Manhattan Loft Guy

April 2008

Apr. 30, 2008 - O - d - y - s - s - e - y ends at 714 Broadway with 4th floor closing

not 10 years, but 2 counts for something
In the entire long history of 714 Broadway #4 it is surprising that I have only hit it once before February, in a Manhattan loft open house review on October 26 (Broadway from Houston to Grace / 4 Sunday open houses). How long a history?

New to market in September 2006 (at $2.1) with a contract signing (December) and Board approval (February), then some unspecified disaster, as it was back on the market in September (at the vastly improved price of $2.5mm), then a price drop in November ($2.4mm) and another in January $2.35mm), then … finally … a(nother) contract signed as of February (that contract generated a since-removed post on Feb 12, "the middle of the end of a long history?") and then -- yes -- a closing (not yet reflected in city records). Whew! (Maintenance is $2,649/ft, commensurate with a no-amenities loft building.) What a long strange trip it had been..

As I said in February (and can now repeat, as it is no longer an active listing of another agent), in October it was marketed as having "3,050 sq ft" of "tremendous potential", with just 1 bathroom and a very Long-and-Narrow footprint. (Curious … the floor plan shows 2 baths.) More recently, it has been described as “3,100 sq ft” “full of charm”, with windows overlooking Washington Square. The web listing is still up, at least as of today.

charm in bricks, pipe and wood
”Charm” is such a personal reaction. I see in the pix the high ceilings (13 feet), exposed brick and pipes, and wide plank floors of many a classic loft. I see virtually nothing of the kitchen or bath(s), implying that this is a “project” – essentially a buy-and-gut job at this price point.

no premiums nearby
I see no sales in this building in nearly five years, since the 9^th floor sold in August 2003 off an asking price of $1.55mm (check out picture #2 for an “awww” shot of snowy Washington Place toward the square and #14 for a shot of how an “artist’s” loft earns that name). I have no idea what the trading price was then.

I have hit this block four times since New Year’s, about a new listing at 718 Broadway (on January 30), a contract at 704 Broadway (January 12), a birthday loft at 716 Broadway (January 11) and a price drop at 710 Broadway (January 9). Not a $1,000/ft closing in the bunch….

Of course, to determine if there are any active listings in the building, one can try the building page on Street Easy, here.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

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Apr. 27, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

This is my twenty-eighth report on the number, price distribution and neighborhood distribution for Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market or as closed sales in the last 7 days, and the second to include "inventory".

The stats as of Sunday night ...

there were 26 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 8 as sold
15 of the 26 new ones are offered under $2mm, while 5 of the 8 closed sales were under $2mm
only 2 of the 26 new loft listings are in new development, and 2 of the 8 closed sales were in new development

there are (still) 500 lofts reported as available for sale, leading me to wonder why this metric in our system does not work (it has not changed in 4 weeks...)

By price	New = 26	Sold = 8
$500k to $999k	5	2
$1mm to $1.99mm	10	3
$2mm to $2.99mm	4	1
$3mm to $3.99mm	3	1
$4mm to $4.99mm	1
$5mm+	3	1

By neighborhood	New = 26	Sold = 8
Battery Park City
Chelsea	3	2
Clinton		1
East Village		1
Financial District	2
Flatiron	5
Gramercy	2
Greenwich Village	2	1
Kips Bay		1
Little Italy	1
Lower East Side
Murray Hill
Midtown West
SoHo	1	1
Tribeca	7
Turtle Bay	1
Upper East Side
Upper West Side	1
West Village	1	1

New loft listings in new developments

45 John Street	1
67 Murray Street (Griffen Lofts)	1

Sold lofts in new developments

420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	1
344 Bowery	1

For information about how I get this stuff and why I slice it as I do, see methodology for New + Sold in The Last Seven Days.

The new data point(?) is Loft Inventory; see my March 30 review for some commentary about (some of) the weakness of this number.

