The Real Deal New York

From the January issue: At the dizzying height of New York City’s real estate boom, apartment owners commonly put their homes on the market, then watched as the flood of offers — often at or above the asking price — streamed in. Buyers, meanwhile, waited anxiously for the seller’s verdict, preparing to heap tens of thousands of dollars on top of the original offer. Now, the opposite is true, brokers say. Potential buyers are now putting very low offers — often 20 to 40 percent less than the asking price — on multiple properties at the same time, a strategy that was virtually unheard of only a few months ago. Sellers, increasingly desperate to unload their property, are countering offers they once would have considered insulting. And as lowball offers become the norm, this back-and-forth seems to be accelerating the downward slide in prices.