When too many investors buy in a new building

I can't get past the first paragraph:
"At One Riverside Park, a new luxury-condo tower on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a never-lived-in four-bedroom apartment is available for rent at $22,995 a month -- about $2,000 less than the owner was seeking in January."
First of all, a less than 10% price chop is not newsworthy.
Second, who in their right mind would live in this location?

Yeah, you should only live there if you have a private driver because there's no public transportation to speak of. You also get to walk out your door and see the IRT smokestack to the left 2 blocks down.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRT_Powerhouse

CCL3, It is called marketing and Chinese desire for brand new as buildings in China do not get maintained well. Hence, old is not good. For these reasons, I think if you are buyer in a new development, you are paying at least 10% premium for marketing relative to say something only a few years old (once in while the new development gets famous like CPW15 which keeps the desire up). However, there are some people like you who just want a new development regardless.

15 CPW is a good location. What is the basis of comparison?

And stop attacking the Chinese.

300_mercer, you don't think there should be a fair premium for totally un-lived in, i.e. zero wear and tear, unused appliances, no repainting or removal of prior owner's fixtures etc that you hate?

It should be much less than 10% for something 3 years old vs brand new ($50k-$100k max for me). New developments come with a neutral paint color. Most people repaint it to the color they like any way. This is typically 1 coat job as wall finishing is not needed and wood work typically does not need repainting. You can get some one for $200 per day from Janovic and they will finish in five days for 2 bed room (no high/semigloss or woodwork paint as you will need to pay much more for it). Most owners have added some closet interiors which in my opinion add value. New construction may not have inside of the closets finished. Unused applianced do not matter much. High end Gas stoves and fridges have 25 year life. Minor appliances such as dishwasher can be replaced for under $5k if you really need to. In addition, developers like to understate the maintenance of new development. Usually it goes by 20-30% after the developer is out of the picture in the first couple of years.

CCL3, Another thing to be kept in mind is that a big chunk of value of Manhattan real estate is from land value say $1000 per sq ft. So 10% premium I am estimating for brand new vs a few years old is really ~20% of the construction cost.

I wanted to move to a smaller apartment in a condo where I owned my apartment. I changed my mind after I noticed that the purchases over the past year mostly became rentals. Many neighbors had problems with one family that rented (fire crackers shot off on common terrace, playing baseball outside laundry room, riding bikes around hallways, noise, improper disposal of garbage and recyclables,......). We got nowhere because their "landlord" was on the Board. It was very hard to track down other "landlords" living outside the condo. So the Board had a very lax attitude towards enforcing the bylaws/house rules.

So a lot of condos are turning into rental properties with a separate "landlord" for each apartment. This was not the case in the condo I lived in before that.

Don't forget that buying in a new development in addition to a higher price your closing cost are also higher.