Manhattan Bargain: Condos for less than $3 million

[Lucky Luciano]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/manhattan-bargain-condos-for-less-than-3-million

When Related Cos. began selling condominiums at one of its former rental buildings last month, 50 people showed up in the first two days for an only-in-Manhattan bargain: almost all the homes cost less than $3 million.
Carnegie Park, a 1980s-era rental property, was renovated as a condo building where one-bedroom apartments with 690 square feet (64 square meters) start at $765,000. The average price for all units is about $1,300 per square foot -- roughly 30 percent less than the average for a newly built Manhattan condo sold in the fourth quarter, according to appraiser Miller Samuel Inc.
“We are flooded with requests from buyers to come look at the property,” said Benjamin Joseph, the Related senior vice president who oversaw the conversion of 368 rental homes to 325 condos at 94th Street and Third Avenue. “We’re so busy, our sales agents can’t even schedule them all.”

After years of building ultra-luxury condo towers aimed at setting price records, Manhattan developers are taking a detour to satisfy demand from people who can’t afford the highest-end offerings. About 3,845 non-luxury units under development will be listed for sale in the borough this year, more than double the number available in 2014 and the most in data going back to 2009, according to brokerage Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group.
The firm’s definition of non-luxury for Manhattan is less than $2,300 a square foot -- still far from affordable in comparison with the rest of America, where new single-family homes sell for an average of about $94 a square foot, according to the most recent Census Bureau data (PDF). But for New York, development at that level is opening up opportunities to more buyers in an area starved of new housing for people who aren’t multimillionaires.

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