an example of the insanity

That's not insanity. That just a waste of time, effort and bandwidth. Whey the broker even cares to hold the listing is the real mystery/insanity.

Can you say - DELUSIONAL?!?!

yes, but if you do a search for 3 bedroom condos on the UES, excluding Yorkville, this is the fourth cheapest of 231 listings. that's what is truly insane.

this place looks like a 2 br, not 3. i'm not sure if there's a window in the bedroom by the entrance. odd to say the least.

their XXX mint, in the pictures, is my "needs a gut". the maintenance and taxes are approaching $3K per month. that's high in everyone's book ($2800/1300 = 2.15).

where's the private outdoor space??????

I think that area is unique in some ways. Notably, many older people are very "set" about how much their properties are worth. They may have heard a "figure" from a neighbor, a realtor friend, or some family member, and they tend to hold onto that figure, as though anything less would be a "crime."

So, if an agent tells them the current reasonable price, they'd immediately hire him/her by saying, "Don't get smart with me, you fool! You are trying to pull the wool over my eyes because I am old!" This happens a lot. That neighborhood has more of such sellers per capita than the rest of the NYC neighborhoods in my experience.

If the seller really wants/needs to sell this place, it's going to be really, really hard because the $1.5M-plus resale market isn't doing well at all. They should wait, or they should cut the price to compensate for the high monthlies (over $2 pf with no modern amenities) and attract a market below that market threshold. Oh, also, I am not even getting into the possibility of square-footage inflation here...