Developers score $725 million loan to build another super-tall tower on Billionaires’ Row CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS

 

A new super-tall tower will rise along midtown’s so-called Billionaires’ Row now that the project’s developers have secured a $725 million construction loan for the $1 billion spire.

A partnership between JDS Development and Property Markets Group has received financing from AIG and Apollo Global Management to build 111 W. 57th St., a 1,438-foot-tall tower that will be the tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere when it is completed in 2018.

AIG is the senior lender, while Apollo is providing a mezzanine loan. The size of each loan could not be determined, but construction loans are generally as high as about 60% of a project’s value, which would put AIG’s debt at about $600 million and Apollo’s mezzanine loan at about $125 million.

Neither JDS nor PMG would comment on the deal.

The developers began work on the spire last year, pouring its foundation and renovating an existing building that it is preserving on the site and incorporating into the new tower. The project is often informally referred to as the Steinway Tower because the ground floor of that existing property has a landmarked interior that was the former showroom for the piano maker Steinway & Sons. That space, which features an ornate domed ceiling and marble columns, will serve as part of the retail space in the new tower.

Now that the loan has been secured, the developers will begin erecting the SHoP Architect-designed 111 W. 57th St. in the coming weeks. The building will be a mere 60 feet wide, making it dramatically slender even among a new crop of pencil-thin condo spires. The exterior of the tower will feature a distinct stepped spire resembling a tilted deck of cards.

The city’s ultra-high-end residential market has been heating up. In recent weeks, The Real Deal reported that a Middle Eastern buyer was in talks to purchase the upper portion of 220 Central Park South, a new condo tower being built by Vornado Realty Trust just a few blocks from 111 W. 57th St., for a record $250 million.

The strong sales and eye-popping sums have, at least for the time being, allayed concerns in recent months over a glut of multimillion-dollar apartments in the coming years and whether there will be enough buyers for the influx of inventory. A total of about 13,000 new condo apartments will be built through the end of 2016, most of which will be priced at least $3,000 per square foot, according to Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

“To me, the question that will determine the success of these projects now is how long it will take for buyers to absorb all of these high-priced apartments,” Mr. Miller said. “Billionaires’ Row is really a whole new market, it’s not an extension of anything we’ve ever had before.”

JDS and PMG’s loan expires in four years, giving the developers time to sell the 60-unit 111 W. 57th St. Sales for the tower are expected to begin in the fall.

The developers have a good track record when it comes to selling high-end apartments. They converted a former Verizon-owned structure in Chelsea into a luxury building, known as Walker Tower, that became one of the city’s best-selling residential projects in recent years. Separately, JDS recently closed on a $390 million construction loan for a pair of rental towers it is building at 626 First Ave.

Alfa to buy Gramercy development site for nearly $70M The Real Deal

 

 

 

Alfa Development is in contract to buy a four-building Gramercy Park development site from Kevin Maloney’s Property Markets Group and Kasra Sanandaji’s Apex Investments for $69.6 million, The Real Deal has learned. Alfa, a Chelsea-based development firm led by Michael Namer, will likely build condominiums on the site, said M.L. Perlman, vice president of development and marketing. The existing properties, along with additional air rights, collectively offer more than 90,000 buildable square feet — and allow for a building as tall as 20 stories.

PMG and Apex began assembling the low-rise, mixed-use properties last year, paying $9.5 million for 253-255 Third Avenue and $7.6 million for 261 Third Avenue in two separate deals, according to property records. Then, just last month, they paid $15.6 million for a pair of buildings at 257 Third Avenue and 259 Third Avenue, near East 21st Street. The four properties contain residential rental units as well as significant retail space. PMG and Apex intended to construct an affordable housing building on the site, but are now selling all four properties in a deal slated to close by August 1. “Currently, PMG has a number of properties under construction including 111 West 57th Street and 10 Sullivan, two additional sites breaking ground this year and several in the planning stage,” Maloney said in a statement to TRD. We are also very busy in Miami and Chicago, so I thought it prudent to focus on these and sell the site at 21st Street and Third Avenue.” Cushman & Wakefield’s Bob Knakal and Jonathan Hageman, who represented the sellers, declined to comment.

Alfa also developed Chelsea Green, a 20-story, 51-unit condo building along 21st Street in Chelsea. “We’re excited to participate in the strong real estate market in the area, just steps away from Gramercy Park,” Perlman said. Elsewhere in the neighborhood, Akelius Real Estate Management picked up a 17-story rental building at 301 East 21st Street for $167.5 million in May, as TRD reported.

