From left: David Kornmeier and 137 West 74th Street (credit: PropertyShark)

In the recent news flurry of record-breaking condominium and co-op sales, attention seemed to be drawn away from another notable purchase that quietly hit public records in late April. The price paid for the Upper West Side townhouse located at 137 West 74th Street doesn’t directly compare to the hefty amount exchanged for these other record-breaking purchases, but it does mark the highest price paid for an Upper West Side townhouse that isn’t located on a Central Park block. [more]

Kyle Blackmon

From the April issue: Christopher Jeffries, cofounder of real estate development firm Millennium Partners, last month listed his duplex penthouse at the Ritz-Carlton for $77.5 million. That price tag makes Jeffries’ apartment, at 50 Central Park South, the most expensive condo on the market. But even if it goes for the full asking price, it won’t be the priciest Manhattan home ever sold. That honor, of course, goes to the penthouse at 15 Central Park West, which former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill recently sold to Russian chemical magnate Dmitry Rybolovlev for a record $88 million. The go-to broker for both deals? Kyle Blackmon, a 34-year-old Brown Harris Stevens senior vice president who’s been in residential real estate for less than a decade. [more]

From left: Dottie Herman of Elliman, appraiser Jonathan Miller, Pamela Liebman, CEO of the Corcoran Group and Gregory Heym of Terra Holdings

Despite some major high-end deals closing last month, Manhattan’s luxury residential market, which has been strong since the third quarter of 2010, may soon lose its reputation as the most talked about sector in the real estate industry, according to Jonathan Miller, president of appraisal firm Miller Samuel. [more]

Brown Harris Stevens Development Marketing President Stephen Kliegerman and the Dillon

Brown Harris Stevens is in and Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group is out at the Dillon condominium in Hell’s Kitchen, the new marketing team announced today. Twenty-eight units remain available in the seven-story SDS Procida-developed building, at 425 West 53rd Street. [more]

From left: Jan and Charles Cowles and the unit at 84 Mercer Street

A 9,000-square-foot co-op at 84 Mercer Street which hit the market yesterday is New York City’s largest available simplex, according to father and son team Siim and Rudi Hanja of Brown Harris Stevens, which is marketing the listing. The apartment was previously listed in 2009 with double the asking price.

In fact, the unit, which is owned by Jan Cowles, the mother of financially troubled art dealer and collector Charles Cowles, stretches the entire 200-foot length of the building, from Mercer Street to Broadway, they said, and even has two separate entrances. It is the largest one-floor unit available in the city. [more]

Aerial view of the Hamptons

Home sales below $1 million boosted the volume while decreasing the median price on the East End of Long Island, according to fourth-quarter 2011 market reports from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens released today.

Sales in the fourth quarter were higher than expected, holding steady year-over-year, despite the fact that changes in tax rules produced an artificial uptick in the fourth quarter of 2010, Elliman’s Hamptons/North Fork sales report indicates (see chart). [more]

Source: Prudential Douglas Elliman

A sharp drop in national mortgage rates coupled with a barrage of weak economic news in the fall drove down the overall average prices of property sales in both Brooklyn and Queens in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to reports from Prudential Douglas Elliman and Brown Harris Stevens, released today.

In Brooklyn, home prices overall declined largely due to a jump in the volume of sales of lower-priced co-ops. The average sales price dropped by 7.5 percent to $529,640 in the last quarter of 2011 from $572,892 in 2010, while the number of total sales increased by 6.1 percent to 1,558 from 1,468, according to Eliman’s report. Meanwhile listing inventory decreased 4.8 percent to 5,908 units from 6,203 the year-prior quarter. [more]

The third floor of 1107 Fifth Avenue, a 4,000-square-foot co-op with a 4,000-square-foot terrace, just hit the market for $29.5 million.

The 10-room apartment, at 92nd Street, is the top floor of what was originally the Marjorie Merriweather Post triplex, which was New York City’s largest apartment when it was built, in 1926, at 54 rooms, according to the listing. One of America’s earliest notable heiresses, Post was the first woman to sit on the board of a major corporation — General Foods. [more]

From left, Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Dottie Herman, Halstead Property’s Greg Heym and the Corcoran Group’s Pamela Liebman The volume of Manhattan home sales declined at least 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, although prices continued to hold steady, according to quarterly reports issued today by the city’s largest residential real estate brokerages. Experts proffered a host of explanations for the drop in sales activity, from global economic chaos to low inventory levels to financing issues for buyers in the middle of the market. [more]

An apartment formerly owned by composer George Gershwin and his lyricist brother Ira has hit the market for $2.5 million, Curbed reported. The Gershwins lived in the three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom co-op unit at 33 Riverside Drive and 75th Street around the time they wrote ‘Girl Crazy,” according the listing, which was in the 1930s. The duplex’s historic ties to the past could warrant a renovation and restoration by a motivated buyer, Curbed noted. The apartment, which has a master bedroom suite on the main floor and two bedrooms, a home office and a marble bath on the lower level, is listed with Lisa Lippman and Scott Moore of Brown Harris Stevens. [Curbed]