Hurricane's impact New York

According to CNN.com, the prices of New York City luxury apartments have dropped in this recent third quarter. The average sale of a luxury home dropped about 26% in a single quarter, dropping from $5.2 million to now $3.8 million. It was also 7 percent below the average price of $4.1 million. Not everything was down in the third quarter, however. The average price per square foot rose 1.4 percent, to $984, compared with the second quarter and it was up 22.5 percent from the year-ago price. Economists are putting the blame on Hurricane's Rita and Katrina, but what do you think could be the reasoning behind the drop in price of New York City real estate? What other factors caused such a huge drop between quarters?