BY JOHN N. FRANK
REALTOR® magazine’s managing editor is reporting from Real Estate Connect NYC, taking place in New York, Jan. 9–11.

One of the main messages that keeps surfacing at Real Estate Connect this week has been how different the New York real estate market — and specifically Manhattan — is from the rest of the country.

While headlines talk of housing downturns in places like Miami, Las Vegas, and Southern California, Manhattan remains extremely strong.

Pamela Liebman, president and CEO of The Corcoran Group, one of the largest real estate brokerages in New York, noted in a panel discussion Thursday that Corcoran had a record year in 2007. Liebman stopped short of predicting a record 2008 but added that people waiting for the New York market to slow down are missing some key factors that make Manhattan different, such as:

• Foreign buyers. With the U.S. dollar weak, American real estate is a bargain for overseas buyers. And if overseas buyers have enough to buy a place in the United States, chances are they want to be in a major city like New York.

• Financial hub. New York real estate is partly driven by the health of the financial industry and the size of bonuses Wall Street firms give out each year. With those firms troubled now, how large those bonuses will be in the near future is open for debate. Last year bonuses were high and so real estate benefited.

• Low inventory. Buildings that were once abandoned now have been rehabbed. Parts of town that people once wouldn’t want to walk through — like the Bowery area of lower Manhattan and the Williamsburg section in Brooklyn — are hot housing markets now simply because of their locations close to the action.

Give Buyers a Reminder

But even a hot market can cool, and Liebman’s advice on that topic has value for real estate pros everywhere, not just in New York.

“Get buyers to focus on why they’re buying,” she said.

Instead of buyers thinking about real estate as an investment play, they should be reminded of why they want to move — a new child, the need for more space, and so on. That will help them get their priorities right and ultimately buy a place they can happily call home.