The Most Expensive Homes Of 2007

"Now that Alex Rodriguez has agreed to a new $275 million contract with the New York Yankees, the word in Manhattan real estate circles is that a $39 million East 80th Street townhouse may be in his future.

Any deal this year would be the country's sixth most expensive home sale of 2007. All of the top five have been in Manhattan."

"While home prices slid around the country, Manhattan set a new apartment sales record with developer Harry Macklowe's $60 million purchase of an entire Plaza Hotel floor (minus one rogue apartment), and a new price-per-square-foot benchmark ($6,287 per interior square foot) with former Citigroup chairman Sanford Weill's $42.4 million splash into 15 Central Park West."

"Prices in the top sector are not affected by general market trends because, quite simply, they exist outside the general market.

'In the high-end market, it's all about wealth and a lack of property,' says Mauricio Umansky, a broker with Hilton & Hyland in Southern California. 'A lot of people want to be in Los Angeles, people want to be Malibu, Aspen and New York ... there are trophy properties out there and enough billionaires out there that want to buy a trophy property.'"