Less buying based on blueprints

Fewer people are buying apartments based on blueprints, before the building has gone up. At the Soho Mews, at 311 West Broadway between Canal and Grand streets, the sales brokers had about 20 appointments per month in the summer, and 60 percent of those potential buyers returned for a closer look in October when they could walk through the apartment. “The speculative nature of the marketplace is completely gone … you have to work that much harder to sell a building if it’s just a hole in the ground,” said condo marketer James Lansill.