A slump in Manhattan residential real-estate prices is beginning to take place in an unlikely place: the top of the market, where apartments cost more than $7 million.
“The high end has been stagnating for almost two months,” said Dolly Lenz, one of the nation’s most successful brokers. “It’s taking a longer-than-usual pause. The big boys seem to have already bought their trophy properties.”
Concerns over less-generous Wall Street bonuses, higher finance costs, and a softening national consumer market is keeping buyers of $7 million-plus properties at bay while mansion markdowns are already happening in the ritziest tristate suburbs and in the Hamptons.
While the end of summer is traditionally a slower time of the year, brokers say it’s a different feeling than in the past.
In Manhattan, two notable new construction condominium projects, 15 Central Park West and The Plaza Hotel Residences, are already posting closing costs for hyperexpensive units, including the purchase of a $42.4 million apartment in the name of Joan Weill, the wife of former Citigroup Chairman Sanford Weill, and $51 million worth of apartments slated to become most of one huge residence.
“Most of those big contracts were signed at the beginning of the year, back when record Wall Street bonuses were handed out, and even the year before that,” said a broker familiar with both buildings.