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Apr. 22, 2008 - waiting for the final number for Steiner sale / looks like a premium

#2D was quick, so probably close
Unit #2D at 257 West 17 Street (The Steiner Building) shows up today as Sold & Closed in our inter-firm data base, though not yet posted with a clearing price through ACRIS.

Here are the quick details, but this one is interesting for a couple of reasons. It is "1,889 sq ft" and is said to be both "stunning" and "gorgeous". It came to market in January at $2.895mm ($1,431/ft) and found a buyer in 7 weeks.

The footprint is a wonderful variation on a Long-and-Narrow Manhattan loft layout in that it is a little more squat and in that it has 60+ feet of south-facing windows, which is ample for a decent master suite and 2 other bedrooms with enough room (and 4 windows) left over for a well-proportioned living/dining room. Plumbing is all along the opposite long wall, enough for a 16 foot kitchen, laundry room and 2.5 baths.

In other words, this is a terrific layout for people who are frustrated over the classic Long-and-Narrow without side windows and with 2 bedrooms in the back. But that long run of windows sits about 12 feet off of (the rather busy) West 17 Street.

comps you can count on
How does this unit compare to recent sales in the building? Glad you asked....

The most recent sale is of #5B, on December 17. That "1,245 sq ft" that was fully renovated traded at the reduced ask of $1.615mm after taking nearly 5 months and 2 price drops ($1.789mm to start) to find the contract that closed. Need to use a calculator for that one: $1,297/ft.

#2A sold in September at $3.15mm for "2,579 sq ft" of "stunning, well-appointed" loft with a 650 sq ft terrace. That one took 3 months and two prices ($3.4mm and $3.25mm) to find a contract. That's $1,221/ft, ignoring the terrace (obviously, no one ignores the terrace, but I hope you get the point). So far, #2D's asking price looks like a bit of a stretch....

But then there's #8C, which took 3 weeks to find a buyer in September 2006 and sold in December 2006 at $2.875mm, slightly above the asking price of $2.85mm. That was a "many times published" loft of "2,008 sq ft" (an "architectural masterwork", in fact). That sale matches exactly the asknig price for #2D, $1,431/ft.

the 'net is your friend (and mine)
StreetEasy is a great source for information about current listings and past sales data, especially as it has at least a peak at the cached listings pages for closed sales (only Corcoran keeps the 'old' listing sheets on line after they close). For this building, click here for the StreetEasy trove. StreetEasy should have the clearing price for #2D on that page after the price hits ACRIS and get scrubbed by StreetEasy.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

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Apr. 20, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings, closed sales + inventory in last 7 days

This is my twenty-seventh report on the number, price distribution and neighborhood distribution for Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market or as closed sales in the last 7 days, and the third to include (bad data about?) "inventory".

The stats as of Sunday night ...

there were 34 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 14 as sold
19 of the 34 new ones are offered under $3mm, while 7 of the 14 closed sales were between $1mm and $2mm
only 6 of the 34 new loft listings are in new development, and 4 of the 14 closed sales were in new development

there are (still) 500 lofts reported as available for sale, leading me to wonder why this metric in our system does not work (it has not changed in 3 weeks...)

By price	New = 34	Sold = 14
$500k to $999k	3	3
$1mm to $1.99mm	13	7
$2mm to $2.99mm	6	1
$3mm to $3.99mm	3	2
$4mm to $4.99mm	4
$5mm+	5	1

By neighborhood	New = 34	Sold = 14
Battery Park City
Chelsea	5	3
Clinton	1
East Village	2	2
Financial District		1
Flatiron	6
Gramercy
Greenwich Village	4	1
Kips Bay
Little Italy	1
Lower East Side
Murray Hill	1	2
Midtown West
SoHo	4	1
Tribeca	4	2
Turtle Bay	2
Upper East Side	1	1
Upper West Side
West Village	3	1

New loft listings in new developments

1 Seventh Av South	2
127 Madison Avenue (m127)	1
44 Mercer Street	3

Sold lofts in new developments

124 West 24 Street	1
420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	1
127 Madison Avenue (m127)	1
72 Mercer Street	1

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Apr. 18, 2008 - quick sale at 244 Madison

The combo loft at #11CDE 244 Madison Avenue joined 3 units but only got "1,650 sq ft" out of it. Better, they got a contract within 3 weeks of coming to market in January and have just closed. (It hit our data base as closed on Wednesday, but I tried to wait for the clearing price to be posted before posting this; nahh -- still not on city records.)

