I'm Annoyed. You will need to compromise as the reality you are dealt with will not allow you to have your cake and eat it to.

If all the units are not sold the value of your condo will continue to decline. Decline enough it can take a decade for it to recover its its original price (see late 1980s housing slump in NYC). The market is in a slump. Prices are flat in good neighborhoods and down in others. There is no credit being given even to 700+ Fico people. Anything lower than 20% down is not acceptable anymore to many lending institutions.

Incentives are the likely immediate actions the developers will take in order to preserve the selling price while offering savings to the buyers. As a new dev condo buyer trust me - your first concern (outside of actually locking financing) is to get all the units sold.

Did you know that if a condo is not 70% sold that Fannie will classify it as not warrantable thus make it more difficult to get financing? At 50% sold, the Hunter's devs may press the panic button and go rental or rent-to-own like some Williamsburg development.

Lowering the price is actually a last resort for sellers and developers. Not only they the margin but there are other financial factors that kicks in that makes it really unattractive.

I am in contract with another condo also. My first concern is for the building to be 100% sold. I really don't even care about delays. Couple thousand of dollars in rents is nothing when compared to tens of thousands of dollars that a new condo will lose if the building is not 90% occupied. Incentive is a brilliant way to make it more affordable to potential buyers without resorting to lower price - which the developer nor the current buyers want.

Anyway, most of my comments are moot as there is really no way for you to get out of the contract if the devs lower the price or add incentives.

Good luck, we all need it in this market

crimsonson, where are you getting the information that if 70% isnt sold then it will be deemed non-warrantable?  Condo approval is delegated to the lender and different lenders (banks) have different agreements with Fannie Mae.  But youre right, some banks will consider a condo non-warrantable with less than 70% pre-sale.  Our pre-sale requirements go as low as 15% depending on sales velocity.  And if it is 51% in contract then there are no pre-sale issues.  sunny_hong@countrywide.com

I passed by the other night, and you can see from the street the kitchen in the second floor corner unit.  I think it looks very good, better than the renderings.

what do you think? will the closings really happen in January?