"I said, 'We don't have properties that high,'" Henckels said.
The most expensive single residential property currently for sale in Manhattan is the Woolworth Mansion, a 1916 "neo- French Renaissance" edifice on East 80th Street. The sellers are asking $90 million, according to StreetEasy.com, a real estate listings website.
Buyers from Russia and China have expressed interest in the seven-floor mansion, says Paula Del Nunzio, the broker with Brown Harris Stevens who is listing the property.
The newest Manhattan condo building to catch the attention of foreign buyers is a 90-story tower under construction on West 57th Street by Extell Development Co., according to Mermelstein and Bykov. The property, known as One57, will be the tallest residential tower in New York when completed in 2013.
The 95-unit building will record "a number of signed contracts" in the next 30 days for units ranging from $7 million to "north of" $40 million, Gary Barnett, Extell's president, says. He declined to say where the buyers are from, but says inquiries have come in from overseas, including Russia.
Among the contracts to be signed in the next month is one for a full-floor, 6,200-square-foot unit that offers panoramic views of Manhattan, including Central Park, Barnett says.
"Three-hundred-sixty-degree views, unobstructed. That's something special," Barnett says. "If you were worth $100 million dollars or you were a billionaire, this is something unusual. If you can afford the best of the best, why shouldn't you do that?"
In the Los Angeles area, about 75% of the people looking at "super luxury homes" for $20 million or more are from countries such as China, Indonesia, Korea and Russia, says Sally Forster Jones, a Beverly Hills broker. Forster Jones plans an October trip to China to seek potential customers, she says.
Asian clients prefer Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills, known as the Platinum Triangle of Los Angeles, with their palm-tree shaded boulevards and history as home to Hollywood celebrities, Forster Jones says.
"They prefer the West Coast, because it's much easier for the Asian buyers to get to," she says. "There's a lot of glitz, a lot of glamour, a lot to do."