According to the official building website (! -- more on that below), this a former greeting card factory and was converted to a coop in 1984. They count 180 units in the 17-story building. While definitely a Manhattan loft building (prior industrial history, high ceilings), it has relatively small windows in many units and was cut up into very un-loft size units. In the original residential floor plan from 1984, each floor had a single 2 bedroom unit (950 sq ft), five 1 bedrooms, and 6 studios. I guess they figured that The Market in 1984 in this non-residential area would prefer small units to true loft-size spaces.

buy the neighbor
This unit looks as though it had been combined pretty recently, as #11DE was offered for sale for about a year, then was taken off the market 3 years ago. Instead of selling then (they were asking $695k at the end), the #11DE owners bought #11C next door in May 2005 (for $337,500). Three years and one gut renovation later, they got a quick contract while asking $1,000/ft -- a pretty heady price point for this building.

local history
#10H (one of the 950 sq ft 2 bedrooms) sold in February in "newly renovated" condition for $825k. #10A did not sell, when it was on the market the second half of 2007 for $979k (this was said to be 1,000 sq ft and was also newly renovated).

There are four units in contract in the building, none of which appear to have been asking more than $800/ft. There are also a bunch of units for sale, but you'll have to go to StreetEasy or a similar source for information about those. (Sigh.)

Point being, #11CDE looks as though it did pretty well compared to the building's history, but I will update this when I see the clearing price recorded.

244 Madison .com is way cool
The official building website is a treat. Intentional or not, the whole site seems accessible by anyone (some building sites restrict access after the home page to shareholders by passwords). In addition to the building history, managing agent, board and staff info on the Facts page, the building forms are available for everything from the alteration agreement, house rules, the full purchase application -- a terrific service for real estate agents, prospective buyers and shareholders.

No guessing about what the purchase application requirements are -- what a concept!

no-smoking building
Most of the listings I have seen note that dogs are not permitted here. None also notes a restriction typed onto the form of Purchase Application: "No Smoking allowed. This is a smoke-free building". I don't think I can think of another building that is smoke-free (though if there's one, there's more.) I guess ifyou have a tobacco habit you need a strong umbrella to live here.

electric building
I don't see anything in the building documents, but this building is one of the relatively few without gas for cooking. All of the apartments I have been in (a handful) have had electric ranges and ovens -- too many to be a coincidence. Maybe there is an indication of this in the House Rules, but I did not search for that.

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Apr. 15, 2008 - why so hard to count Manhattan residential real estate sales?

lost some forest for some trees?
I got so caught up in micro-'analysis' yesterday (Mothra v. Godzilla, or the epic battle over Manhattan sales volume reports) that I did not get around to considering the factors that make it so hard to get accurate numbers about something as 'simple' as counting the number of coops and condos in Manhattan that closed between January 1 and March 31.

legitimate reasons for counting things not in city records
The Real Deal ran a piece yesterday that delves into some of the complexity. (Of course, once a firm starts making adjustments, they need to be consistent in doing so to have 'the best' numbers.)

filing delays (close before end of quarter, filed with city after; can be a factor on either end but especially significant with December holiday delays in filings being recorded)
managing agent data not (yet) in city records
"non-legitimate" transfers recorded on ACRIS but not removed (close family transfers, or inter-corporate affiliate deals)

Let's see how this can work, particularly for firms like Miller Samuel and Terra Holdings that have access to managing agent information for buildings being managed by friendly source (Douglas Elliman for MS; Halstead and Brown Harris for Terra) and information from agents in firms that do a lot of transactions (again, both firms), especially if those firms are on-site sales agents for new developments.

