From the November issue: After the binge comes the purge. The condo auction market is heating up in Jersey City, as developers look to move the glut of apartment inventory amassed during the heady building boom in recent years. Distressed sales of properties are also expected to accelerate in the area, with lenders increasingly looking to wipe their hands clean of troubled mortgage loans. The urge to purge is the fallout from a frenzied period of condo construction in Jersey City — a stone’s throw from Wall Street — where about 5,000 new units came on the market at premium prices, sources estimate. Condo prices in Jersey City, which saw a steep run-up during the boom, have dropped between 15 and 25 percent since the height of the market in 2006, experts estimate. Meanwhile, the number of condos closing today in Jersey City is down about 45 percent compared to the peak of early 2007, according to the Marketing Directors, which sells new developments in markets across the country, including Jersey City.

When a broker switches firms, mailing out glossy announcement cards is the easy part. What’s not so simple is wresting listings away from the old firm to bring them to the new one. The armor-plated contracts that govern exclusive listings threaten sellers with punitive fees or lawsuits if they try to pick up and follow a relocating broker.

But the recent shuttering of several New York firms has shaken loose hundreds of listings, in a whirlwind that few have seen in years, brokers say.

“There have definitely been a lot of listings in play that otherwise wouldn’t be. It’s very unusual,” said Michael De Rosa, a senior vice president at Halstead Property who joined the firm in June after Coldwell Banker Hunt Kennedy closed. more