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A penthouse atop the world’s tallest residential building – listed for $250 million – marks the biggest test for the ultra-luxury real estate market at a time of falling sales and rising economic uncertainty.

The three-story mega home in Central Park Tower, which spans more than 17,500 square feet, is the most expensive property in the country. It is also the tallest, standing at over 1,400 feet and spanning the 129th through 131st floors. Perched on Manhattan’s “Billionaires’ Row” – a strip of supertall skyscrapers on the southern edge of Central Park – it’s being marketed as the ultimate real estate trophy for a billionaire looking to tower over New York City.

The staircase in the penthouse in the Central Park Tower

Source: Evan Joseph

“I’ve been selling real estate for 15 years now and I’ve sold some of the most expensive real estate in New York, Florida, everywhere,” said Ryan Serhant of Serhant, who markets the penthouse. “I’ve never seen anything like this apartment.”

The big question is whether the listing can achieve its asking price as storm clouds gather over real estate, financial markets and the broader economy. Luxury home sales in Manhattan have slowed dramatically in recent months. According to a report by Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman, the number of deals signed for properties valued at $5 million or more fell by almost half in August from a year earlier.

For the year, sales of homes priced at $10 million or more are down 38%, according to Miller Samuel. The biggest sale of the year in Manhattan so far is a $74 million penthouse at the new Aman New York condominium.

Some realtors say the asking price of the Central Park Tower penthouse at $250 million is unrealistic.

“I think that’s a fantasy price,” said Donna Olshan, a Manhattan luxury realtor.

Olshan said there have been 23 closed sales in the building this year, at an average price per square foot of $5,228. The penthouse, which is much larger and offers higher ceilings, views, and amenities, is targeting more $14,000 per square foot.

The Penthouse in Central Park Tower: Sunrise looking south

Source: Cody Boone, SERHANT Studios

But Serhant said the price is reasonable given the sale of a penthouse at nearby 220 Central Park South for $190 million, or $20,000 per square foot.

“I know it sounds crazy, but relatively speaking it’s a great price per square foot,” he said. “It’s just a very, very large apartment with many amenities.”

The triplex has seven bedrooms, eight bathrooms and three guest toilets. A stairwell winding upward through the three floors is the centerpiece of the main salon, and a 2,000-square-foot ballroom on the top floor has 27-foot ceilings.

The Central Park Tower was built by Extell Development, the developer behind several of Manhattan’s new supertowers. To protect the privacy of potential buyers, Extell and Serhant are restricting public viewing of the unfurnished home to a few select areas.

The Grand Salon in the Penthouse in the Central Park Tower

Source: Evan Joseph | Central Park Tower

The home has the world’s tallest terrace, a glass-lined platform that towers 1,500 feet above Manhattan. It also comes with a lavish list of building amenities, including a 60-foot outdoor pool, a 62-foot indoor saltwater pool, a spa, a private garden, a game room, a meeting room, a fitness center, a squash court, a screening room and a private Michelin-star chef restaurant and wine and cigar lounge.

Serhant said the apartment’s greatest amenities are the 360-degree views, with Central Park sprawling out below like a green welcome mat, and the hills of New Jersey and the suburbs of New York visible in the distance.

He said he’s already seen strong interest from the ultra-rich, who are less affected by stock market declines, rising interest rates and recession fears.

“The buyer of this apartment is someone who wants to diversify their wealth,” he said. “It’s someone who probably owns expensive art, probably has an expensive car collection and other things, and they want the best of the best.”

Serhant said a billionaire flew in this week just to look at the apartment.

“When they saw it coming out a few days ago, they came up and said, ‘Is this the best apartment in the world?’ I said ‘yes’ and they said ‘I’m going to fly in to see’.”

The Penthouse in Central Park Tower: Sunset over Central Park.

Source: Cody Boone, SERHANT Studios

Henrique Dubugras, Co-Founder and CEO of Brex speaks onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019 at the Moscone Convention Center on October 02, 2019 in San Francisco, California.

Steve Jennings | Getty Images

Brex, the Silicon Valley lender to startups, is shedding tens of thousands of small business clients to focus on larger, venture-backed clients, according to co-founder Henrique Dubugras.

The company started this week letting customers know they have until August 15 to withdraw money from online accounts and find new providers, Dubugras said in a Zoom interview with CNBC on Friday. Axios reported the change on Thursday.

The move is the latest sign of a sea change in startups, as an abrupt shift in market conditions forces companies previously focused solely on growth to adopt a new discipline. The shift began late last year when shares of high-flying publicly traded fintech companies like PayPal began to collapse.

Dubugras said he and his co-founder Pedro Franceschi made the decision in December as their start-up clients became more sophisticated. Declining valuations for public companies soon spilled over into the private sphere, pounding on pre-IPO valuations and forcing companies to focus on profitability.

That meant some of Brex’s biggest clients began requesting solutions to help them control their spending and hire cheaper international labor, Dubugras said.

At the same time, the traditional brick-and-mortar small businesses, including retailers and restaurants, that Brex added in a 2019 expansion, swamped support lines, resulting in poorer service for the startups they valued more, he said.

“We got into a situation where we realized that if we didn’t choose one, we would be doing a poor job for both sets of customers,” he said. “That’s why we decided to focus on our core customer, namely the growing start-ups.”

The initial news of the announcement caused a lot of confusion among Brex customers, prompting Franceschi to tweet about the move, Dubugras said.

Brex holds on to clients who have secured institutional backing of any kind, including accelerator programs, angel investors or web 3.0 tokens, he said. They’re also keeping traditional companies, which Brex sees as mid-market and that “have more financial history so we can underwrite them for our credit card,” Dubugras said.

Shift is the latest learning moment for the two young co-founders, Stanford University dropouts, who took Silicon Valley by storm when they formed Brex in 2017. The company was one of the fastest to achieve unicorn status and was last valued at $12.3 billion.

The couple mistakenly thought that expanding services to more traditional small businesses would be an easy move. Instead, the needs of the two cohorts were different and required different products, he said.

“We built Brex with 20 people, so we thought why can’t we just build another Brex with another 20 people?” Dubugras said. “I learned that concentration is extremely important; this is definitely a lesson I will take with me forever.”

While business leaders have warned of an impending recession in recent weeks, the decision was not based on concerns that small businesses would default on corporate cards, the co-founder said. That’s because most small businesses have had to redeem their cards daily, which poses a small risk of Brex not being redeemed, he said.

“It’s terrible. It’s also the worst result for us,” said Dubugras. “We put so much money into getting these customers, serving them, building the brand, all those things.”

Brex was ranked #2 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list. Sign up for our original weekly newsletter, which extends beyond the annual Disruptor 50 list and offers a closer look at list-making companies and their innovative founders.