Buyers and sellers take note: the Manhattan sales market is traveling in two different directions at once. According to a new market report, buyers signed 1,213 new contracts forManhattan luxury apartments in March, the highest volume of new deal activity forluxury apartments in Manhattan since the recession. It’s also a 15.7% increase in new deal volume from March of 2011 (and a 39% increase from February 2012). Simultaneously, the trend of declining supply for new apartments for sale in Manhattan continued. Combine this with an unprecedented pace of demand, and it becomes clear that today’s buyers of Manhattan apartments are quick to recognize a deal when they see one, and, moreover, they’re quick to sign a contract for a property.

The boom years were all about big names, high-end amenities, and niche details, features that attracted buyers of Manhattan luxury condos by the boatload. It turns out that many of the design features that characterized the new construction frenzy haven’t aged well. Unforeseen drawbacks of many of these high end fixtures and finishes have made it all too obvious to many of those buyers that the things that made theirManhattan luxury apartments so attractive were more flash than substance. To make matters worse, the rush to cash in on the high demand of the boom years led many developers to cut corners, which is all the more reason to tread carefully when purchasinga new condo in Manhattan.

Manhattan is home to some of the best private and charter schools in the United States. The quality of some of the city’s learning institutions is one of the things that makes New York City so desirable for residents seeking luxury condos for sale. City residents routinely site the quality of nearby schools when explaining why they made the decision to live in the Manhattan neighborhood they moved to. With such a reputation for educational prestige, its no wonder that educators and developers would want to build newer and even better flagship schools in the city. And with that information in tow, we present to you Avenues School, a K-12 institution in West Chelsea that promises to deliver an education experience completely unique to our world.

Add Northern Tribeca to the list of Manhattan micro-neighborhoods that have gone from under-the-radar to next-big-thing. This section of Tribeca stayed underdevelped for years, but no longer: developers are responding to high demand by building numerous luxury apartment buildings in Northern Tribeca. It was only a matter of time before the westernmost section of Canal Street became the next hot section of Manhattan, and now . Pioneering Manhattanites are paying top dollar to live in this enclave, partly because it has that up-and-coming cachet that gives buyers of Manhattan luxury apartments the feeling that they’re living in the “It” neighborhood, and partly because the luxury apartments for sale in Northern Tribeca cater to current tastes. They're large, converted industrial spaces, exactly the kind of Manhattan properties that buyers of luxury apartments in Manhattan love.

For buyers of Manhattan luxury apartments, there are many ways to get leverage when it comes time to make an offer for a condo. Knowing the tricks of the trade is essential, because there are numerous ways to tell if a price is negotiable, but if you don’t know the subtleties of the Manhattan condo listings and real estate market, you may miss out on saving money. We want buyers to know the basics when it comes to knowing if a price is negotiable, plus we want them to know how to behave at open houses so that they don’t hurt themselves once it comes time to make a deal. Luxury real estate in Manhattan is scarce these days and the competition is tough, so even the slightest edge matters. Here’s how to make it happen.

The New York Times reported a few weeks ago about an art show that doubled as an open house in an apartment building in the Chelsea neighborhood. The art on display was the work of Eve Plumb, the actress who played Jan Brady on “The Brady Bunch” in the early 1970s. The location was Carriage House, a new building on West 24th Street designed by Broad Mill Development Group, which had set up the showing. And the purpose of the event was, as Mrs. Plumb bluntly told the New York Times, to “have a drink, buy some art, get a condo.”

Now that the dust has settled, it’s time to see how the pre-financial crisis wave of upscale Manhattan luxury condominiums built by the world’s best architects are faring. The fortunes of such buildings reveal many important lessons about the Manhattan luxury real estate market- mainly that market trends and location are still bigger factors than architecture. Prices for luxury condominiums in Manhattan are 10% below 2008’s high-water mark, and “Starchitect” buildings are holding up better than most othe luxury apartment buildings in Manhattan. In the short-term, the boom-time mentality that a brand name architect makes a significant pricing difference has dissapated because their values have gone down, albeit not as much as other luxury apartments in Manhattan. But depressed resale prices are only a part of the story. This wave of innovative architecture will still benefit buyers, neighbors, and Manhattanites for decades to come.

For apartments on the Manhattan sales market priced at $5 million or more, 2011 was a mixed bag. Headline stealing deals like of Sandy Weil’s 15 Central Park West penthouse obscured larger trends in the market. Overall, the 2011 high-end market was pedestrian: sales rose by less than 1% from 2010. Those gains were unevenly distributed too, as co-ops outperformed all other types of Manhattan luxury apartments. High-end market gains since its 2009 nadir are largely due to the increased presence of eager international buyers - the buyer of Sandy Weil’s apartment was a Russian billionaire - but New Yorkers have been much pickier during that time. And if the high-end sales market in Manhattan is going to fully recover, it needs them to start signing deals.

The New York Buildings Department released figures recently showing that the number of permits issued for demolition, construction, and new buildings all were considerably higher in the first two months of 2012 than they were during the first two months of 2011. This information comes as further evidence that the Manhattan housing market is taking lengthy strides away from the 2009 lows towards recovery.