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

“It’s difficult to overstate the challenges in the housing market today,” said Nicholas Retsinas, director of the center, who presented the annual State of the Nation’s Housing report in New York City. “While there are some positive signs in the marketplace, the macroeconomic forces are still overwhelmingly negative.”

The good news is that the bursting of the housing bubble has made real estate more affordable. And, looking over the next 10 years, the huge “echo boomer” generation will soon start establishing their own households in large numbers, increasing demand for homes.

In North Jersey and the rest of the New York metropolitan area, homes have held their value better than in many regions of the nation as the housing bubble burst over the past several years. But price declines in the New York area have begun to accelerate, partly as a result of job cuts in financial services, a major economic engine for the region.

Eric Belsky, executive director of the housing center, said the home price declines are likely to continue in the area for some time — though they will not drop as much as in areas such as Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California, where developers overbuilt during the housing boom. Because this area is already largely developed, and state and local governments tightly regulate construction, builders did not overbuild in North Jersey.

From Reuters:

Spring U.S. housing market fell short-Coldwell CEO

This year’s peak home-buying season was lackluster, as buyers seeking to trade up to larger houses were absent, said the head of one of the country’s largest real estate firms.

Jim Gillespie, president and chief executive of Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC, in an interview with Reuters, said sales were only modest during the spring, with demand overwhelmingly dominated by first-time home buyers and investors.

“The more important ‘move-up’ buyers were absent and that is not encouraging,” said Gillespie, who is based in Parsippany, New Jersey.

Move-up buyers are those seeking to trade in their current home for a larger one, and Gillespie said that group is important for sustaining a healthy real estate market. Because of the sharp decline in housing prices and the collapse in consumer demand, homeowners are having difficulty selling their current homes to move up to pricier properties.

“They are key to a U.S. housing market recovery,” he said.
…
Gillespie said market realities have come to bear as well. As government bond yields rose, mortgage rates have naturally followed. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 5.38 percent for the week ending June 18, according to a survey released on Thursday by home funding company Freddie Mac.

That was down from the previous week’s 5.59 percent, which was the highest level since November, but up sharply from the record low of 4.78 percent set the week ending April 2.

“Many people got spoiled by mortgage rates at 5 percent and below,” he said.

“When the mortgage rate rose above 5 percent, it spooked many buyers who were already hesitant,” he said.

(Yes, this is a repost. The media finally caught on to what DB was saying.)

From Time:

New York Home Prices Forecast to Drop 40%

What’s it feel like to survive one hurricane only to be told that another is on the way? New York City–area homeowners are in just that spot. After the region suffered the brunt of financial-industry cutbacks, the next big wave of woe could be a nor’easter of collapsing home prices. That’s the forecast of an extensive new report on residential real estate by Deutsche Bank, which calls for home prices in metropolitan New York City (which includes Westchester, northern New Jersey and other nearby areas) to fall 40.6% from the prices that prevailed in March.

Ironically, that dire forecast is wrapped in an improving forecast for nationwide home prices. Back in March, Deutsche Bank analysts had expected national home prices to decline 16.5%; now they foresee just a 14% decline. That mildly upbeat news does not hold true for the New York City area, however, which is expected to see a 40.6% drop. While that is also a slight improvement from the March forecast, it is dire
…
New York City’s big problem is not so much the financial-industry meltdown as it is an intense lack of affordability. As the report notes, metropolitan-area New York home prices peaked in the second quarter of 2007 at $552,000. By the first quarter of 2009, the median price had dropped 19%, to $446,000, but the market swoon was less than half the drop recorded in many other areas of the country. Today among the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, New York ranks as the least affordable.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Deutsche Bank Predicts 40% Drop in New York Home Prices

How much further could home prices tumble in the New York City metro area? Deutsche Bank predicts a decline of 40.6% from the first quarter of 2009.

That’s a slight improvement over the 47.4% decline that the bank’s analysts had forecast in March, and it reflects in part the fact that prices have dropped since then. Still, prices would have to drop another 32% from the first quarter of 2009 to return the New York market to levels of affordability not seen since 1998.
…
Median prices in the first quarter of 2009 dropped to $446,000 in New York, down 19% from the peak of $552,000 set in the second quarter of 2007. Deutsche Bank forecasts a total peak-to-trough decline of 52.1%.

