If you want to buy real estate in Manhattan, you better get ready to write a big fat check.
According to a report published today by DouglasElliman Real Estate, the average price for a condo or co-op in the borough for 2014 was $1,718,531, a 19% jump from the average transaction of $1,443,753 in 2013. The median sales price also went up, rising to $940,000 from $855,000.
For the final quarter of the year, the median sale price was $980,000, the highest since before the financial crisis.
Sale prices for luxury homes also went up. The average sale price for a luxury unit in the fourth quarter was $3,156,968, up 17.2% year-over-year.
The price increase was driven largely by limited availabilities and a “higher than average” demand, according to the report.
How does the data stack up against the rest of the country? Here are a few examples:
In Cleveland, the median home price for the fourth quarter was $87,500, according to Trulia. This means that for DouglasElliman’s median price in Manhattan, you could buy nearly 11 homes at the median price in Cleveland.
Trulia marks Chicago’s median home price at $224,500, so you could buy around four homes in the Windy City with the money you’d use for the median price in Manhattan, according to DouglasElliman.
Finally, there’s the case of Detroit, where Trulia lists the median home price as $39,000. That means if you spent the report’s Manhattan median in Motown, you could buy 24 houses.
