NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - If you're looking to buy an apartment in Manhattan -- that place the Indians sold to Dutch settlers for $24 in trinkets -- be ready to fork over close to a cool million.
That's right. The average price for a Manhattan apartment hit $916,959 in the third quarter -- the first time the average cracked the $900,000 level, according to real estate company Douglas Elliman.
That was 2.8 percent above the previous record of $894,617 set in the second quarter of 2001, the company said in a quarterly report.
It would take an average American family, with an average income of $42,409, according to the Census Bureau, nearly 22 years to buy an "average" Manhattan apartment -- if its entire household income was devoted to the purchase.
The average size of a Manhattan apartment, however, was essentially unchanged at 1,302 square feet, compared with 1,311 square feet in the prior quarter and 1,312 square feet in the prior-year quarter, the report said.
"Despite some lingering trepidation due to mixed local, national and international economic conditions, the Manhattan housing market continued to improve," said Jonathan Miller, who wrote the Douglas Elliman report.
The median price of a Manhattan apartment in the third quarter was $575,000, unchanged from the record set in the prior quarter but up 10.8 percent from $519,000 seen in the prior-year quarter, according to the report. The median is the exact middle of all the sale prices.
Since so many Manhattan apartments sell for well above $1 million, the average is skewed higher, the report noted.
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