Are Manhattan Apartments Cheap?

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Close Noah Rabinowitz for The Wall Street Journal

A view of the skyline in Midtown East from the East River. A new analysis of Manhattan apartment-price trends finds that things aren't quite as expensive as they appear.

To live in Manhattan is to believe that never before have apartment prices been so expensive.

But a new 10-year review of trends in apartment prices raises a few questions and footnotes over the rights to brag and moan about the high cost of getting a place to live in Manhattan: The median apartment price in 2012 was $835,000, but adjusted for inflation, it was the lowest since 2004.

That figure, the result of roughly flat prices in Manhattan since the collapse of the housing market in 2008, shows that despite some marquee sales to billionaires at home and abroad, overall apartment prices may not be quite so bad as they seem.

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