POLLS: ‘The Trump steamroller’ continues to crush GOP rivals — even in their own states

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(AP/LM Otero) Donald Trump.

Polls continue to shower good news on real-estate mogul Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.A Tuesday StPetePolls.org survey even found Trump leading two of his GOP rivals — in their home state of Florida.

The poll found Trump with 26% of the vote among Republican primary voters in the state, compared to 20% for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) and roughly 10% for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida). Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), with 12%, also led Rubio.

Both SaintPetersBlog and the Drudge Report labeled it a “SHOCK POLL.”

Trump reportedly reacted to the poll by telling Breitbart News, “I have always loved Florida, what a great honor.”

The Florida-based pollster’s track record has been criticized — and, of course, it is still very early in the race — but the poll is only the latest in a long line of recent surveys that have shown Trump ahead of the GOP pack.

A Monmouth University poll, also out Tuesday, found that the Republican businessman had opened up a two-to-one lead over Bush — his nearest primary rival — in New Hampshire.

A NBC News/Marist poll released Sunday gave Trump 21% of the GOP vote compared to 14% for Bush in the Granite State. And another Sunday poll, a national survey from CNN, also found Trump in the No. 1 position in the primary.

The good news comes despite a string of recent controversies that have placed negative media light on Trump’s high-profile campaign. Among other things, Trump briefly dismissed Sen. John McCain’s (R-Arizona) “war hero” status before backtracking and saying the opposite. McCain was captured, tortured, and held as a prisoner of war for five years during the Vietnam War.

“The controversy over comments about John McCain’s war service do not appear to have slowed the Trump steamroller,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University poll.

In Memorium Alex Rocco, Who Played Moe Greene in ‘The Godfather,’ Dies at 79

Alex Rocco as Moe Greene in “The Godfather.” The actor emerged from the film with a collection of signature lines. CreditParamount Pictures

( editors note: although not our usual inclusions in our site, Alex Rocco was a favorite of some of our principals and we wanted to observe his passing.  Goodbye Alex, Rest in Peace)

Alex Rocco, the gravelly-voiced actor whose gallery of memorable characters included Moe Greene, the cocky, bespectacled Las Vegas casino owner who made the mistake of talking back to Michael Corleone in “The Godfather,” died on Saturday at his home in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 79.

The cause was cancer, his manager, Susan Zachary, said.

Mr. Rocco had fairly limited screen time in “The Godfather” (1972), but he emerged from that film with a collection of signature lines, including “You don’t buy me out. I buy you out” and “Do you know who I am?” (both spoken to the Godfather-in-waiting, played by Al Pacino), and a Hollywood reputation for stealing scenes with little more than a Boston attitude and his eyebrows.

In 1990 he won an Emmy Award for his role as a larger-than-life old-school talent agent in the well-reviewed but short-lived Jon Cryer sitcom “The Famous Teddy Z.”

Mr. Rocco’s other noteworthy films included “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), with Robert Mitchum; “Freebie and the Bean” (1974), one of several projects he did with Alan Arkin; Tom Hanks’s “That Thing You Do!” (1996), as a fast-talking music executive; “The Wedding Planner” (2001), as Jennifer Lopez’s old-fashioned father; and “A Bug’s Life” (1998), as the voice of the grumpy grain-counting ant Thorny. (He once said of his voice work, which also included the role of a cynical cartoon producer on “The Simpsons,” “It’s like stealing money.”)

“It always seems like if I’m not killing somebody, violently, I’m playing somebody’s dad,” Mr. Rocco said in an interview with The A.V. Club in 2012. In the same interview, he talked about meeting with the director Francis Ford Coppola about the role in “The Godfather.”

He recalled saying: “I’m Italian. I wouldn’t know how to play a Jew.” Mr. Coppola, he recalled, suggested hand gestures that could differentiate the two ethnic groups. “Greatest piece of direction I ever got,” Mr. Rocco said.

Alexander Federico Petricone Jr. was a Leap Year baby, born in Cambridge, Mass., on Feb. 29, 1936, to Alexander Sr. and the former Mary Di Biase. He often told journalists that he worked in his youth for gangsters in the Winter Hill neighborhood of nearby Somerville, but an early stay at the Middlesex House of Correction in Billerica, Mass., turned him against a life of crime.

