Another day, another sign that the Manhattan real estate market is on the rebound. At the risk of overstating things -- or of stating the same thing too darn often -- what's important to note here is that while the market for Manhattan apartments is notably improved over its 2009 status, the median price for NYC condos is still comparatively cheap. Again, that's relative to what the price of a Manhattan condominium was in 2008, but... does anyone even remember 2008? It was weird. The Phillies won the World Series and frankly with a few exceptions it's probably better just to forget the whole thing. Anyway, off-topic. What's important: the market for NYC condos is pretty clearly on the rebound, but the prices for NYC condos don't seem to reflect that yet. Check the numbers:

There were approximately twice the number of condominium sales in the first quarter of 2010 as the same period a year ago. The number of condominium sales jumped 99.5% to 2,384 Sales in the first quarter from 1,195 sales in the same period a year ago, but saw a 3.6% decline from 2,473 sales in the prior quarter.

There were 8,027 Manhattan condominium listings at the end of the first quarter, 23.1% below the 10,445 Manhattan condominium listings in the same period last year, but 17.2% higher than the prior quarter total of 6,851. This excludes an estimated 6,500 units of new development "shadow inventory." Listing inventory levels are slightly above the 7,117 average level for the decade.

The median sales price of a Manhattan apartment was $868,000, 11% below the $975,000 median sales price of the prior year quarter, but 7.2% above the $810,000 median sales price of the prior quarter. This price indicator has shown stability since the second quarter of 2009.

The average days on market for NYC condos -- that is, the number of days from a condo's last list price change, if any, to the contract date on said condo -- fell to 124 days from 170 days in the prior year quarter as properly-priced listings "moved to the head of the line" before a growing amount of over-priced inventory.

Listing discount contracted sharply as sellers were becoming more in sync with market conditions. The listing discount fell to 5.4% from 12.4% in the prior year quarter and from 12.8% in the prior quarter.