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The median price for Manhattan apartments reached a new high $755,000 in the second quarter of 2006 as demand remained strong in a report prepared by Gregory Heym, the chief economist of Halstead Property LLC.

The data was provided by ValuExchange TM, a database that contains the transactions of all Terra Holdings company and the report is based on 2,655 sales.

The report found that the average price declined to $1,212,453, a five percent decline from the second quarter last year, reflecting more sales of smaller apartments in new developments.

Cooperative apartment prices, it continued, averaged $1,257,571 in the second quarter, a new record and 7 percent higher than a year ago. Two bed-room co-op had an average price of $1,562,758, a 23 percent increase over the same period last year, while four-bedroom and larger cooperatives had an average sales price in the second quarter of 2006 of $5,875,424, down considerably from $7,365,740 in the same quarter last year.

The average price for condominiums fell sharply, according to the Heym study. The average last year was $1,416,920. This year the figure was $1,172,972 as there was ¿glut of closings of small apartments in new developers, many of which were located outside o the more established condo markets. Like co-ops, condos with four or more bedrooms declined sharply in the second quarter.

The average price per square foot for new construction and conversions bell to $1,083 from $1,294 a year ago, but the average price per square foot for loft apartments of $1,005 was 7 percent higher than the same quarter last year.

The average price per square foot for townhouses was $1,266 in the second quarter of 2006, down 3 percent from the same period last year.

On the East Side, which includes the Upper East Side and Midtown East, the Halstead report found that two-bedroom apartment prices averaged $1,922,110 on the East Side in the second quarter, 36 percent higher than the comparable period last year. Average prices of studios climbed 11 percent to $376,288, while one-bedroom units climbed 15 percent to $669,511 and four-bedroom apartments declined 23 percent to $5,326,258.

New listings on the East Side declined 20 percent from the second quarter last year, led by a 24 percent decline in three-bedroom apartments.

On the West Side, two-bedroom apartments had an average price of $1,558,808 in the second quarter, up 20 percent from the same quarter in 2005. The average price for studio units climbed 4 percent to $391,296, 6 percent for one-bedrooms to $689,670 and fell 13 percent for apartments of four-bedrooms or more to $4,350,707.

The West Side, according to the Halstead report, witnessed a 3 percent increase in new listings in the second quarter as compared to the same period last year, while the downtown market saw the number of new listings decline in the same period by 4 percent.

Downtown studio apartments sold for an average of $415,660 in the second quarter, 19 percent higher than the previous year.

A report prepared by Jonathan Miller for Prudential Douglas Elliman Manhattan Market Overview last week had somewhat similar results. It found that the average price per square foot rose 11.6 percent to a record of $1,083 in the second quarter as compared to $970 in the same period last year and that the median sale price rose 13.5 percent to $880,000.

The average price was a record $1,386,193, up from the $1,317,528 in last year¿s second quarter, the Miller report maintained, adding however, that unsold units were at their highest level since 1999 and sales were down almost 15 percent.
Architecture Critic Carter Horsley Since 1997, Carter B. Horsley has been the editorial director of CityRealty. He began his journalistic career at The New York Times in 1961 where he spent 26 years as a reporter specializing in real estate & architectural news. In 1987, he became the architecture critic and real estate editor of The New York Post.