Wed Feb 23,12:39 AM ET
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In uptown Manhattan, condo and co-op apartments sold for a median price of $305,490 in 2004 -- up a whopping 349.3 percent from $68,000 in 1995 -- according to a real estate report released on Wednesday.
And the 2004 price is up 32.8 percent from $230,000 in 2003.
Those figures shatter an urban dream that came true often enough in the past: Someone willing to venture far north of the nosebleed street numbers -- north of 116th Street on Manhattan's West Side or 96th Street on the East Side -- had a good shot of finding an apartment to buy for a bargain price.
No longer.
[...]
WHERE $1 MILLION IS 'AVERAGE'
Overall, the average sales price of a co-op and condo apartment on the entire island surpassed $1 million for the first time to $1,004,232 in 2004 -- up 140.5 percent from the average of $417,585 in the previous decade -- and 18.1 percent higher than 2003's average of $850,340.
In 2004, the average price per square foot set a record of $767 per square foot for residential real estate versus $324 per square foot in 1995 -- and above $672 a square foot in 2003.
The median sales price exceeded $600,000 for the first time in 2004 and reached $605,859 -- up 192 percent from $207,500 in the previous decade -- and up 22.4 percent from $495,000 in 2003.
===== "I'm not too worried by hegemony / I know the cadre will look after me" - Magazine, "Model Worker," 1978