From Bloomberg:

U.S. Home Prices to Fall 14% More, Deutsche Says

U.S. home prices may fall another 14 percent, led by the New York and Orange County, California, metropolitan areas, before reaching a bottom as an increase in unemployment offsets lower prices, Deutsche Bank AG said.

“Affordability is no longer the driving issue in the housing market, and we believe prices still have a ways to fall in many areas before home prices reach their trough,” Deutsche Bank analysts led by Karen Weaver, wrote in a report yesterday. “The bottom is getting closer, but we are not there yet.”

Home prices are forecast to fall 41.7 percent from their peak, Weaver said. That’s higher than a forecast she released in March and reflects “the actual declines to date and the expected future impact on home prices from rising foreclosure inventory and unemployment.”

In March, Deutsche Bank had forecast a 16.5 percent decline in “current-to-trough” prices. While today’s projection is less than that, many metropolitan areas will still see steep declines, the report said.

In the New York metropolitan area they may drop 40.6 percent from the first quarter to the bottom, the report said, less than Deutsche Bank’s March estimate of 47.4 percent.

Financial firms have cut more than 183,000 jobs in the Americas in the global credit crisis, driving down prices and rents in the New York area. In New York City, Manhattan co-op prices slid the most since 1995 in the first quarter, according to data from Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.

From the Star Ledger:

N.J. homes slated for auction in Newark, Mt. Laurel

Dozens of New Jersey homes are scheduled to go to auction this weekend through one of the country’s largest foreclosure auction companies.

On Saturday, Hudson & Marshall is scheduled to auction more than 40 homes in New Jersey at the Renaissance Newark Airport Hotel in Elizabeth, part of a 115-home auction. On Sunday, 10 more New Jersey homes will be among those scheduled for auction at the Marriott in Mt. Laurel.

But it’s possible some or many of the homes will be gone before the auction, because buyers can submit offers through the auction house’s website.

The homes are sold as-is, and the auction house recommends that bidders visit properties with a real estate agent, who will have access to the key, before bidding.

People who submit offers through the website are in some cases asked to get pre-qualified by specific banks, though they are not required to get a mortgage through that bank.

The auctions have a reserve price, which means the owners can reject bids that are too low.

The company says the homes it auctions, which are owned by banks, are better than sheriff’s sales because the banks clear the home’s title of any liens or unpaid taxes and provide title insurance.
…
The company has auctioned 205 New Jersey homes this year and held two auctions. After this weekend, the next one should be in about three months, company spokeswoman Crystal Wright said.

From Reuters:

Is the housing bust about to take Manhattan?

New York City real estate prices are looking increasingly shaky as instability in two of the city’s sexier submarkets — second homes in the Hamptons, and new condos in Manhattan — register the latest signs of a housing downturn.

Property prices in the Hamptons, a fabled playground of the rich on nearby Long Island, rose steadily for almost two decades, but the prices on almost 1-in-3 of current listings have been cut an average 11 percent from the initial asking, said Sofia Kim of real estate website StreetEasy.com.

Back in town, the number of sales in new developments dropped a whopping 71 percent in April from a year earlier as condo developers enmeshed in complicated financing arrangements have been slow to slash prices even as the market corrected all around them, Kim said.

But if prices on these new condo towers do not fall to match the rest of the market and stay empty as a result, then it could eventually trigger foreclosures of entire properties, forcing much bigger price cuts as lenders seek to reduce their liability.

“If you have a property not priced at market, is it going to sell? Something has to give,” said Jonathan Miller, author of real estate broker Prudential Douglas Elliman’s market reports.
…
The elite in the real estate industry had once hoped Manhattan could escape relatively unhurt as other housing markets suffered. But the collapses of financial powerhouses such as Lehman and Bear Stearns destroyed such thinking.

“What ended up killing us was the foreclosure crisis because that’s what killed Wall Street,” said Rick Hoffman, a regional senior vice president in the Hamptons for the Corcoran Group, a high-end brokerage. “It bit us in the end.”