He never wanted to sacrifice his privacy again, he said. So he tossed a coin to decide whether to start a new life in Miami or Los Angeles. Los Angeles won.

Mr. Rocco moved to Southern California in the early 1960s and worked as a bartender while studying acting with Leonard Nimoy. His first film role was in “Motorpsycho!” (1965), a Russ Meyer special in which he played a biker-gang rapist. Between that movie and his role in “The Godfather,” he was typecast quickly in films including “The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” “The Boston Strangler,” “Wild Riders” and “Blood Mania.”

He was most recently seen in “Scammerhead,” a noirish comedy, but two films he made are awaiting release now. In “Silver Skies,” a comic drama about eccentric retirees, he plays a nice guy, nostalgic for his days as a guard at Paramount. In “The Other,” a thriller, he’s the owner of an estate where dark, demonic things seem to happen.

Mr. Rocco married Sandie Elaine Garrett in 1966, and they had three children. She died in 2002. He married the actress Shannon Wilcox in 2005. She survives him, as do a son, Lucien; a daughter, Jennifer Rocco; a stepson, Sean Doyle; a stepdaughter, the actress Kelli Williams; a sister, Vivian De Simone; and four grandchildren. Another son, the director Marc Rocco, died in 2009.

Mr. Rocco told interviewers that he enjoyed playing gangsters, and that he used his “street energy” in show business.

 “I don’t mean you have to be overbearing, but you have to stay on top of things — read the trades, know what’s going on in the town,” he told the website comicbookmovie.com in 2011. “I call it ‘dare to be stupid.’ The worst thing they can say is, ‘We got nothing for you.’ So I’ve hustled a lot.”

 

NYC’s biggest development foes

Meet some of the city’s most visible preservationists

July 27, 2015 09:09AM

Gale Brewer and Andrew Berman

Gale Brewer and Andrew Berman

While ever-taller, ever-faster new development in New York City seems to be par for the course these days, a crop of powerful anti-development voices works behind the scenes to slow things down. The city’s biggest development foes include Michael Gruen, the attorney who led the charge to stop the Willets West shopping mall based on the argument that it was to be built on public parkland, according to Crain’s. Ray Sloane, president of the Cobble Hill Association in Brooklyn, is a leader in the fight against the redevelopment of Long Island College Hospital, and once proposed bottling Gowanus Canal water for officials who wanted to build housing along its polluted shores. Andrew Berman, leader of the Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Society, championed the opposition to NYU’s expansion in the neighborhood, but lost his court battle this month. And on the government side, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer is a natural ally of the preservation movement. At a time when Mayor Bill de Blasio’s top priorities include building vast numbers of affordable housing units and upzoning neighborhoods to allow taller towers, preservation is a particularly hot topic. [Crain’s] — Tess Hofmann –

Anonymous buyer grabs Time Warner Center penthouse from “Tower of Secrets” seller for $51M

Russian billionaire listed 78th-floor unit for $75M in 2013

July 24, 2015 12:05PM
By Rey Mashayekhi

Time Warner Center at 25 Columbus Circle (inset: Andrey Vavilov)

The city’s bid to crackdown on shell companies used to purchase luxury properties hasn’t lifted the “veil of secrecy” yet – a 78th-floor Time Warner Center penthouse sold for $51 million late last month to an unnamed buyer, according to property records filed with the city Friday.

Columbus Family LLC is listed as the purchaser the five-bedroom, 8,300-square-foot apartment at 25 Columbus Circle. Elizabeth Sample and Brenda Powers of Sotheby’s International Realty listed the penthouse for $75 million in 2013, with Brown Harris Stevens dropping the price to $68 million a year later.

The seller, Southerndown Inc., had until recently also been shrouded in mystery. The New York Times, in its far-reaching “Towers of Secrets” series in February, reported that Russian billionaire Andrey Vavilov set up the shell company to purchase the penthouse from Austrian-born investor Gerhard Andlinger for $37.5 million in 2009. Andlinger also sold the penthouse well below its original asking price of $65 million in 2008.

Legal representatives for both the buyer and seller could not be reached for comment.

New disclosure requirements by the city could make the anonymous purchase of luxury properties more difficult, by requiring the names of shell company members to be released to the city.

 

Huffington Post refuses to cover the Donald Trump ‘clownshow’ on its politics section

Business Insider

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donald trump

(REUTERS/Chris Keane) Real estate developer Donald Trump speaks during the Freedom Summit in Greenville, South Carolina May 9, 2015.

