The sales were “not at the price point I wanted it to be,” he said. After a debate with office colleagues who argued he should hold off on making those early deals, Maloney decided their symbolic worth offset the reduced prices.

“It’s important for me personally to start logging sales,” he said.

At another of Maloney’s projects, in Soho at 10 Sullivan St., an 8,400-square-foot (780-square-meter) penthouse listed at $45 million was sliced into two smaller units. Neither has sold yet, and the pricier apartment got a $1 million cut to $28.5 million, he said.

“The next two years will be the year of the deal,” Maloney said. “If you have cash, I can’t imagine there’s not a condo project that’s coming out of the ground where you can’t walk into the sales office and say ‘This is the deal I’m willing to offer.’”

Price Cuts

At a condo tower under construction at 252 E. 57th St., near Second Avenue, prices were whittled by more than $2 million on some of the costliest units as part of a larger sales-boosting strategy. With the project nearing completion and move-ins possible as early as November, “getting people into the building to actually see the finished product is critical,” said Steven Rutter, director of Stribling Marketing Associates, the brokerage handling sales at the property.

The least-expensive unit at the building, whose hallmark is a curvy glass skin, had its price cut by $735,000 to $3.95 million, according to offering plans filed with the state attorney general’s office. About 30 people inquired about the listing, and its sale spurred nine other deals among those who showed interest, Rutter said.

Customer traffic has increased 50 percent since January, when strategies such as the price cuts and sweetened broker commissions were implemented, said Julia Hodgson, director of development for World Wide Group, which is building the project with Rose Associates. She declined to disclose the number of sales at the 93-unit property.

The next move will be to break up two of the larger five-bedroom homes into two- and three-bedroom units.

“In this market, you really need to be proactive,” Rutter said. “It’s not a good idea to sit and wait for the market to come to you.”