Manhattan Luxury Real Estate Recorded Its Best Week in at Least 15 Years. Now more than $600 million of luxury real estate went into contract in Manhattan last week, making it the strongest-performing week in at least 15 years. There were 67 contracts signed for residences in the borough priced at $4 million or more in the week ending Nov. 21, the most sales recorded in a single seven-day stretch so far this year, according to a report Monday from Olshan Realty. In fact, there were seven more contracts signed than the previous record, set the prior week. [Source: Mansionglobal.com ]
“For the fifth time this year, 50 or more contracts were signed,” wrote Donna Olshan, president of Olshan Realty and the report’s author. The volume of $613.74 million “was the luxury market’s strongest performance since this report was launched in 2006.” The previous sales volume record was in mid-December 2013,, when 72 deals went into contract totaling $576.18 million.
Additionally, 127 homes have gone into contract in the last two weeks for a total of nearly $1.2 billion in sales, the data showed. Of those deals, 51 units were sold by developers.
Despite that, townhouses topped the list of the biggest contracts signed last week.
The No. 1 deal was a 23,450-square-foot townhouse on East 68th Street that was listed for $29.5 million, according to the report. The six-story, 39-foot-wide house has been divided into 13 rental units and needs to be renovated.
The second-priciest deal last week was just a block away, on East 67th Street. The 13,300-square-foot home was most recently asking $27.5 million, an $11.5 million discount from its original listing price in March 2018. The home features a limestone facade, seven bedrooms, nine-and-a-half bathrooms, 10 fireplaces and more than 2,200 square feet of outdoor space.
Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone owned the townhouse, having purchased it in 2004 for nearly $10.4 million. Mr. Falcone was charged with securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2012, and accepted a settlement the following year. The property was headed for a foreclosure auction earlier this year, but it was canceled after an appeal from Mr. Falcone. [Source: Mansionglobal.com ]
