REAL ESTATES FORUM

The New York Times
February 3, 2008

Home Prices Start to Dip, Recalling ą90s Slump
By PATRICK McGEEHAN

For homeowners in the metropolitan area, all of the talk in the past year
about a real estate collapse may have sounded as foreign as a Bollywood
musical.

After all, the value of the typical home in the area has more than doubled
in this decade. And at the regionąs core, the prices of apartments in
Manhattan have floated upward on seemingly unquenchable demand.

But lately, more cracks in the housing market have begun to show, and the
trend is reminding some analysts of the severe downturn in the region during
the recession that followed the boom years of the late 1980s.

Even in Manhattan, signs of weakness have appeared beneath the headlines
about ever-rising average sale prices of condominiums and co-ops.

A report last week found that rents in Manhattan declined in January, by
more than 7 percent in some neighborhoods, according to the Real Estate
Group New York.

The latest set of numbers łreinforces our sentiment that the market has, in
fact, turned,