Realtor Nelson Chen has handled a number of condo sales at Fort Lee’s Horizon House condo complex. Chen said the good news for condo sellers is that they have a broad pool of potential buyers. Plunging home prices. Properties that linger on the market. It’s news now, but it’s also a bit of déjà vu for Realtors like Mark DeLuca, who remembers the recession and sagging housing market of the late 1980s to early 1990s. DeLuca and other housing experts say condos and co-ops seem to have a special place in a sour economy-both then and now. “During the last recession, condos did take longer to recover,” said DeLuca. “ I think it was because a lot of them were bought as an investment. Investors would come to a new development and snap up several units, hoping to flip them for profit. When the market tanked, they had to try to unload several condos at once, DeLuca said. Plus, investors stubbornly insisted on waiting out the market, leading to a glut of for-sale condos. “I don’t see that happening in this downturn because people are not selling a property they acquired as an investment; they’re selling their residence,” he said. Still, DeLuca said he has many clients who bought a condo at the top of the market and now are forced to swallow the fact that prices have dropped about 15 to 20 percent. According to the NJ Multiple Listing Service, there are 1,950 condos currently for sale in Bergen County. The median sale price is $325,600. There are 4,132 single-family homes for sale in Bergen County; the median sale price is $412,000. “We try to tell them that any loss they take on the selling side, they’ll make it up on the buying side,” said DeLuca, who has offices in Teaneck and Secaucus. “If they wait three years to get a better selling price, they’ll be paying more on their buying end.” DeLuca also noted that interest rates are at an all-time low. What sellers need to do is hold their noses and lower their prices, agreed Realtor Nelson Chen, who has an office in Fort Lee. After the 1980s recession, Chen said, condos stayed on the market longer because people thought of them only as first-time buyer properties. Now, he said, young buyers, those with families and empty nesters consider condos as possible homes. “The saving grace is that if you drop your price there is a wider pool of buyers out there for you,” he said. “It’s not just one target audience that will buy your condo.” Saul Mankes worked with Chen to sell his condo at City Place in Edgewater, which should close in mid-June. He and his wife and 20-month-old son are looking for a larger single-family home in Middlesex or Monmouth counties. Mankes who bought in 2004, said he knows one City Place neighbor who sold about a year ago and took about a $100,000 loss. He knows another who sold at the top of the market. “I had to negotiate a little bit,” he said of his experience. “It was hard to swallow, but at the same time, we’re in the black, we’re not in the red. It was not what we would have gotten a year ago but with what’s going on in the market now, I can’t say we’re dissatisfied.” Mankes, who works in information technology in Manhattan, echoed what Realtors are saying. “I’m looking at houses now that I could not have afforded two years ago,” he said. One of the big factors affecting condo sales after the last recession was a change in the capital gains tax law, said Walter Molony, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors. Up until 1998 you had to wait until you were over age 55, you could exclude only $250,000 per couple from capital gains taxes on the sale of your primary residence, and you could take the exemption only once. The change allows couples to exclude up to $500,000 from the capital gains tax if they lived in the house for two of the last five years, and there is no limit on how many times the exemption can be taken. What that did was free people up to trade down to a smaller condo with paying a tax penalty, and that greased the condo market, Molony said. Nationwide, condo prices soared along with other housing values in the 2000s, Molony said. In 2004, condos, values shot up 17 percent, he said. But some of that spike was due to the changing face of condos. In the 1980s and 1990s, condos were primarily affordable housing options. In the 2000s, luxury condos started crowding the market and bumping up average prices. Molony said factors affecting condo sales today include sellers’ willingness to lower prices, low mortgage rates and the new $8,000 federal tax incentive for first-time home buyers-many of whom choose condos. First-time buyers face other challenges that could slow the condo market down. David Schoner, the vice president for new homes and condos for Coldwell Banker, said many mortgage companies are demanding higher credit scores and 20 percent down payments. And those down payments are harder to get, thanks to lost bonuses and slashed salaries, Schoner said. His colleague, Susan Laskin, a Coldwell Banker Realtor in Hillsdale, said another difficulty lies in the assessment. “Assessors are leaning in the direction of being more conservative,: Laskin said. If the sales price is $500,000 and the assessor says the property is only worth $450,000, the bank won’t give the loan and the deal falls apart, she said. A key difference between condos and single family homes is that homes have more variables-layouts, yards, neighborhoods. Condos might have similar layouts, making comparisons easy, so a buyer will snub the $400,000 unit for the $350,000one. You can’t put as much of a finger on the price of a home,” She said. “It’s very important that sellers understand they need to price condos particularly aggressively in this market because we have some very astute buyers.” James W. Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, sees another key difference between the 1980s recession and this one. Back then, builders were planning for the baby boomers and over built the condo market. “There was too much supply and that’s why prices dropped so steeply,” he said. Also, this time around, building regulations are tighter. Statewide in 1986 there were 57,000 building permits filed for all types of housing. In 2000, that number was 35,000, Hughes said. When it comes to the spike in condo prices in the 2000s, Hughes said, there is more than the real estate market to consider. “The prices on some units, particularly on the waterfront, were inflated by the Wall Street boom,” he said. “Brokers with six –figure bonuses bid up the price of units.”