IN the last few years, renowned architects and enterprising developers have rushed to put their stamp on Manhattan with contemporary condominium buildings that have seemed far more inventive than the staid old co-ops of the Upper East Side. But now, they are looking at the horizon and fearing that there will soon be a glut. They are trying to figure out how to avoid flooding the market they once fought to build in.  Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times  DEAL MAKERS Veronic Hackett of the Clarett Group bought a lot at West End Avenue and 70th Street because the price was right and the location was good.  There are currently 28,258 new condominium units either under construction or being planned in Manhattan, according to Cushman & Wakefield, the commercial real estate brokerage.  Of these, 14,430 units are in buildings that have already broken ground, and 13,928 units are in buildings that are being planned. If they are all built, the total will approach the boroughs current stock of 36,000 condo units and will be equivalent to a fifth of Manhattans 138,000 co-op units, according to census data supplied by the Real Estate Board of New York.  But with a softer real estate market in New York and a growing inventory of co-ops, condos and houses in the region, real estate experts do not believe that all of these projects will be built, or at least built as condos.  In some cases, developers are trying to sell their lots before they start construction. Im getting five calls a week from people who own sites and want to sell them, says Michael Forrest, a senior associate who works in the New York office of Marcus & Millichap, a real estate investment brokerage based in Encino, Calif. Im surprised at how many developers are running for the hills.  Many other developers are saying that they will go forward with buildings only in the parts of Manhattan that they see as fail-safe, like certain blocks in Midtown and on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, and at the highest end of the market.  Real estate brokers are advising developers to turn some of these projects into anything other than condominiums: rental apartments, hotels or office buildings. And some major banks that lend to condo developers are cutting back on loans for proposed projects or for land that developers want to buy. Before granting loans, they are requiring developers to put more of their own money into their projects, to lower their prices or to sell more units in advance.  Some condominium projects already on the market have been shifted to other uses. The developers of a condo conversion project at 485 Fifth Avenue (41st Street) returned deposits to prospective buyers and sold the project to the Global Hyatt Corporation, which will convert the office building into a hotel. The Related Companies has turned seven apartments in its new 39-unit building called Astor Place into rental apartments  partly because of a complicated tax structure and not just the state of the condo market.  Still, the inventory of unsold Manhattan condos has jumped by more than 70 percent in the last year. As of Oct. 31, Manhattan had 4,115 condos available for sale, compared with 2,381 a year earlier, according to data from the Miller Samuel appraisal company.  Jonathan J. Miller, its president, pointed out that in many cases these numbers were conservative because developers often release apartments gradually onto the market to limit the perception of oversupply.  There are more units that could hit the market, Mr. Miller said, but they will be brought in at a pace that wont flood the market because its not in the developers best interest.  National housing and finance experts say while an oversupply of apartments may be good news for condo buyers, they do not believe the oversupply will grow so large that it could actually drag down the overall housing market in New York City. Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit planning and research group in Washington and a specialist in real estate capital markets, said that while he thinks there may be some overbuilding in Manhattan, it may not be excessive because banks wont lend to developers the way they did a year ago.  While prices may flatten or even decline slightly, there are other markets that the real estate community thinks are at greater risk for larger price declines, Mr. Blank said. Many people point to Miami, Las Vegas and San Diego, where there has been a lot of speculative buying.  Mr. Blank said that in New York, he wasnt worried about planned condominiums because its going to become increasingly more difficult to finance new construction.  Academics tracking the national markets dont think that the Manhattan market will ever have the inventory problems that Miami and Las Vegas are currently facing.  Las Vegas has 83,400 condos that are under construction or proposed, and plans for building 12,200 more have been canceled or suspended, according to data collected by Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas research group.  The Miami market now has 82,486 condo units under construction or planned, and plans for 3,246 have been canceled, according to data from the citys Planning Department.  John McIlwain, a senior fellow for housing at the Urban Land Institute, predicts that there may be some deals for buyers in the boroughs outside Manhattan and in Manhattan neighborhoods where banks and developers are pulling back  Harlem or the financial district, for example.
As sales of Manhattan condos slow, builders cancel some projects and turn others into rentals. For buyers, there are some deals.