Jun. 30, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of June 29

Number of Manhattan lofts offered for sale as of Sunday night:
 

This total is (still) essentially unchanged since my first count on May 19, which was 745. See that May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Jun. 29, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were only 19 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 25 as sold
• 10 of the 19 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 17 of the 25 closed sales were between $1mm and $3mm (and none above $3.6mm)
  
• 3 of the 19 new loft listings are in new development, and only 2 of the 25 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 19	Sold = 25
  $500k to $999k	3	5
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	10
  $2mm to $2.99mm	5	7
  $3mm to $3.99mm	2	3
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1
  $5mm+	3

  
  
  

  By neighborhood	New = 19	Sold = 25
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	2	1
  Clinton	1
  East Village		1
  Financial District	8	1
  Flatiron	2	5
  Gramercy		1
  Greenwich Village	3	3
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side		1
  Murray Hill
  Midtown West
  SoHo	1	3
  Tribeca		4
  Turtle Bay		2
  Upper East Side		1
  Upper West Side		1
  West Village	2	1

  
  New loft listings in new developments

  421 West 54 Street (The Hit Factory)	1
  45 John Street	1
  25 Broad Street (The Exchange)	1

  
  Sold lofts in new developments 

  20 Pine Street	1
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	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.
  

Jun. 26, 2008 - head-scratching over $650/ft and outdoor space

Jun. 25, 2008 - 23 days to nearly done (now done) at 19-21 Warren Street

brisk results
The Manhattan loft #2E at 19-21 Warren Street came to market at the end of February and had a signed contract 23 days later. It shows as Sold & Closed as of this morning (no clearing price available yet).

The 5 story loft was converted to condo in 1999 into the common 2 Long-and-Narrow units per floor, one east, one west. That was the time when Virtual Doorman seemed to gain some traction (didn't last, I don't think), so this one has that (potentially cool) feature. It is somewhat modestly named the Tribeca East (on the block that ends at City Hall Park), though it could just as easily be "Tribeca South".

not much bragging...
This one is said to be "1,602 sq ft", in "excellent" (presumably, original 1999) condition. Chef's kitchen, 12 foot ceilings, French doors, ceilings fans are pretty much the sole bragged-about points. The classic Long-and-Narrow layout has 3 windows in front, 4 in back, both bedrooms in back, with the plumbing running up the side that adjoins the west unit (of "1,619 sq ft") and common hallway. They were asking $1.85mm and $1,529/mo, and probably got it (or close).

There's a small "terrace" (balcony?) across the bedrooms, but that may not be such a plus on the second floor with the back of 9 Murray Street not very far away. (Check the bedroom photos.)

... but much appreciated
This seller paid $1.15mm in March 2004, a surprisingly large discount (to me) off the then-ask of $1.295mm. The only more recent sale in the building I see with a clearing price was #2W, which transferred only a year later (and only "17 sq ft" larger) for $1.515mm. (Which one is the anomaly??)

Jun. 24, 2008 - closing in the Textile Building 66 Leonard Street

Jun. 23, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of June 22

This total is (still) essentially unchanged since my first count on May 19, which was 745. See that May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Jun. 22, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were only 17 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 11 as sold
• 11 of the 17 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 5 of the 11 closed sales were between $2mm and $3mm
  
• 5 of the 17 new loft listings are in new development, 2 of the 11 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 17	Sold = 11
  $500k to $999k		1
  $1mm to $1.99mm	8	1
  $2mm to $2.99mm	3	5
  $3mm to $3.99mm	2	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm		2
  $5mm+	4	1

  
  
  

  By neighborhood	New = 17	Sold = 11
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	4	2
  Clinton
  East Village		1
  Financial District	1	1
  Flatiron	2	1
  Gramercy
  Greenwich Village	3	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Murray Hill
  Midtown West	1
  SoHo
  Tribeca	3	4
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village	3	1

  
  New loft listings in new developments

  420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	2
  34 Leonard Street	1
  122 Greenwich Street (Jackson Square)	2

  
  Sold lofts in new developments 

  90 William Street (be@William)	1
  1 York Street	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.
  

Jun. 20, 2008 - 11 West 20 Street #2 closes / did they get THAT??

Jun. 18, 2008 - the problem with anecdotes / reports from 40 Bond Street and Time Warner

At 40 Bond, the resale asking price on a three-bedroom triplex was cut by $1 million in late May, to $10.9 million, or about $2,900 a square foot. Dennis Mangone, a broker at the Corcoran Group who recently had three listings in the building (one was just rented), said that competition between the sponsor (there is still one unsold one-bedroom ) and individual owners had “cannibalized resales” and that he expected prices to appreciate considerably in the next year.

I read the story line of this piece as Manhattan-showing-signs-of-slowing. Here was the set-up for Barbanel's use of the 40 Bond and Time Warner anecdotes:

asking for the moon
Meanwhile at the Time Warner Center, one of those million dollar price drops was from $32mm to $29.995mm (it has just been dropped again, to $29.65mm) for a duplex (high floor, park views? you bet), the two original units of which were purchased for a combined $9.5mm in January and February 2004. I don't read a lot of market negativity into an asking price that is three times the 4 year oldpurchase price.

Again, StreetEasy is your friend,  with interesting building info for the two Time Warner towers here and here.

Again, not bashing Barbanel here. Just wondering about the specific "facts" offered to support a story line that don't quite do the trick. Though I would expect that an experienced reporter like Barbanel would ask about the sales history of the specific listings he uses to support his story line. Maybe next time....

