Second Homes Beckon as Real Estate Prices Drift Down

July 31 2008 - It may be the best time in more than a decade to buy a country house.

While some homebuyers are waiting for Manhattan real estate prices to decline, others are finding deals in the exclusive second-home markets outside New York City. In Litchfield County, the North Fork of Long Island, and Dutchess and Columbia counties in upstate New York, which have been more affected by the national housing slump than New York City, listing prices are falling while inventory is increasing. As mortgage rates begin to creep higher, the best time to buy is in sleepy August, brokers say, before an uptick in activity expected this fall.

“It’s a great time to buy because I really think we’ve hit the bottom out here,” a managing director for the North Fork of Long Island at Brown Harris Stevens, Suzanne Hahn, said. “Cyclically, 2008 is probably the best time to buy since the mid-1990s.”

Despite slowing sales, home prices in Manhattan have stayed strong in recent months, buoyed by lucrative sales of high-end properties and an influx of foreign buyers. In the second quarter of 2008, the median sales price of a Manhattan apartment exceeded $1 million for the first time in history, reaching $1.025 million, a 14.5% increase from the prior-year quarter, according to the appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

Second Homes Beckon as Real Estate Prices Drift Down
by CANDACE TAYLOR | New York Sun