It looks like the developers of the W Boston will have the last laugh after all.

The W Boston is just eight very big units away from fully selling out, a milestone that comes three years after the developer of the sleek condo and hotel tower filed for bankruptcy court protection.

Quite a turnabout for the 26-story, Manhattan-style glass and steel high-rise overlooking the Hub’s Theater District, which had all the markings of a white elephant when it opened in the middle of the Great Recession in early 2010.

Having sold out all its studios and one-bedrooms but for a model unit and a few rentals, the W Boston is now seeking top dollar for a small but pricey group of two-bedroom and penthouse units, which top out at $2.7 million.

And for a change, the timing could not be better for the W Boston. The condo and hotel tower, after opening in the midst of a brutal recession, will now get a chance to sell its most deluxe units in an increasingly superheated downtown Boston condo market, said Kevin Ahearn, the city’s condo sales guru who has overseen the W Boston marketing campaign.

“The market is cooking right now,” Ahearn said.

If Ahearn and the W Boston can seal the deal over the next few months, it will be the ultimate vindication for the Hub’s ultimate luxury condo marketer.

Ahearn has long been the go-to guy for developers building some of the city’s most exclusive addresses, including the Intercontinental tower on Boston’s waterfront and Trinity Place.

He’s not just an incredible salesman, but a stat maniac, able to counter any pessimistic argument you care to put forth about luxury condos in downtown Boston with reams of stats showing just the opposite.

Yet back in the dark days of 2010, when Sawyer Enterprises, the developer of the W Boston, filed for federal bankruptcy court protection for its troubled project, Ahearn looked as if he finally might have been stuck with a lemon.

However, Ahearn remained dogged in his belief in the W Boston’s appeal, as well as the fundamental strength of the luxury condo market in downtown Boston.

And, as it turns out, Ahearn was right, proving me and other skeptics wrong.

Over the past three years, he has steadily and relentlessly sold off the W Boston’s units, with just a handful left.

It seems there is a perpetual mismatch between the hordes of rich people who want to live in downtown Boston and the years it can take even the most skilled developers to negotiate the city’s byzantine and politically manipulated permitting process.

That disconnect ensures a never ending imbalance between supply and demand. Ahearn understood this when others scoffed.

And now, with the bad old days of the recession and real estate market slump fading fast, the W Boston is winding up to hit it out of the park with its remaining condos. And market forces are aligning to give the W Boston a boost on its home stretch, a stark contrast to the sleek tower’s rocky launch in 2010.

First, consider the general lack of inventory in the downtown condo market.

It would be inaccurate to say there is nothing for sale in the downtown luxury condo market. But with almost all the new condos built during the bubble years now gobbled up, it’s as close to a bare cupboard as you are going to get.

There’s just one and a half month’s supply of unsold condos on the downtown market, compared to the six months that typically signals a balanced market, Ahearn notes. Of the new condo towers that opened up downtown in the last decade, only two, the W Boston and 45 Province, still have any units left.

Moreover, it could be two to three years before any new condo tower hits the skyline, with Millennium Partner’s remake of the old Filene’s site and other big proposed towers all just paper plans right now.

That dearth of listings has helped drive up condo prices across downtown to record levels. The median price of a downtown condo soared 13 percent in the second quarter, hitting $1.4 million, Boston condo market tracker LINK reports.

But as luck, or simply the evolution, of the downtown Boston condo market would have it, Midtown and the city’s Theater District are also starting to finally shine as Boston’s newest residential neighborhoods.

The average price for a Midtown luxury condo, which includes not just W Boston but 45 Province and Millennium’s Ritz-Carlton towers, hit $1.3 million in the second quarter.

That’s compared to $1.1 million in the Back Bay luxury condo market.

“It has now become the highest average price year-to-date in the city,” Ahearn said of Midtown. “It is really finding its niche.”

And, of course, there’s also an HGTV publicity ploy, just announced a couple weeks ago, that will surely help further whet the appetite of prospective condo buyers.

If you haven’t heard already, HGTV bought a one-bedroom condo at the W, went nuts on interior design and amenities, and is now moving ahead with plans to raffle it off.

And what of the bankruptcy court case? That’s likely to drag on into 2014, with Sawyer battling it out with Prudential, the project’s lead lender, over how to divvy up the cash from all those condo sales.

At this point, the legal wrangling is pretty much irrelevant.

The W Boston has all but sold out and Ahearn’s reputation as the condo marketing guru of downtown Boston is stronger than ever.

Ahearn hasn’t always been right. After all, the Nouvelle, a condo high-rise next to the Natick Mall that was an attempt to bring the downtown condo to the suburbs, was a notable flop.

But when it comes to downtown Boston, Ahearn is about to show once again he is right on the money.

Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.