Citywide, property sales of all types were on a tear by virtually any measure in the first half of this year, according to a report from Massey Knakal Realty Services Tuesday morning. The total dollar volume came to $27.4 billion—the highest since the peak of the property bubble in 2007 and up 88% from the first six months of 2013.

Meanwhile, at 2,643, the number of property sales citywide in the first half of the year is on pace to set an all-time record this year. Those gains came as prices per square foot rose by 8% to $440 per square foot, with Manhattan, as usual, leading the pack. There the average price per square foot of properties south of 96th Street hit $1,171, driven by an ongoing explosion in the cost of retail space, the most dynamic part of the market. So broad were the gains and so large the scale that Massey Knakal Chairman Robert Knakal peppered his overview of the market Tuesday morning with the word "remarkable." At one point he used the word three times in a single sentence. Other times Mr. Knakal went even further, describing the 45% gain in the per square foot price of Manhattan retail properties as "extraordinary." The per square foot price reached $2,687, topping already lofty 2013 levels.

Mr. Knakal also noted that the figure did not include the recent sale of the retail condominium at 737 Madison Ave. occupied by Chanel, a transaction that shattered records at $30,950 per square foot.

In the three boroughs beyond Manhattan, the picture was much the same. In Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx sales totaled $7.1 billion in the first half, which puts dollar volume on track to blow the previous record set in 2007 out of the water—beating it by 45%. And in Brooklyn, the busiest and richest market outside Manhattan, the total value of properties sold in the first half reached $3.4 billion, close to exceeding the figure for all of 2013.