Despite the nervous stock market this summer, sales in the Manhattan real estate market are positively stable. While the fear of a relapse in the global economic crisis is still very much a reality in the minds of many potential buyers, the numbers indicate that Manhattan homebuyers are not deterred. The latest trend shows that many Manhattan buyers are now taking advantage of the current market situation and favoring three- to four-bedroom apartments instead of the traditional smaller units. Sales in luxury Manhattan apartments are at their highest point since 2008 and apartments on the Upper West Side are closing at an average of .

West End Avenue is home to some of the most regal buildings in all of Manhattan, and soon those buildings might be off limits to the real estate developers who are constantly looking to transform Manhattan with new construction. A few years ago, the West End Preservation Society submitted a proposal to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to expand the historic district on West End Avenue, thereby preserving a huge swath of the area. If approved, the proposed district will extend from West 70th Street all the way up to West 109th Street between Broadway and Riverside Avenues, a 2-mile stretch on the Upper West Side that encompasses 745 buildings in all. This change would eliminate new construction on West End Ave, although it would still allow developers to into condos. Nonetheless, in a neighborhood that attracts very affluent buyers and renters, it's safe to say that developers will not be happy about being forced to give up such a valuable part of Manhattan.

With a dearth of new construction, developers in Manhattan have shifted their tactics. 2011 has been the year of the condo conversion, and this wave of conversions seems likely to continue as long as . In lieu of working with banks to loan them the large amounts of money required for new condo construction, developers are electing to simply convert rental buildings or office spaces instead. So far the tactic is working, although this strategy is heavily dependent upon the continuation of a healthy New York real estate market. If global financial insecurity or the recent woes of Wall Street begin to turn the current seller’s market into a buyer’s market, these converted condos might prove to be unwise investments.

The high-end luxury market is back. For the past 3 years, high-end real estate was something of a black sheep among an otherwise healthy real estate market in Manhattan, but no longer. After the recession sent high-end condo sales into a precipitous slide for 2 years, the market began to reassert itself last year, albeit slowly. Recently though, the luxury condo market is making up for lost time. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of city property filings during the third quarter, sales of high-end apartments in Manhattan reached their highest level since mid-2008, the peak of the real-estate boom.

As a result of the trendiness and subsequent building boom on the West Side of Manhattan, neighborhoods such as Chelsea, theMeatpacking District, Clinton, and Midtown West have more than their fair share of new construction and luxury development. At the same time, however, the Upper West Side is certainly gaining on its Hudson River-bounded neighbors to the south, in particular with Extell’s Riverside Center, the southernmost point of the Trump megaproject known as Riverside South, whose new construction will bring contemporary condominiums in New York City to a new level.

The New York City luxury condo market is generally recognized as its own real-estate niche. Certainly, national real-estate market forecasts have repercussions on NYC's real-estate beat--but they're limited. So don't write off the Manhattan luxury condo market to broadcasted waves of statistics just yet. Yes, according to The Wall Street Journal the national housing inventory crashed into rocky lows this year; but refocusing the real-estate market lens to apartments for sale in Manhattan, the city has seen units going up, and several buildings being re-launched after bitter 2010 presales, according to The New York Post. Manhattan is proving yet again to be the exception to the rule.

Most people think that, in a nutshell, a broker is a broker is a broker. Buyers pay good money for the brokers that work for them because of their excellent knowledge of Condominiums and Co-ops in Manhattan, but that’s only half the story. Consumers often fail to realize that most brokers are seller’s brokers and as such their primary responsibility is to represent the seller’s interests. After all, the sellers pay their commission. Sometimes seller's brokers leave out important information about building problems, apartment defects or poor resale value, for instance, or negotiate unfavorable contract terms for the buyer. These practices aren't common but they are possible in these situations.

The days of massive condos that were a staple of the boom period in New York City condo construction are over, at least for now. An extremely difficult loan market has forced developers to adjust their strategies and abandon earlier efforts to build condos with hundreds of units. The result is a sharp drop in size: according to data compiled by StreetEasy.com, new condo projects in 2005 and 2006 averaged 83 units per building, while so far in 2011 the average is 34 units. Additionally, StreetEasy.com reports that developers built 10 condos of 100 units and over in both 2005 and 2006, but this year there is only one such condo being built. The crux of the problem is that the money just isn’t there. New York City’s overall real estate market may be healthy – at least in comparison to the rest of the country - but financing large projects is difficult at best. Extell Development Co. president Gary Barnett told the Wall Street Journal that, "It's extremely difficult to finance large condos. Rentals you can get done, you can get small projects done." The residential high rises that define many neighborhoods, such as Midtown Manhattan, have also for similar reasons. In the eyes of the banks the market demand for these kinds of buildings is simply not strong enough to justify their creation. Loans in the ranges of $25million – $75 million are now the norm, a far cry from loans of $500million+ needed to build larger projects.

Some things are too good to be true, and some things merely seem that way. File the real estate market in Manhattan’s East Harlem in the latter category. For buyers in search of affordable New York City condos and co-ops, East Harlem offers new buildings that have incomparable prices when compared to the rest of Manhattan. The real estate market there didn’t recover much from the recession, and prices per square foot remain much cheaper than pre-recession levels. Combine this with continuous construction of new condos in East Harlem despite the changed economy and everything adds up to very good deals for buyers.