The Huffington Post is no longer going to cover Donald Trump’s presidential campaign on its politics section. In a post published on the site Friday, Huffington Post Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim and Editorial Director Danny Shea explained they would be moving all coverage of Trump, who has starred in multiple reality television shows, to the entertainment section.”Our reason is simple: Trump’s campaign is a sideshow. We won’t take the bait. If you are interested in what The Donald has to say, you’ll find it next to our stories on the Kardashians and The Bachelorette,” they wrote.

The post was subsequently shared by the site’s co-founder and editor-in-chief Arianna Huffington on Twitter.

This decision comes even though the Huffington Post’s own poll tracker shows Trump leading the Republican primary field.

In a conversation with Business Insider over Twitter direct messages, Grim explained the rationale behind the decision, described how coverage of Trump will look going forward, and addressed potential criticism of the decision.

“Yes, that’s us passing judgment, but I’d argue it’s still objective, as he is objectively a clownshow,” Grim said of Trump.

According to Grim, Trump will still be included in the site’s polls of the 2016 field. Grim said those polls with Trump will still appear in the politics section “as will be his impact on the field, the immigration debate and politics generally.”

Business Insider also asked Grim whether the decision to move Trump coverage to entertainment was effectively “having it both ways.” In other words, the Huffington Post is getting attention and credit for ignoring Trump while still getting traffic from stories about his White House bid on the entertainment section.

“Yes, though we have always been a mix of high and low,” Grim explained. “All this says is that we’re properly classifying him as low.”

With Trump leading in some polls, Business Insider also asked Grim how Huffington Post would handle it if Trump wins the GOP nomination.

“He will not. I’m as likely to get it as he is,” Grim said of Trump’s chances of becoming the Republican nominee. “He’s only where he is because of the big field. When the field winnows, he fades.”

Trump and his team did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

U.S. opens embassy in Cuba

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla will travel to the Cuban Embassy in Washington to raise his country’s flag, an event that Cuban government officials said will be broadcast live on the island’s state-run TV.

A Cuban delegation of diplomats, artists and veterans of the revolution will then commemorate the breakthrough with about 500 guests and more than likely down a few celebratory mojitos and shots of Havana Club rum.

U.S. diplomats in Havana have readied everything from new business cards to the embassy sign. But the festivities and flag-raising will have to wait for Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit — the highest-level trip by a U.S. official to Cuba since the 1959 revolution — for the embassy reopening ceremony in August.

(7 things Americans should know about travel to Cuba)

Starting Monday, U.S. officials said, the Cuban government will pull back some of the tight cordon of security that had surrounded America’s diplomatic mission in Havana and no longer record the names of Cubans entering the building.

The Cuban and American heads of their respective Interest Sections will became charges d’affaires until ambassadors are named.

Plenty of longtime enmity to overcome

“A new stage will begin, long and complex, on the road toward normalization,” Cuban President Raul Castro said in a televised address last week to the Cuban people. “Which will require the will to find solutions to the problems that have accumulated over more than five decades and hurt ties between our nations and peoples.”

If there were ever two countries in need of a “new stage” of relations, they are Cuba and the United States.

Already frayed ties between Washington and Havana snapped in 1961 when Cuban leader Fidel Castro threatened to expel American diplomats for meddling in Cuban affairs.

The United States had blasted the Cuban government’s seizure of American property and the summary executions of officials from the Fulgencio Batista regime that Castro had overthrown.

“There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, announcing the rupture.

Swiss diplomats took over the maintenance of the seaside former U.S. Embassy and the sprawling ambassador’s residence in Havana.

The failed U.S.-backed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro’s declaration that his revolution was socialist, repeated CIA plots to assassinate Castro, and the Cuban Missile crisis further poisoned affairs for the decades that followed.

But in 1977, during a brief period of improved relations in the Carter administration, Cuba and the United States opened Interests Sections in their former embassies.

A step below embassies, Interests Sections allowed the Cold War foes to have diplomatic dealings without officially restoring relations.

Keeping a diplomatic low profile in Cuba

Diplomats returning to the old U.S. Embassy in Havana found years of dust accumulated on the furniture and calendars from 1961 still on the walls.

Since the United States couldn’t fly the American flag or name an ambassador to Havana, there were no obvious signs of a large U.S. diplomatic presence in Communist-run Cuba.

