Sales of Apartments In Manhattan Slow After Stocks' Plunge --- But Turmoil on Wall Street Had No Deflating Effect On High Cost of Housing
NEW YORK -- Manhattan apartment sales slowed to a crawl in the wake of last week's stock market crash, but Wall's Street's turmoil didn't ignite any fire sales in the nation's most expensive housing market, according to brokers, developers and real estate lawyers.</br></br>"It's very quiet. Customers are hanging back. The phones aren't ringing the same way," said Esther Kaplan, an official at Corcoran Group, a Manhattan broker.</br></br>"I've talked to a dozen brokers, and I don't know anybody who has people even walking in their doors right now," added Stephen Raphael, a real estate attorney.</br></br>A few buyers who have gone to contract are trying to get their deposits back, brokers said. "A couple of lawyers have called to get their clients out of deals," said Martin Cohn, vice president, sales, at J.I. Sopher & Co., a Manhattan broker. "People are fishing for a way out. Some of them said to me, 'I don't have the money.'"</br></br>While the evidence is mostly anecdotal, real estate sources said the most hard-pressed group are newly rich, younger buyers who are purchasing their first expensive housing.