What size apartment sells best? In Manhattan’s real estate market, the size and resources of an apartment can be paramount. Difficult economic times means that buildings need to be marketable in order for any developers to make a true profit. Naturally, the issue rests in whether New York apartments should be large in size to suit serious homebuyers hoping to start families or reduced in size to suit out-of-town buyers seeking to live in small Manhattan condos that have just enough to fit their needs. Interestingly, according to reports from Prudential Douglas Elliman, both of these extremes of apartments are showing marked increases in sales in recent years. It appears that varying customers truly do have varying tastes as they flock to both large Manhattan condos as well as smaller one-bedroom apartment listings.

That didn't take long. It’s only been a few months since the $88 million transaction at 15 Central Park West, but a recently purchased property at Midtown West's One57 has already taken its place as the most expensive condominium sale in New York City. Initially listed at $98.5 million, the 10,923 square foot penthouse at the Manhattan high-rise was bought three months ago for more than $90 million, and news of the sale was kept under wraps until yesterday.

It seems as though the buyers of Manhattan’s real estate market are leaving flashy, over-designed apartments behind, as many are beginning to seek residences that embody subtle elegance. The Citizen, a 29-unit building located at the nexus of Chelsea and the Flatiron District, is a great example of this shift in taste. The newly constructed building, which sits at 124 West 23^rd Street between 6^th and 7^th avenues and stands 16 stories tall, is a place where environmental sustainability and contemporary design are seamlessly combined. Hitting the market within the last month, the Citizen steers clear of the excesses of other luxury condominiums, providing apartment buyers in Manhattan with a space where less really is more.

The recent slowdown in the Manhattan sales market is on the way out. Despite the fact that sales have been way down in the past two financial quarters, buyers of luxury apartments in Manhattan signed 871 contracts in February. This strong showing exceeds pre-Lehman market activity in 2008, and it shows just how far we’ve come – at the nadir of the sales market in February 2009, only 484 signings took place. Even more impressive: a severe decline of supply in luxury condos and co-ops has done very little to deter activity. Supply dropped from 7,346 units-for-sale in 2011 to 6,738 in 2012, yet 2012 saw more signings. In other words, luxury apartments for sale in Manhattan are more popular than ever before, especially on the higher end of the market and more popular Manhattan neighborhoods.

The BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have been doing their part over the past few years to keep the Manhattan real estate market off the ground. Wealthy foreigners made up roughly 30% of all buyers of Manhattan condos in 2011. And with buildings like One57 in Midtown West that are being marketed towards the international community, this number shows no signs of decreasing in 2012. But while a Russian billionaire recently made headlines when he bought an $88 million condo in 15 Central Park West for his daughter, the New York Times recently wrote about how Brazilians have been much more quietly but no less dominantly infiltrating the Manhattan real estate market.