Morning Briefing: New York real estate hits $1 trillion but has it peaked?

New York real estate hits $1 trillion but has it peaked?... Southern Georgian Bay home sales set new record… Tennis star Davenport scores “doubles” win on home sale…

New York real estate hits $1 trillion but has it peaked?
The value of New York City’s real estate has reached $1 trillion for the first time according to data from the Finance Department. A surge in property values in Brooklyn is one of the key factors in the rise in assessed values which totals $1.072 trillion for the 2017 fiscal year, up 10.6 per cent and following a 9.1 per cent rise for the 2016 year. In Brooklyn assessed values soared 16 per cent, more than double last year’s rise. The increased assessments will translate into almost $200 for NYC single-family home owners to pay in taxes, bringing the total for the 2017 fiscal year to $5,138.

However, there are signs that the city’s housing market growth is slowing, especially for luxury homes. Bidding wars are becoming less frequent and asking prices are slipping according to realtors. “I have seen more broker incentives and price reductions in the last few months than I’ve seen in the last three years combined,” Leonard Steinberg, the president of the real estate brokerage firm Compass told the New York Times.

Compass analyst Bennett Rosnick added that the percentage of properties with reduced asking prices in the last four months of 2015 jumped to around 20 per cent, double the proportion in the same period of 2014.
 
Southern Georgian Bay home sales set new record
Home sales in the Southern Georgian Bay region increased to 3,157 for the whole of 2015, up 10.9 per cent from 2014 to set a new record. The Southern Georgian Bay Association of Realtors says home sales in the western part of its region increased 7.1 per cent year-over-year while the eastern sector surged 19.3 per cent.

“2015 was the best year ever for the local housing market, and those same sales and price trends look set to continue into 2016,” said Kevin Woolham, President of the Southern Georgian Bay Association of REALTORS®. “As with many other parts of the province, record levels of demand are draining listings off the market far faster than new supply can replenish them, and with more buyers chasing fewer listings you get the kinds of price gains we saw in 2015.”

Inventory in the area remains at a decade low with just 918 active listings on the MLS at the end of December, down 38.6 per cent from the same month in 2014.
 
Tennis star Davenport scores “doubles” win on home sale
Three-times Grand Slam tennis champ Lindsay Davenport has scored a convincing win on the sale of her Californian home. Davenport and her husband John Leach bought the Laguna Beach home for $1.3 million in 2000 and has sold it for more than double at $2.835 million according to the OC Register. However, it was not an easy victory; the couple’s asking price was $3.25 million last June and cut to $3.1 million in September. The three bedroom home in a gated community was listed by Harold Noriega of HOM Sotheby’s International Realty.