Huge Discounts on Luxury Manhattan Condos

Manhattan Market Snapshot: Diana Mosher, Editor-in-Chief of MHN Interviews Shaun Osher, CEO CORE Marketing GroupMHN recently visited with Shaun Osher, founder and CEO of CORE Marketing Group, a boutique residential brokerage and marketing firm based in Manhattan. We toured CORE’s new 3,500 square-feet Chelsea storefront sales office and chatted with Osher about the health of the Manhattan real estate market. Osher notes that the lower end of the market has stabilized and is becoming more active. The upper end is not faring as well. There were only 15 new deals over $5 million in the city in May out of a total of more than 500. The discounts on the upper end are huge, and the volume is still low. These are some of the findings of the CORE Real Time Report compiled by Osher’s research team. According to Osher, the CORE Real Time Report is the first of its kind in the Manhattan residential market. “It’s an analysis of real-time information that tracks current contract pricing and absorption. This report is different from other published reports because it reflects existing contract data, not sold and closed data, which often takes months or years to be recorded. “As is the case with all residential reports, the accuracy of this report is not 100 percent,” says Osher. “but this is a very reliable snapshot of current market conditions.” The information is gathered from numerous sources and includes parameters in Manhattan below 96th Street and does not include new development data unless otherwise noted.  CORE’s new Chelsea storefront is located at 127 Seventh Avenue at 18th Street. About half of CORE’s agents will now be working from this location. “We’ve been very successful in the Chelsea neighborhood, so we thought it would be fitting to move in,” said Osher. “We are thrilled to expand our business and interact with our clients in an open-air, retail setting.”Glass walls invite passersby on Seventh Avenue to view large color renderings of the firm’s new developments. Currently displayed are 141 Fifth Avenue (pictured above), 290 Mulberry,520 West Chelsea (pictured opposite). An apartment for over $3 million has already been sold from the storefront. CORE’s headquarters is at 417 Fifth Avenue and will continue to house its investment, rental and commercial divisions as well as a handful of residential agents.