Apartment sales in the luxury honey pot that is Manhatten have slumped to an 18 year low in the first quarter as the threats of recession looms large coupled with the cuts in jobs on wall street.

New York Real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel released figures in a report today that make alarming reading, notably that sales have fallen by 34 percent from the previous year and that unsold housing units are up by 4.6 percent.

The average price for an apartment/ condominium in the highly prized area currently stands at $945,000.

Miller Samuel President Jonathan Miller said in an interview that: “If it continues along this pattern, we’re in a period of transition to a weaker market” and this slowdown will see a stagnation in the turnaround of units and eventually a slowdown in pricing.

With the increase in the housing stock available it is not necessarily a lack of demand more a lack in urgency and many potential buyers are hoping for if not expecting a drop in prices.

This is coupled with the fact that wall Street drives Manhattan property prices and with around 34,000 jobs lost in just the last nine months, and $230 billion wiped off the value of security firms, the high bonuses that were fueling the property market have now evapourated.

According to Gregory Heyn, chief economist for Terra Holdings. Around 30 percent of all the sales recorded in the first quarter were actually under contract prior top the credit crunch and subsequent economic turmoil and so the findings are likely to be worse than the figures actually indicate

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