Apparently, the $1 million all-cash "starter apartment" is back! (whatevs)

"Honk if you think it's over!" screams the headline from this week's front page Sunday New York Times Real Estate Section article, which profiles buyer Luke Sager, a "recent Harvard graduate and co-captain of the college soccer team", who apparently has been involved in an all-cash bidding war over this 1BR listing at 225 Fifth Avenue in Midtown South. Although Bond New York conveniently left off the unit #, we believe that this is #2D, which sold for a whopping $1.35 million back in August of 2007 . Now, 22-year old Luke's parents is/are purchasing the unit for $925,000, all in cash, a discount of almost 32% from the Q3 2007 purchase price.

Are we honking? Maybe a little peep for this unit and some of the other ultra high-end units mentioned in this seriously biased article, that interviews only brokers and focuses predominantly on townhouses and other ultra-expensive properties that have seen price cuts of 50% or more. Can deals happen at 50% off of 2007 prices? Of course they can, but these types of deals are not representative of the state of the overall market, an issue that the article glosses over.

Perhaps Josh Barbanel should change the title of this article to "Brokers Say Market is Picking Up (duh, brokers always say that) for Properties Trading at 30-50% off of 2007 Prices (double duh)".