(With Iran and Cuba deals, Obama goes legacy-hunting abroad)

“Most Americans who visit Cuba seem to think there’s no relationship, there’s just a tiny room in the Swiss Embassy. And every day they are driving past the old embassy, but they don’t know there’s an embassy because there’s no flag,” said Vicki Huddleston, who was chief of the Interests Section from 1999 to 2002.

With 51 Americans and 300 Cuban employees, the U.S. Interests Section is one of the largest diplomatic missions of any country in Cuba.

But instead of improving relations with Cuba, the Interests Section often served as a lightning rod for confrontation.

The Cuban government plastered propaganda around the building, including one iconic sign that showed a fatigue-clad revolutionary telling a hissing caricature of Uncle Sam, “Mister imperialists, we are not the least bit afraid of you!”

Fidel Castro called the section “a nest of spies” and led frequent marches with hundreds of thousands of supporters in tow to protest U.S. policies.

Tarantulas would show up in the oddest places

Cuban intelligence kept a close eye on American diplomats’ comings and goings.

“They had 3,000 to 4000 people that were focused on our personnel, trying to recruit them or harass us,” said James Cason, the chief of the Interests Section from 2002 to 2005. “They would break into your house and do things to show they had control of your existence. In my days, if they knew you didn’t like spiders, you would find a tarantula wandering around your room.”

Cuban diplomats serving in the United States complained of similar harassment at the hands of American minders.

Sometimes the intimidation backfired, as when Huddleston was informed that her Afghan hound, Havana, could no longer take part in local dog shows.

“You have been thrown out of the dog club because of your country’s policies and your actions,” Huddleston said the letter of expulsion read.

But negative publicity over the incident led Cuban officials to declare it all had been a mistake, since the dog really belonged to Huddleston’s husband.

“The Cubans were really embarrassed,” Huddleston said. “Fidel said he would give my husband’s dog a pardon. “

Sometimes it was the United States that sparked diplomatic incidents, such as in 2006 when diplomats installed an electronic ticker across the top floor of the Interests Section to display information the Cuban government didn’t want reported.

“We decided we would talk over the heads of the regime by putting the moving billboard in the top floor of our windows,” Cason said. “And one day, to the surprise of the regime, we started off with, ‘People of Cuba, how come we can go to your hotels and you can’t?’”

The Cuban government responded by erecting a “forest” of 138 flag poles to block out the offending American messages. Eventually both the ticker and the flags came down.

‘We have a formal relationship’

Despite the clashes that often grabbed headlines, in recent years the United States and Cuba have quietly increased cooperation on combating drug smuggling, migrant interdiction and protecting the environment.

Working together on areas of mutual interest is only likely to increase with the restoration of diplomatic relations, said John Caulfield, chief of the Interests Section from 2011 to 2014.

“As an Interests Section, we were kind of radioactive for Cubans,” Caulfield said. “This is a signal to Cuba and all Cubans that even if we don’t have a normal relationship, we have a formal relationship.”

Caulfield said during his final years in Cuba, the thawing of relations was already underway, although his time in Havana was not without its intrigues.

Despite the ban on raising the American flag at the Interests Section, Caulfield said his staff presented him with a memorable and clandestine present when he finished his posting.

“They gave me a flag they had snuck up in the middle of the night and gave it to me as a going-away gift, and I really appreciated the gesture,” Caulfield said.

Soon the United States will for the first time in 54 years again fly the American flag in Havana for everyone to see.

New York Real Estate Overpoweringly Attracts Local and Global Investment

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While real estate is often thought of being a transaction between buyer and seller in a resale or developer in a new development, there are other key players that ensure the success of a deal. In order for a new development project to launch, the developer and architect are supported by investors.

Given New York City’s presence as a global city, its real estate market achieves strong financial support from international investors. Chinese investment in the city’s real estate has been overwhelmingly on the rise, with individual investors from the nation pouring over a total of $5 billion into New York since 2013. These investments have been towards some of the city’s most influential buildings, including the Waldorf Astoria, the General Motors building, and the Pacific Park/Atlantic Yards 22-acre mixed-use development in downtown Brooklyn.

Understanding the positive influence foreign investments can have on the growth of the nation, the government implemented the EB-5 program, which grants a green card to those Chinese investors who make great economic investments in the country. While New York developers have used this program for their advantage in the past in order to finance their projects, with over $3.7 billion going to NYC real estate through the program, the federal government placed a hold on providing EB-5 investors with green cards on May 1st and enacted a waiting list instead.

