How to buy in Brooklyn, where apartment prices are mere suggestions

You wouldn’t stroll into Duane Reade and expect to pay more than the listed price for a bottle of shampoo. But walk into a Brooklyn open house, and chances are you’ll have to fork over more than whatever dollar figure the seller’s looking for.

That’s according to a report out this week from appraisal firm Miller Samuel, which found that, on average, Brooklyn homebuyers paid 0.7 percent more than the asking price for condos, co-ops and townhouses in the borough. Typically, these reports measure the “listing discount,” or the amount that sellers come down in price. But now, there are so few apartments on the market--and so many people who want to buy them--that offering more than the asking price is common. In fact, buyers paid the asking price or higher in 55 percent of cases, Bloomberg notes.

Not surprisingly, prices are shooting through the roof: the median hit $587,515 in the third quarter of this year, easily topping a record set before the recession, as The Real Deal reports. And deals are happening quickly: homes were on the market an average of 92 days, compared to 143 days in the same period last year.

What's the average buyer to do? Aside from brushing up on the best way to win a bidding war, a practical apartment-hunting strategy is to set a budget and look at plenty of places that fall under your maximum. That way, you’ll be able to put in a competitive offer if you find something you like. ​Or, "for anyone still searching, we recommend Queens,​" New York Magazine suggests.