Good news for the luxury housing market in Manhattan -- The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that a townhouse in the East Side of New York is currently in negotiations to sell for more than $47 million.

The townhouse is located on East 69th Street, and is currently owned by Sloan Lindemann Barnett, a New York Times best-selling author, and her husband, Roger, an entrepreneur who sold his company, Beauty.com, for $42 million in 2000. The townhouse was built in 1881 and was previously owned by a member of the Vanderbilt family. The buyer couldn't be determined at the time of publication.

The price of the Barnett's penthouse is in the category of record-high sales. Developer William Lie Zeckendorf sold his Central Park West apartment last December for $40 million, and a couple from Russia bought a $48 million apartment in the Plaza earlier this year. The highest price ever paid for a piece of property in Manhattan was a $53 million townhouse on East 75th Street, purchased by private-equity executive J. Christoper Flowers in 2006.

via www.wallstreetjournal.com