Leading Economic Indicators: Housing Starts And Brooklyn Sales

In Brooklyn, the Bubble still builds:

A new report, exclusively obtained by The Post yesterday, shows that townhouse and apartment prices in Brooklyn remain through the roof, despite a market slowdown nationwide.

And some of the borough’s hottest hoods are even outpacing parts of Manhattan.

The average sales price for one- and two-family Brooklyn homes for the first half of 2006 was $586,000 — a 15.6 percent jump from the $507,000 seen in the same period last year, according to the first-ever midyear sales report for the borough from the Real Estate Board of New York.

Prices for Brooklyn co-ops and condos also continued to surge.

The average apartment sold for $491,000 in the first six months of 2006 — up 4 percent from $472,000 for the same period last year.

But in a strange twist, the surging Brooklyn real estate market actually seems to be an indicator of the cooling housing market:

Interior designer Rony Sandoval recently paid $545,000 for a one-bedroom apartment in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, that was once part of a Catholic school.

He said he first looked in Manhattan but found it “outrageously expensive” before stumbling upon his bargain in Cobble Hill, where apartments sell for an average of $628,000.