NEW YORK, April 23 (Reuters) - Right now, somebody in New York City is probably contemplating what used to be unthinkable: cutting the sale price of their home.
As the housing bust finally bites the Big Apple, more sellers are slashing prices in the U.S. financial and cultral capital than in any other big city in the country, according to data from real estate website Trulia.com.
Currently, prices on 39 percent of New York City's homes for sale have been cut, Trulia said on Thursday.
The average cut is 14 percent, or $295,194, to bring the average price to $2.1 million.
Los Angeles sellers took second place, with 33 percent of listings cut by an average of 13 percent, bringing the average price of $1 million. In Chicago and Houston, about a quarter of the homes listed for sale have had their prices cut.
Until recently, New York seemed to be immune to the housing downturn that has battered other major metropolitan areas for the last three years.
Average prices of 20 metropolitan areas are down 29 percent from their 2006 peak, according to the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index.
Over the same period, New York's prices have fallen only 16 percent compared with 46.5 percent in Las Vegas, 43.4 percent in Miami and about 40 percent in Los Angeles.
Those cities experienced frenzied overbuilding, speculation and price appreciation during the boom.
Nationwide, more than one in four homes on the market have had their listed selling prices reduced, Trulia said.
Price drops in New York are accelerating due to job losses and wage cuts on Wall Street.
"The financial crisis has hit the New York real estate market late in the cycle, but extremely hard," said Trulia chief executive Pete Flint.
"There's been a dramatic increase in the number of price reductions over the last six months."
Some of Manhattan's most storied neighborhoods have been hit the hardest, according to Trulia.
On the Upper West Side, 35 percent of the apartments on the market have taken price cuts averaging 15 percent.
Of listings in the East Side's tony "Silk Stocking" district, prices on 34 percent of listings have fallen an average of 13 percent. On the Lower East Side, 40 percent of apartments for sale have been cut by an average 12 percent.
(Reporting by Helen Chernikoff; Editing by Ted Kerr)