So, 550 Vanderbilt hits 50% sold mark. But it was more than 30% sold nine months ago.

Pacific Park’s 550 Vanderbilt hits 50 percent sold mark, reports the Real Deal:

Nine months after officially launching sales, Pacific Park Brooklyn’s first condominium building is 50 percent sold, the developer said.
More than 140 units at 550 Vanderbilt Avenue are now in contract, with a blended average sale price of $1,500 per square foot. Closings are expected to start by the end of the year, said Shwetha Subramanian, director of residential development at Greenland Forest City Partners.

That's meant to sound impressive, and maybe it is for an expensive condo building, but... nine months ago, when the sales gallery opened (see press release at bottom), it was more than 30% sold, with more than 80 residences had gone into contract. So if 60 units have sold in nine months, well, that's less than seven per month. 

So, extrapolating, if the remaining 138 units sell at that pace, that could take 20 months. The building is supposed to open next year. (The press release targeted "late 2016," which now seems unlikely.

Prices going up

The Real Deal says that studios now start at $700,000, which is a big step up from the original $550,000. (Price per square foot has varied.)

Turns out, as Emily Nonko wrote in the Observer 6/30/16, buyers in New York City "hardly flinch at a $1 million price tag because there are just so many of them," with "more than 5,000 condos, co-ops and homes are now on the market for $1 million and above."

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, the last sale under $1 million in part of the neighborhood was in 2013; now they cost $2 million.