New York City

Like a nagging case of "pneumonia" that brings with it random, yet inevitable, bouts of full-body paralysis, the rumors/threats of Hillary tossing her hat in the ring for the New York City Mayoral race simply won't go away.  The latest example comes from a Quinnipiac University Poll which analyzed a hypothetical head-to-head match-up between Clinton and New York's current mayor, Bill de Blasio.  Unfortunately for de Blasio, the poll found that, while he would beat almost everyone else whose name has been mentioned as potential contender, he would almost certainly be crushed by Hillary. 

When Douglas Eilliman released their 3Q 2016 recap of Manhattan real estate sales, it basically showed that pricing held up during the quarter as sellers refused to lower their asks but the number of closings collapsed as buyers started to back away from a market that was starting to look bubbly.  Here was our conclusion at the end of 3Q:

Luxury real estate broker Olshan Realty, Inc. has some bad news for New York's hedge fund managers looking to dump their luxury $5 million, 1,500 square foot palaces as the market for luxury New York City real estate just might be on the verge of collapse.  Accroding to a year end report published by Olshan, contracts for luxury co-ops (defined as those with an asking price above $4mm) collapsed 25% in 2016 while the average number of days that apartments sat on the market surged 31% and discounts to original listing price also jumped a point to 6%.

Residents of New York City reported seeing a military Doomsday Plane flying close to the Trump Towers late Tuesday afternoon.  According to multiple reports on Twitter, either a Boeing E-4B (Doomsday Plane) or a C-130 (military plane) were spotted and filmed circling the air around midtown for over an hour before leaving the airspace. The secretive Doomsday Plane (also known as the National Airborne Operations Center) is a U.S. government plane designed to keep the US government running in the event of a nuclear war.

For months we've been warning that real estate markets in NYC and San Francisco, among others, are getting ready to rollover as the market is about to be flooded with new supply of luxury apartments (see here and here).  Real estate in both markets are just starting to show signs of cracking as the apartments sales cycle is getting stretched out and pricing growth has stalled.