Big Deal | The World at Its Feet

New York real estate can bring out even the most dormant phobias of potential buyers. With so many options, apartment hunters can easily be paralyzed by decidophobia (yes, it’s a real term, and means the fear of making decisions).

That doesn’t seem to be a problem for the wealthy investors who are wiring millions of dollars to New York to snatch up a piece of 157 West 57th Street — what will be New York City’s tallest residential building, with 90 floors overlooking Central Park.

A bigger worry for these buyers may be acrophobia (fear of heights) or batophobia (fear of being near an object of great height, like a skyscraper).

The views, captured in a virtual tour shown off by the developer in a media event this week, are indeed stunning. From the double-height windows facing north, Central Park rolls out like a long green carpet.

The building (One57, as it brands itself) is not expected to open until the fall of 2013, but sales are already brisk, thanks in large part to interest from buyers from Russia and China, said Gary Barnett, the president of Extell Development Company, which is building the tower. Mr. Barnett said the willingness of foreign buyers to open their wallets for New York real estate “gave us the confidence to do layouts the way I would like them to be, with large, gracious spaces and volume, and not so many bedrooms.”

Buyers have appeared from all over the globe, including South America, and there have been multiple sales to people from China, Mr. Barnett said. He declined to comment on rumors reported on some real estate blogs that one Chinese buyer had bought four $20 million apartments. But he did confirm that there have been multiple sales to the same buyers.

Fact sheets for the building have been translated into Russian and Mandarin. Spanish, Portuguese and Italian translations are in the works.

For the rest of the article visit the new york times:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/big-deal-the-world-at-its-feet/?ref=realestate