Manhattan's luxury for-sale apartment market is stabilizing and improving slightly, according to several new reports from major brokerages.

A study prepared by Prudential Douglas Elliman by Miller Samuel Inc., for example, noted that "price indicators continued to show stabilization" and that "the median sales price of a Manhattan apartment was $899,000 in the second quarter, up 7.6 percent from $835,700 in the same period a year ago and up 3.6 percent from $868,000 in the prior quarter."

Average sales price, it continued, showed the same pattern, "rising 9.1 percent to $1,432,712 in the second quarter from $1,312,920 in the prior year quarter." The chart at the right is from the Prudential Elliman report.

"Price per square foot is a more reliable indicator of overall price trends in the second quarter due to the general increase in the size of apartments that sold," it noted, adding that "The average square footage of a Manhattan apartment that sold in the second quarter was $1,364 square feet, up 9.7 perecent from $1,243...in the prior year."

The Prudential Douglas Elliman report said "there were 2,756 sales in the second quarter, up 79.9 percent from 1,532 sales in the prior year quarter."

The report prepared by Gregory Heym for Brown Harris Stevens and Halstead Property reported that "apartments sold during the second quarter spent an average of 112 days on the market, 13 percent less time than a year ago," adding that "Buyers paid 96.6 percent of the last asking price for apartments that closed in the second quarter, up from 92.6 percent a year ago."

Pamela Liebman, chief executive officer of The Corcoran Group, noted that "the second quarter is typically the strongest sales period of the year, and this year was no exception as the Second Quarter 2010 brought a flurry of buyers back" and her company estimated that there were "forty-seven percent more transactions" than in the previous year's second quarter."

"A variety of factors encouraged buyers this quarter," she continued, "stabilized prices, lower inventory levels, interest rates at historic lows, increased consumer confidence, a strong lending environment with greater availability of jumbo loan financing, and the completion of many new developments."

She also observed that "the role of the first-time homebuyer tax credit has been marginal in Manhattan sales."

"Manhattan listed available inventory has decreased 24 percent since its peak in March 2009 and is now just over 9,400 units," the report maintained, adding that "this number does not include 'shadow,' or unlisted and unsold, new development units."

"The solid sales and modest increase in prices in most apartment categories led some analysts to suggest that New York market was beginning to heal, despite uncertainly about the overall direction of the economy in the months ahead," Josh Barbanel wrote in in an article yesterday in The Wall Street Journal. He also noted that "last week, a triplex co-op at 141 Prince Street was sold for $27.5 million, the highest apartment sale price of the year in Manhattan, by Elie Tahari, a fashion design and clothing executive" who had bought the apartment from Rupert Murdoch in 2005 for $24,675,000.