Psst... Wanna buy a slice of Manhattan Condos?

No, I'm not talking about buying into the Trump Tower. I'm referring to what the Wall Streeters call synthetic investment. Get exposure in your vast financial portfolio to profits in the Manhattan real estate market via a derivative contract. And you never have to worry about dealing with property taxes, garbage collection, cockroaches, or Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, real estate derivatives firm Radar Logic announced their Manhattan Condos Index. Radar publishes these indexes upon which the derivatives contracts are based. Go long and you make money when the New York Condo market is strong. Go short and you make money when the Condo market in Manhattan tanks.

This contract marks the first time a housing futures market has been local enough to accurately hedge against value declines in a specific property. If you already have your Manhattan pied-a-terre, you can lock in your gains.

This product is doubly sexy because most of the people likely to trade this index live in... you guessed it... Manhattan Condos. I'm really looking forward to seeing if they get some volume.

Altos Manhattan Condo Data

So how's the market? Since we publish data and reports for all the Radar Logic markets, on Thursday we released the Altos Manhattan Condos composite. Like all our real estate derivatives data, the Altos Manhattan Condo composite covers the same ground as the Radar Logic version, but watches the properties as they're on the market, so leads the index by several months. Here's what the Manhattan Condo market looks like:

Price per square foot for condos in Manhattan. Data does not include coops. Data as of February 28, 2008. The Radar Logic data is expressed as price per square foot and trades are paid on moves in price per square foot so that's what we're showing here.

Holding up nicely, eh? We'll see how this winter's credit carnage impacts the prices in Manhattan in the coming year. New York has an added dimension that most American cities do not: the cheap dollar means that rich Europeans are seeing bargains in NYC for the first time in a decade. That dynamic is adding to condo demand.

But even if you're not paid in euros, you can now get your slice of the action too. Rock on.

More details on our real estate derivatives products here.  Contact us if you want to see some sample data.