New York City’s investment sales market is showing some modest signs of recovery. According to the latest quarterly report from i-sales brokerage Ariel Property Advisors, the total dollar volume in the fourth quarter was $4.7 billion, up 18 percent from the third quarter total. That was just about a half of the total volume during the same period last year, but the quarter-over-quarter jump is noteworthy, said Ariel’s president Shimon Shkury. “We’re starting to see real evidence of improvement, not just in transaction volume, not just in pricing, but in general activity and fundamentals as well,” he said. During the second and third quarters, Shkury said, investors were reluctant to make deals because of mounting uncertainty stemming from the pandemic. But almost a year into the health crisis, they have more data to work with — and thus, can “get a lot more comfortable with investing,” as Shkury put it.