Look at this - insane pricing

There are two more just like that in this building. 600 days on the market? Yikes.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/building/450-east-83-street-new_york

Additionally, 4E was resold in late 06/early 07 for $890K. It looks like the original purchaser overpaid for 3E (the apt in OP's link) to begin with (bought from developer for $1.1M. Hard to see why anyone would pay over $1M for this. And, realistically, given the 4E comp, this apartment may require a 40% chop.

One more thought - this feels a lot like the pricing strategy of mattress stores. Create a very high sticker price to capture the few people who don't know how unrealistic the sticker is, and negotiate down for those who do (the obvious difference here being that this is just one piece of inventory and the strategy would be something more like massively overprice for the small chance one person won't realize how overpriced the place is and will overpay as a consequence.)

This 'massive overprice' technique is very popular now-sellers and brokers think it will protect them when the inevitable chopping starts
25% off a ridiculously unreasonable price is still an unreasonable price (and a nice profit). Look at 25D in this bldg-they were trying to turn a 25% profit from 2006 and now with a significant reduction, all they are asking for is a 20% 2 year profit.

True - I think in many cases sellers/brokers are expecting bids 20-30% below ask on anything, so they are bumping prices up even harder. It's hilarious!

Did you see this one
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/345212-condo-450-east-83rd-street-yorkville-new-york

$16m for yorkville? Priceless!

could it be a mistake? They upped it by 10 million

No-I think they struck oil in this apt.-so you get an oil well to go with the gold leaf trim and great views! Once that second avenue subway comes (any year now), you can ship your oil out of yorkville and the price of this place will really take off.

Would you like to buy some shares in the Brooklyn Bridge?

Would you like to buy some insanely overpriced condos near the Brooklyn bridge?

touche!

The first one is 700 square feet at most. The $16 million one - LMAO. Maybe I'll just sell some stock that just lost 60% of its value so I can buy an apartment that will lose 80% of its value. Sounds like a great investment opportunity.

many brokers just dont know how to create value in the eyes of the buyer. Its a shame that at this price it will most probably stay on the market for another 600 days. OUCH

"This 'massive overprice' technique is very popular now-sellers and brokers think it will protect them when the inevitable chopping starts "

Problem is, it will backfire. When the market will see all these massive price cuts, buyers will flee even more. We're likely to see serious OVERcorrection.

I hope so

The overprice technique is just dumb and is not going to fool anyone who can use the Google and the internets.

I would imagine that there is almost always some sort of "overcorrection" when a market bottoms-out before it moves forward again. Does anyone have any previous examples of this in NYC?

Anecdotally, absolutely. Some 5th ave co-ops (70s) sold for $1 in the 70s bottom. In all the worst years, you could pick things up for less than rental costs. At the time, they might not have *seemed* like overcorrections, but after the fact they made sense vs. renting in a number of ways...