I like looking at real estate values over longer periods of time because it helps to put things into perspective. 

Below is a land value index for Manhattan running from 1950 to 2014 that was recently created by economists out of Rutgers University.

The study was also cited in this recent article by Richard Florida.

Here are some of the highlights from their study:

We find three major cycles with land values reaching their nadir in 1977, just after the city’s fiscal crisis.

Since 1993, land prices have risen much faster than population or employment, at an average annual rate of 15.8%.

We estimate the entire amount of developable land on Manhattan in 2014 was worth approximately $1.74 trillion.

We estimate the long run return to Manhattan land values [since the island was first inhabited by Dutch settlers in 1626] to be about 6.4%.

What’s fascinating to me is the accelerated appreciation. The index starts at 100 in 1950, ends up slightly above that by 1993, and then simply takes off.

The New York Post has some interesting articles, here and here, on the growing retail vacancy problem in NYC. (Thank you Michael for the link in the comments this week.)

The vacancy rate on Amsterdam Avenue in the Upper West Side is said to be around 27% and it is said to be around 20% on a stretch of Broadway in Soho. It has become such a problem that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to implement some sort of retail vacancy tax:

“I am very interested in fighting for a vacancy fee or a vacancy tax that would penalize landlords who leave their storefronts vacant for long periods of time in neighborhoods because they are looking for some top-dollar rent but they blight neighborhoods by doing it,” he said on WNYC. “That is something we could get done through Albany.”

But this is based on the assumption that greedy landlords are simply holding out for exorbitant rents. It doesn’t consider the fact that, maybe, there is simply too much retail space:

Only a few grasp the true scope of the problem. Vornado Realty Trust titan Steven Roth said we can only cure the national plague through “the closing and evaporation” of up to 30 percent of the weakest space — which would take five years.

All of this, of course, has me thinking about the future of ground floor main street retail. What are your thoughts?

Tishman Speyer just unveiled a new condo project in Brooklyn called 11 Hoyt. And it just so happens to be Studio Gang’s first residential project in New York City. Preview above. More renderings over here.

It’s a 51 storey condominium with 480 residences and 55,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities. The unit mix ranges from studios to four-bedroom residences, and prices range from $600,000 to over $4 million (USDs, of course).

If you’re from Toronto, you’re probably looking at the renderings and thinking to yourself: “There are no balconies or outdoor spaces.” But that’s fairly typical in the NYC market, as I understand it.