On the other hand, private online real estate marketplaces have been encouraging foreign investments in U.S. real estate, specifically from China. Last month, two of these platforms, China’s Juwai.com and America’s Auction.com signed a partnership bringing U.S. commercial real estate opportunities to Chinese investors through the screen, exposing the properties to a larger market share and eliminating the need to travel to make a deal. By creating a more user-friendly platform and expanding audience reach, not only are international investors encouraged to join the New York City real estate market, but developers and residents of the city are given more architectural and cultural opportunities.

Tapping into the investment market is also a group of New York residents, who have formed the New York Real Estate Investment Co-operative (NYC REIC) in hopes to raise money through crowd-funding to build spaces for community and cultural centers. The purpose of the coop is to create affordable commercial real estate for community groups, cultural organizations, and small businesses in need of space in order to combat rising rents throughout the city. According to New York Yimby, the coop has already obtained 300 members and secured $1.3 million in pledges, proving the potential success of the grassroots organization.

Whether for the fulfillment of a new residential building to be developed or for small neighborhood organizations to obtain an affordable storefront, real estate investment — both local and global — has proven to be a crucial player in the real estate market.

 

Toni Haber

Huffington Post Real Estate

Licensed Associate Real Estate Broker

 

Manhattan’s Real-Estate Stalemate

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How much would you pay for this view? Photo: Dbox for CIM Group and Macklowe Properties

It’s been yet another record-breaking three months for Manhattan’s real-estate market, according to brokerage reports released today. The average price of a Manhattan apartment is now $1.872 million, a new high.

But behind all the headline-grabbing numbers — the Corcoran Group’s survey also saw the median-price-per-square-foot set a new peak at $1,231 — is a developing stalemate between buyers and sellers that’s hampering the market. “There’s a kind of clash [between them]. They’re just not in sync,” says Bess Freedman, managing director of sales at Brown Harris Stevens. “Sellers have these unrealistic expectations. They refuse to reduce their prices and they won’t negotiate and buyers are unwilling to pay these really expensive prices and … they’re frustrated and are opting out of the market sometimes.”

That would explain a 20 percent drop in transactions, according to a Douglas Elliman report — from 3,342 the same period last year to 2,674 this year. And though inventory has loosened up a bit (up 9.3 percent over last year), there aren’t enough apartments on the market to break the standoff. “Sales are declining not because people aren’t buying but because there’s not a whole lot to buy,” says Elliman CEO Dottie Herman, either because what they want isn’t available or is overpriced.

Stiff competition is making the market even more untenable. “This is a miserable time,” says Jonathan Miller, who authored Elliman’s report. “It’s not panicked like in the last housing boom, but [buyers are finding that] they’re competing with six other people.” And consider this statistic: According to Miller, 50.5 percent of closed sales went at or above the asking price — the highest since the financial crisis began. “It’s an affordability problem, and that’s holding back sales,” he explains. “You have low supply pushing prices higher” — and not just in the luxury new development category, but also “in the mere mortals market, [where] that knocks people out.”

Some sellers who have entered the market aren’t being realistic, emboldened perhaps by news of high-flying deals in the super-luxury segment — a $100.47 million apartment closed earlier this year at One57 — so what they have to offer doesn’t necessarily address buyers’ needs.

According to Brown Harris Stevens, the absorption rate — how long it’ll take for all active listings to sell — for properties is now at five months (four months for co-ops), indicating seriously brisk business since a healthy market takes about six to nine months. Still, Diane Ramirez, CEO of Halstead Property, says if sellers, especially in the $5 million and under market, don’t get a real offer three months after putting their apartments up for sale, it’s a sign they’re being overambitious about their pricing. (A quick check on StreetEasy shows 4,017 properties on the market asking $5 million and under; 404 of them were listed more than six months ago.)

So why aren’t homeowners rushing to put their apartments up for sale if it’s a seller’s market? Because they then would become buyers grappling with the same issues. “If you bought something, you’re going to get a lot of money, but then you’ll have to buy something else,” explains Herman. (She says those who sell in the city and move elsewhere where prices aren’t as heated fare the best under current market conditions.)

Ramirez recommends buyers shop where the inventory is, like the Upper East Side, which has more properties available than its counterpart across the park. If you were hoping Upper Manhattan would be the answer, you’ll need to act quickly: Compass’s numbers show the area setting a new median price record at $580,000, up 8 percent from last year. In fact, per Brown Harris, it may be “the tightest market in Manhattan,” with an absorption rate of 3.1 months