We say it seemingly every day: the statistics all indicate that , and improving every quarter. And yet, as you surely know if you've even walked past a newspaper over the last year or so, people in this world -- and in New York City -- are pretty hacked off. About... well, name it. Fantastically irresponsible, totally trumped-up real estate scandals that play loathsomely to the smallest-minded among us? Yeah, we've got that. But there are legitimate causes for concern in this world and city of ours, and the broader uncertainties of the national and global economy are among them. So while we can tell the world, several times weekly, that the Manhattan condominium market is going strong and that NYC condos remain a really great investment, it stands to reason that a city that's even more on edge than usual, people are a little more jittery about buying an apartment. Or it could be that people are just kind of difficult. At any rate, according to The New York Times, brokers, sellers and buyers have entered a new era of contentiousness. To which we at the New Construction Manhattan blog would like to say, without qualification or any quantitative evidence: nice try, but no.

To be clear, we're not arguing with any of this: "Pressure comes from all sides," Christina Haughey writes in the piece. "Renters want the perks their friends negotiated. Buyers, hearing about drops in prices, think they should pay far less than the asking price. Sellers are angry because they are not getting the prices they once expected, and are wondering why, when the Internet has made it easier to market their own apartments, they should have to pay a 6 percent commission, or whether brokers ought to be doing more to earn it — for instance, cleaning. And brokers who remember when their advice was eagerly welcomed are having to adjust their egos as clients take all of these feelings out on them." We are not arguing with any of that, because it is obviously all quite true. What we would take issue with is the idea that this is all somehow representative of a tipping point, or a crisis, or anything other than just the world -- the world of NYC real estate and the world, full stop -- doing what it does.

It's a human thing to imagine that we are somehow living in History's Pivotal Moment, or even an era representative of anything but itself. This is all maybe a little heady for a real estate blog, but here's the point: wherever there is money in play, and wherever there are different motivations and different objectives and different perspectives, there's going to be conflict. That's as true if you're trying to buy a condo on the Upper East Side as it is in anything else, but no more true. And certainly not any more revolutionary or representative of anything but people being people. By the same token, the current state of NYC real estate isn't reflective of a revolution so much as it's reflective of a certain part of a familiar market cycle. Just where on that cycle we are is... well, it's something we blog about a lot, as you've probably noticed.

Also, more to the point: the brokers in the New Construction Manhattan approved-broker network would never say those terrible things about you, so feel free to browse our Manhattan condo listings in peace.