As reported by the Commercial Observer in January of this year,  Elliott Management Corporation and GFI Capital Resources Group acquired the Parker New York hotel for $420 million, with hopes to renovate and add 67 condominium units to the hotel’s existing 729 rooms. The new apartments will be available starting at $1.5 million -- a relatively low price point for Manhattan's 'Billionaires Row,’ an area known for its ultra-luxury high-rises (It’s also where hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin recently bought what is considered the most expensive home in the United States, to the tune of $238 million).

The Parker's comparatively modest pricing may be prescient. According to a recent estimate by real estate appraiser Jonathan Miller, over 40 percent of the condo units on Billionaires’ Row currently remain unsold. And these vacancies aren't all in brand-new, just-finished buildings; sales at One57, the city’s first supertall residential skyscraper, launched in 2014, yet 48 of its 132 units linger on the market. Somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion worth of available inventory remains unoccupied among six other nearby buildings, some with vacancy rates as high as 80 percent.

Real estate agent Dolly Lenz told the New York Post that she blamed the slump on exorbitant prices, and also cited construction, financing, marketing, and developers’ contracts as factors: “When people come here from other parts of the country and from around the world, the first thing they want to see is Billionaires’ Row. We toured them through the properties but many felt they were too pricey for the market — $7,000, $8,000 and $10,000 a square foot.”