New York City Sees People Moving In as Pandemic Eases

Despite dire predictions of New York City becoming a ghost town, real estates agents have reported signing more contracts with buyers in January 2021 than they did before the pandemic in January 2020.

A report from Douglas Elliman Real Estate found that apartment purchases doubled in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as the pandemic lulls and mortgages plunge, encouraging a surge in demand.

“When I saw January’s numbers I went, ‘yes.’ We are on the right track,’” Steven James, the CEO of Douglas Elliman New York City, told NY1.

Though many of Manhattan’s upper-class left for Florida and the Hamptons, they have started to come back as the city’s vaccine programs provide a sense of light at the end of the tunnel.

And for those less well-off, the plunging prices have provided an opportunity to buy in New York City that may not have existed before the pandemic.

Rental prices throughout the five boroughs have sunk by 20%, and Manhattan sales prices have sunk by 4%.

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smarcus@hamodia.com