As New Construction Manhattan recently reported, the of a 6,744 square foot apartment at 15 Central Park West shook up the New York real estate market, as it was sold for $88 million. This sale marked the end of the apartment’s reign as New York City’s priciest condo. And now its co-op counterpart has hit the market, in the form of a newly listed 12,000-square-foot duplex penthouse, situated directly across the park.

The demand for high-end Manhattan apartments is a topic that has been covered tirelessly and extensively on New Construction Manhattan. As we mentioned earlier this month, the list of is optimistically plentiful and highly reminiscent of the strong sales numbers from the fourth quarter in 2011. The from institutional buildings into luxury condos has garnered a great deal of attention and the New York Times recently reported that this is just the beginning. More than ever, developers are now tearing down the walls of smaller apartment units and combining them into fewer but bigger luxury condos.

If you didn’t know better, you would probably swear that the condos available at the W New York Downtown Tower are already occupied. Designer furniture, wide-screen HDTVs, Warhol Prints, mid-century antiques, animal-skin throw rugs: The luxury condos at the W Tower feature detailed furnishings that make them feel like homes in the fullest sense of the word. The idea of a turnkey apartment is fairly , but the W Tower - located at 123 Washington Street a block away from the One World Trade Center construction site in the Financial District - is taking the idea of fully-furnished condos to a whole new level. This innovation is yet another sign of the times; developers need a marketing edge more than ever. The people keeping Manhattan’s sluggish condo sales market afloat are usually either wealthy internationals looking for a pied-a-terre or buyers looking to become by renting their Manhattan properties, and the turnkey condos at W Tower cater specifically to both these groups. So far it seems to be working. After losing buyers in droves after the financial collapse in 2008, this new marketing technique is stimulating sales at W Tower for the first time in years.

The Daily News posted a piece recently that compiled a list of the most stable neighborhoods in New York City. These are neighborhoods that are growing, are in consistently high demand for one reason or another, or have some other quality that makes purchasing high-end real estate in them a safe investment. We’ve written before about how the than both the national market and the economy as a whole, and many investors are now turning towards Manhattan condos for sale rather than the stock market, with their money.

Earlier this month we wrote about how the Real Deal asked a group of how they thought the luxury Manhattan condo market would play out in 2012. AM New York has written a similar story that analyzes what various real insiders are banking on in the new year. Some of the predictions from the two articles overlap, but AM New York also found some interesting new ideas, that could be meaningful to New Yorkers looking for luxury condos in Manhattan. We’ve compiled an overview of what exactly the experts say you should look for in the real estate market in 2012.

Before the ink dries on the contract, we’re going to tell you about the next completed development deal to happen in Manhattan. 71 Laight Street, a luxury Manhattan condo in Tribeca, has just been sold to Taconic Investment Partners for a cool $65 million, or around $600 per square foot. The transaction will officially close in May or June. Alvaro Arranz, a Manhattan developer, currently owns the property, which is an old warehouse that doubles as a parking garage. He initially bought it in 2007 for $57 million. At first he conceived of converting it into a luxury residential building, but after a construction freeze he decided to sell the property instead. He put the site on the market in 2010.

When determining how much money they can spend on a Manhattan luxury apartment, many buyers of Manhattan real estate tend to take maintenance fees for granted, at least when compared to similar costs like property taxes and mortgage payments. But the changing landscape of Manhattan now demands that potential buyers of condo and co-op apartmentsbecome aware of maintenance fees, because they aren’t what they used to be. According to the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, median maintenance fees for co-ops on the West Side of Manhattan rose 59% from 2000 to 2009, a change indicative of Manhattan as a whole. These changes are directly related to the increased tax rates levied by New York City and their increased assessments of property values; most owners of luxury apartments in Manhattan have seen their maintenance fees increase on a yearly basis due to these factors. These days, maintenance fees for condos and co-ops in Manhattan can range from a couple hundred to thousands of dollars per month, and high maintenance fees often lower property value; apartments with low maintenance fees usually sell for more than comperable apartments with high maintenance fees. Most importantly, all buyers should know that if they want to live in an apartment with low maintenance fees, they should look for a condo rather than a co-op.

South of Houston Street, buyers of luxury real estate have a host of great options: the lofts in landmark cast-iron SoHobuildings; brand new luxury apartments and converted office spaces in the Financial District; and warehouses in Tribeca, etc. The list goes on and on. These neighborhoods are the most popular neighborhoods in Manhattan, and the prices reflect that; SoHo and Tribeca are the most expensive places to live in the borough. One thing that you won’t often find downtown, however, is the “Classic Six,” the moniker for pre-war 2-bedrooms with a formal dining room, maid’s room, and 1 or 2 bathrooms. Long considered the height of luxury living inManhattan, the Classic Six is struggling to maintain its status as the best that Manhattan has to offer. Judging by the prices, lofts are now equally as popular, because both sell for the same price range. Many factors have contributed to this shift, but the primary one is that Manhattan’s most popular neighborhoods simply don’t have any Classic Sixes to offer, and buyers don’t seem to have a problem with that.

It’s difficult to believe the West Village is ground zero for new high-end real estate. Anyone who walks through that part of Manhattan will see that not only is most of the space all taken up, but its taken up by small, independent boutiques, dive bars, and prewar multi-family townhouses and brownstones. Not exactly the stuff that surrounds luxury Manhattan condos. But there’s been an influx of high-end development in the area recently, and several ultra-luxury Manhattan condos for sale are scheduled to open over the next few years. How are developers dealing with the space constraints? They’re focused entirely on redevelopment. Which means that many of the West Village’s old and derelict commercial buildings are becoming new, modern luxury condos.