Market Tilts to Buyers of Manhattan Real Estate

The New York Sun reports:

For months, experts have touted Manhattan as being immune to the residential woes that have plagued real estate markets from Miami to Texas. Now, the first concrete signs of a slowdown in the city's residential markets are appearing, with an increasing number of developers promising to cover buyers' closing costs, and others offering brokers higher commissions if they bring in sales.

"Owners are getting more anxious," the president of the brokerage firm A Fine Company Inc., Andrew Fine, said. "Mortgages are a little bit more difficult to come by; it's not clear how strong Wall Street bonuses will be."

Incentives to lure buyers are increasing in new developments in some neighborhoods of Manhattan and Brooklyn. At a new 45-unit development in Hell's Kitchen — which has seen price tags cut on 11 units by as much as $50,000 since March — the developer is offering to pay the closing costs that are traditionally shouldered by the buyer. Closing costs, which include state and city transfer taxes, and fees for the brokers and lawyers, add up to thousands of dollars. For example, a two-bedroom unit at the building, at 517 W. 46th St., has an asking price of $1.4 million, with closing costs of about $30,000.

Even Manhattan.