New York City Real Estate Values Projected to Increase 3.8%

The value of New York City’s more than 1 million properties may rise 3.8 percent to $845.4 billion this fiscal year as the real estate market recovers, according to a projection by the city Finance Department.

Commercial properties, including Manhattan’s signature office towers, will gain the most, with a 7.9 percent increase to $222.7 billion, according to the tentative assessment for fiscal 2013. “Market forces” -- changes in supply and demand - - accounted for more than half that increase, the Finance Department said today in a statement.

A jump in assessed property values increases the amount of money New York City can borrow, as set forth in the state constitution. The city can owe as much as 10 percent of a five- year average of the value of its taxable properties. For fiscal 2012, that was $76.1 billion. The amount is projected to increase to $77.8 billion in fiscal 2013, to $79.5 billion in 2014, and $81.2 billion by 2015.

Residential buildings with more than three units will rise 5.2 percent in assessed value, according to the city’s forecast. Average tax bills paid by property owners in that category, which includes rental apartments and most condominiums, would increase $195.77 to $4,150.60, the Finance Department said. For single-, two- and three-family homes, plus condos in buildings of three stories or fewer, the projected gain was 3.1 percent, with a tax increase of $119.02 to $4,082.

Manhattan will have the largest rise in market value, 5.9 percent, according to the city’s report. Following are the Bronx, with a projected gain of 3.6 percent; Brooklyn, 3.2 percent; Queens, 2.2 percent; and Staten Island, 0.7 percent.

Major Office Buildings

The city estimated 111 Eighth Ave. in Manhattan, the almost 3 million-square-foot (279,000-square-meter) industrial building that Google Inc. bought in 2010, would increase 17 percent in taxable value, the most among 16 “major” office properties included in the report. The value would rise 15 percent at the Seagram Building, 13 percent at the General Motors Building and 15 percent at 666 Fifth Ave.

New York City commercial-property prices rose 6 percent on a per-square-foot basis in 2011, Massey Knakal Realty Services said in a report on Jan. 17. Retail properties and elevator apartment buildings in Manhattan increased the most -- 37 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Office values climbed 22 percent, the New York-based brokerage said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-19/new-york-city-real-estate-values-projected-to-increase-3-8-.html