Douglas Elliman Property Management reports that X deals were due to close on Monday, March 31 in buildings they manage, or the new developments group at PruDE reports that XX deals were due to close in their buildings that same day. Miller Samuel's report hit the press for publication on Wednesday, April 2, so the press had to have the report on Tuesday, April 1, so Miller Samuel had to cook-and-clean the report by (not later) than March 31. As these X and XX deals could not be recorded with the city by March 31 under any circumstances, no one other than principals and agents in the deals would know about them -- and the PruDE organization is not sharing non-public information with competitors such as Terra. (Maybe this period for anticipated-deals-we-can't-prove-closed is as long as a week.)

Miller Samuel is an appraisal firm. They may include deals that they have done a bank appraisal for, if they are confident that the closing dates are fixed. (I have no idea if they do.)

Of course, the same is true for the Terra firms and their possible sources of information. They could (legitimately) include as Q1 transactions, deals that are closed-but-unknown-to-the-outside-world. (I think Terra has an affiliate or subsidiary relationship with an appraisal firm, but I am not so certain of this to identify who I think it is.)

So this is how firms can 'over count' deals in a quarter that are not yet public information. But this practice of adjustments creates data issues in future quarters.

data cops earn their dough
Again, I have no idea how well firms police their databases, but if a firm included X + XX deals as Q1 deals because they were told they had closed but to be recorded after March 31, they need to take those deals out of the Q2 report to be issued in 3 months, or they will have double-counted. For Q1 purposes, this may be especially a problem in over-counting deals that closed but to be recorded after December 31 if they already included them in Q407 reports. This may be especially difficult to adjust for if the deals expected to be closed at the end of the quarter did not close as planned, but ended up closing 6 or 8 weeks later -- long enough afterwards that people forgot they had already been counted.

non-deal deals (for these purposes, at least)
Then, there are the phantom deals that are really reflected in city records as property transfers but are not arm's length deals between unaffiliated buyers and sellers. I doubt these are a significant part of the ACRIS numbers in any quarter, but if an owner passes title in a condo to children or grandchildren for estate planning purposes, that does not reflect demand for Manhattan real estate, just family business. Same thing if a condo buyer who bought through a corporation wants to change ownership to personal names (or vice versa). Or a coop owner who creates a residential real estate trust (with the coop's OK, of course). Or (heaven forfend) a bank takes title to a condo in a foreclosure. You get the idea.

track, adjust, repeat
One would like to believe that careful reporting firms track this stuff carefully and understand what adjustments they make, measure over time whether the adjustments prove out, and have systems in place to avoid double-counting. Not to say anything negative about Terra, but Miller Samuel has been publicly issuing these reports for 14 years, they provide historical data for comparison (for an apples-to-apples comparison), they have a huge distribution to various kinds of market professionals interested in Manhattan real estate (so they can count on being 'caught' if their data prove unreliable) -- not to mention that Jonathan Miller has been a voice in the wilderness for several years (at least) complaining about distortions in the mortgage approval and syndication process, so I have a high degree of confidence that he acts consistently in his reporting in this arena. (Again, nothing bad intended about Terra here; I just don't know what i don't know about them.)

a 3rd voice chimes in on The Number
Interesting that The Real Deal quoted a competing appraisal firm by name about the Q1 numbers. While Jeffrey Jackson, chairman of appraisal firm Mitchell, Maxwell & Jackson, did not reveal the numbers his firm has for Q108, he did tell The Real Deal "his own data agrees more closely with Miller Samuel's lower figure of 2,282 first quarter sales". I wonder if Jackson would have made a public quote in the absence of Mothra publicly attacking Godzilla....

More Inside Baseball, I know. But it drives me nuts when I can't reconcile 'simple' numbers.

Especially when the numbers reported are so specific -- 2,282 from Miller Samuel, not 2,281 or 2,283. As the Terra guy told his troops (as quoted in The Real Deal):

the numbers are not presented "as hard fact, but as an indication of the scope of the report."

Oy (again; still).

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