In parts of Brooklyn, buyers are still paying top dollar for coveted brownstones, and in some neighborhoods in Queens, the market is buoyed by immigrant buyers who won%26#8217;t let a housing slowdown blindside their dreams of homeownership. And yet in the Bronx, foreclosures are rising in poorer neighborhoods. In Staten Island, prices are flat and foreclosures are up. At the top and bottom of the market, houses are still selling. The markets in these four boroughs are more varied than those in Manhattan and the suburbs. Manhattan co-ops and condominiums are still getting record prices; the average sales price in the first quarter reached a record $1.7 million, although activity seems to be slowing. Suburban home prices are declining. Figures released by Standard %26#38; Poor%26#8217;s/Case-Schiller showed that prices for single-family homes in the New York City area dropped by 5.8 percent from January 2007 to January 2008.At first glance, much of the market in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island looks as sluggish as in the suburbs, according to data from several sources. PropertyShark.com says that the median sales price fell by 27 percent in Queens from February 2007 to February 2008, by 6 percent on Staten Island and Brooklyn, and by 2 percent in the Bronx. There are serious signs of a slowdown. Fewer people are buying: sales volume in Queens dropped by 25 percent from February 2007 to February 2008, 31 percent in Brooklyn, 36 percent on Staten Island and 50 percent in the Bronx. Then there are foreclosures. In the four boroughs, 895 homes were lost to foreclosure in the first quarter of this year, compared with 529 in the first quarter of 2007.But based on interviews with more than two dozen real estate brokers, the weaker sales figures don%26#8217;t tell the entire story, because prices vary by neighborhood and within neighborhoods. Part of the question is: How do you define a slowdown? Some Staten Island brokers see a rising number of foreclosures, while their counterparts in Brooklyn see fewer bidding wars on co-ops in Fort Greene. In both cases, this represents a changing, and slower, market, but it also represents very different realities. The brokers all agreed that real estate prices and sales volume aren%26#8217;t what they used to be. %26#8220;It%26#8217;s taking longer to sell anything,%26#8221; said Bill Shepherd, a 15-year broker with Brown Harris Stevens who hasn%26#8217;t closed on a house in Prospect Lefferts Gardens in Brooklyn since October. %26#8220;What might have taken a month to three months, it can take three to six months.%26#8221;BrooklynIn Brooklyn, prices have been holding relatively steady and there has been only a small rise in foreclosures. The median price for a home sold in Brooklyn fell to $392,313 in February 2008 from $418,700 in February 2007, according to PropertyShark.com. These numbers reflect the high prices being paid for brownstones in neighborhoods like Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights. In other areas, like East New York, homeowners are facing foreclosure. In fact, foreclosures in Brooklyn rose to 140 in the first quarter this year, compared with 129 in the same period a year earlier. Brokers find themselves trying to keep up with an increasingly confusing market. In February, Marty Ellman, a broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, closed on her first short sale, a $785,000 home in Prospect Heights. (A short sale occurs when the sales price is less than the amount owed on the mortgage.) But in March, she mediated a bidding war among 15 buyers for a two-bedroom apartment in Fort Greene that got $50,000 more than the asking price. At this point, she sees more bidding wars than short sales. %26#8220;Properties are flying off the shelf,%26#8221; she said.For the right price, buyers are also still buying in less affluent neighborhoods like East Williamsburg and Clinton Hill, said Highlyann Krasnow, executive vice president of the Developers Group, a real estate marketing company. Her company sold 20 of the 24 one-bedroom condos at 223 Maujer Street in East Williamsburg at prices that began at about $360,000. She said that before the housing slowdown, prices would have been $40,000 to $50,000 higher. %26#8220;Most of our buyers are still coming from Manhattan,%26#8221; she said.But these buyers are doing more homework, and they want good deals. They could learn from the experience of a broker who did a lot of research before buying her own place in Brooklyn. In January, Ailene Quinlan, a 34-year-old broker with the Developers Group, signed a contract on a one-bedroom condo at 111 Steuben Street in Clinton Hill. 1 2 3 Next Page %26#x00bb;
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