Prices seem to be cooling down at the top of the luxury market.
While developers are still trying to break records — with new condos hitting the market that range between $150 million at the Sony Building and $175 million at 220 Central Park South — sellers are handing out significant discounts, according to the New York Daily News.
The most notable price chop in the city’s history was a nearly 50 percent discount on penthouse at the Pierre, which went from an asking price of $125 million to $63 million.
More recently, top-grossing broker Fredrik Eklund together with fellow Douglas Elliman broker John Gomes slashed a fourth off the price of their most expensive listing at 11 N. Moore Street, the newspaper reported.
The price chops are a bad sign for the luxury market, according to the newspaper.
Still, it doesn’t mean records won’t be broken.
“There are situations where developers have gotten numbers that left everyone scratching their heads,” Warburg Realty’s Jason Haber told the newspaper. The city’s first $100 million condo was sold at Extell Development’s One57 earlier this year. “When the numbers at One57 first came out, everyone said, ‘No way.’ But, for the most part, they got them.”
For others, the sky high prices are getting to be too much.
“It’s starting to get to the point where it’s nauseating to people. It’s like, ‘Why don’t you just put a number like $250 million on it if you’re going to be ridiculous?’ The numbers are meaningless,” Andrew Gerringer of the Marketing Directors, a new-development sales firm, told the Daily News. “Unless your country is physically crumbling and you need to get your money out, or you’re getting ready to go to jail, I can’t think why you would put $175 million down for anything.” [NYDN] — Claire Moses