In its January 2011 newsletter of Manhattan Economic Indicators, Eastern Consolidated reviews the 2010 investment sales market by property type. Though packed with great data to provide a snapshot of the overall market, what jumped out t me was the upward trend for development site sales since the beginning of 2009. The market for Manhattan development sites was essentially paralyzed following the Lehman collapse in 2008. With no construction financing available and the condo market in a free fall, the bid-ask gap in land pricing was so wide that only a handful of sales took place in 2009, the majority of those to users. However, as Eastern Consolidated illustrates in their table, the trend began to reverse itself in 2010, with a notable upward trend in the volume of Manhattan land sales.

eastcon land sales

Seems that there is once again a market for land and developers are positioning themselves to get back to work. A textbook case of the real estate cycle in motion.