Frustration on the front lines

From the Daily News:

Honey, they shrunk the housing market
BY LORE CROGHAN

It used to be such a cinch to sell real estate in this city. Now it takes patience – and often price cuts – to land a buyer for your home, no matter how hot your nabe’s supposed to be.
…
In Manhattan, apartments are staying on the market for an average 144 days – 42 days longer than a year ago, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel. A record number of apartments are available for sale – 53.9% more than the year before.
…
The stats tell a tale of a slowing market. So do homeowners on the front lines, strategizing and struggling with frustration.
…
After almost a quarter-century as a city firefighter, Ronnie Lattari wants to set the date for his retirement. First he needs to sell his family home.

He’s been trying for a year – with no luck.

Lattari, 51, of Ladder 18 on Manhattan’s lower East Side, initially put his custom-built brick three-bedroom house on the market for $1.15 million.
…
Hiring a broker and cutting the price to $1.05 million didn’t help.

Now Lattari’s marketing 144 Grymes Hill Road on his own again. To pique house-hunters’ interest, he’s dropped the price below $1 million. Six nearby houses for sale are all priced above that threshold.
…
Rosette Frazier wanted a little piece of the real estate boom for herself. With all the buzz about Brooklyn, she thought that’s where she should buy.

She got a two-family house in East New York to live in. And at the beginning of the year, she and a friend bought an investment property for $580,000.

The two-family house at 400 Kosciusko St. is on the border of hot nabes Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant. It seemed like a good choice. But it wound up being way more trouble than Frazier bargained for, and she wants out.

She’s been trying to sell it for three months.
…
She was asking $610,000 for the butter-yellow frame house, which has a three-bedroom duplex apartment big enough for a family plus a two-bedroom unit. She showed it to a lot of people, but no one wanted it at that price.

She recently had the three-story house appraised – and was told it’s worth $550,000 at most.