First-time buyers take advantage of low prices

First-time buyers are taking advantage of the city’s plummeting home prices and realizing their money can take them further than before. An interior designer looking for a home between $200,00 and $250,000 in Washington Heights recently bid $240,000 on a $299,000 home, and after some negotiations, the seller settled for $255,000. And a doctor bid $970,000 on an Upper East Side condo listed at $1.15 million last summer. By the time the seller responded weeks later, home prices in the city had fallen further, and the doctor wanted to lower his offer. Negotiations fell through, but the same apartment was later relisted at $950,000.