A penthouse at nearby 432 Park Ave. found a buyer who agreed to pay $95 million. Buyers in the tower, set to be Manhattan’s tallest residential building when finished, have come from around the world, including South America, the Middle East, China and Russia, according to developers Harry Macklowe and CIM Group.

Walker Tower

A 5,955-square-foot, full-floor penthouse atop the Walker Tower in Chelsea sold last month for $50.9 million, a record for an apartment south of 34th Street. The unit went under contract in October, a month after it was listed with a $55 million asking price. The five-bedroom condo, on the 24th floor of a redeveloped former Verizon Communications Inc. building, has three fireplaces, 479 square feet of outdoor space and “360- degree unobstructed views,” according to the listing.

Such high-profile deals are anomalies, according to Miller.

“It’s escalated into this trophy phenomenon which was really just a handful of sales, but it’s these half-dozen sales that everybody points out,” he said. “It gives the impression that it’s commonplace. It washes over everything else, like a magic blanket that we lay over the market and everyone feels better.”

$100 Million

The first $100 million listing emerged in July 2012, when Steven Klar, a Long Island developer, decided to sell his triplex at Midtown’s CitySpire tower, listed as the highest terraced residence in the U.S. It’s still on the market at that price and is Manhattan’s most expensive resale listing after a gut-renovated, 19-room East Side townhouse whose owners are seeking $114 million. The townhouse was bought in 2005 for $20 million, according to StreetEasy.

Other resellers trying their luck in the market include designer Tommy Hilfiger, who in October listed his custom apartment at the Plaza for $80 million, a price that would shatter the previous record of $48 million paid for a unit at the building on Central Park South.

“Not everyone will dare to ask those kinds of prices” unless the properties are “very, very special,” said Charlie Attias, a Corcoran Group broker who has arranged deals in buildings such as the Plaza and represented shoppers from countries including France, Switzerland and Luxembourg. “Buyers are not stupid, they’re educated about the market,” he said.

Sellers of Manhattan homes priced at $10 million or more in 2013 had to whittle about 15 percent from their original asking prices to strike a deal, up from a 10 percent cut in 2008, Miller Samuel data show. Properties in that range spent an average of 347 days on the market, the most since 2007.