Jun. 17, 2008 - another Broadway odyssey / 710 Broadway (finally) closes

Jun. 16, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of June 15

This total is (still) essentially unchanged since my first count on May 19, which was 745. See that May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Jun. 15, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 22 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 27 as sold (a rare week in which sales were greater than new listings)
• 17 of the 22 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 15 of the 27 closed sales were between $2mm and $4mm
  
• only 3 of the 22 new loft listings are in new development, but 11 of the 27 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 22	Sold = 27
  $500k to $999k	7	3
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	9
  $2mm to $2.99mm	5	6
  $3mm to $3.99mm	2	9
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1
  $5mm+	2

  
  
  

  By neighborhood	New = 22	Sold = 27
  Battery Park City		1
  Chelsea	3	5
  Clinton	1	1
  East Village
  Financial District	4	2
  Flatiron	3	3
  Gramercy		2
  Greenwich Village	3	2
  Kips Bay	1
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Murray Hill
  Midtown West	1
  SoHo	1	2
  Tribeca	1	8
  Turtle Bay		1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village	4

  
  New loft listings in new developments

  45 John Street	1
  25 Broad Street (The Exchange)	1
  414 Washington Street (Pearline Soap)	1

  
  Sold lofts in new developments 

  650 Sixth Avenue	2
  52 West 22 Street (Paper Factory)	1
  72 Mercer Street	1
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	6
  8-10 Warren Street	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.
  

Jun. 14, 2008 - (actual) recent Manhattan loft sale at 115 Fourth Avenue reported in NY Post

... the NY Post's weekly feature Just Sold does claim to be about "recent" Manhattan sales, and the report from June 12 includes a loft at The Petersfield, 115 Fourth Avenue, that closed with a deed filed May 1 -- that's pretty "recent", and far more recent than the NY Times hit on June 8 that I addressed in (not very) recent NY Times Residential Sales / 22 Mercer Street loft sold in February.

The Post said:

EAST VILLAGE $2,060,000

115 Fourth Ave.

Two-bedroom, two-bath loft condo, 1,800 square feet, with dining room, granite kitchen countertops and S/E exposures; building features doorman and roof deck. Common charges $1,200, taxes $883. Asking price $2,175,000, on market 26 days. Broker: Wendy Richardson, The Corcoran Group

They are right. We show the loft as a new listing on February 15, with a contract signed on March 12. In a leap year, that's 26 days (I overlooked the leaping in my first calendar count.).

StreetEasy's got a cache of the Halstead listing, here. (Street Easy shows this deed as filed May 3; I took the May 1 date from Property Shark; why can't we all just get along??) Further weirdness: StreetEasy doesn't have the trading price yet, but Property Shark shows it as $2,020,000 -- not the $2,060,000 reported in the Post. (Gimme an arrrggghhh...)

As always, StreetEasy is a good source for information about current listings in a building (and past sales); click here for this building's info.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Jun. 13, 2008 - Barbanel gives up Manhattan sales data in NY Times, grudgingly

Good stuff, all. But -- as usual -- he leaves out the detail, the raw numbers that some people want (OK, this person needs).

Jun. 12, 2008 - (not very) recent NY Times Residential Sales / 22 Mercer Street loft sold in February

silly me
I just checked the fine print in this past Sunday's NY Times feature Residential Sales Around the Region and was surprised not to see the word "recent" modifying "sales" anywhere on the page. I have just been assuming that the sales reported in this feature would be recent sales ... how newsworthy is old data?? Newsworthy or not, the one loft in Sunday's report closed 4 months ago. Weird. (I assume that the reporting firm [Corcoran, which must have represented the buyer, not the seller/developer] recently sent it to the Times; after all how newsworthy is old data??)

aged sale, long time coming
The common charge and tax data for the 22 Mercer Street loft reported as taking 3 weeks from "most recent listing to the sales agreement [i.e., contract]" correspond to Unit 4D, with a sales price of $3.55mm. Couple of things are interesting about the timing. First, according to city records this was the first sale of this unit (i.e., not a resale, but a direct sale from the developer) in a 16 unit building in which the first condo sales were in December 2006. Second, that "3 weeks" may be technically true but is essentially untrue: yes, the deed was recorded on February 14, the contract was signed (per our inter-firm data base) on January 16 and the "most recent listing" was December 27 BUT that followed 2 weeks of being "temporarily off the market". In fact, the unit had been marketed by Halstead beginning October 1, 2007. In fact, the unit had been represented by Corcoran from October 2005 into January 2007, then taken off the market for more than 9 months by the developer, who then switched to Halstead.

The developer kept raising the ante over this long time, by the way. According to the available listing history, they started with Corcoran at $2,750,800 on October 3, 2005,  immediately pulled it off the market (October 4), then jumped to $3.15mm when it came back on February 27, 2006 and again to $3.3mm on June 28, 2006, where it sat until being taken off the market on January 5, 2007. When it was revived with Halstead on October 1, 2007 they offered it at $3.6mm.

some contracts during construction
Remember 2005? That was back when it was fairly common for buyers to buy in new development off floor plans and examples of finishes. The #2D history shows a similar (though shorter) history: originally offered on October 3, 2005 for $2,392,000, then raised quickly (October 6) to $2.55mm, then taken off the market on October 25 until March 17, 2006 when it returned at $2.95mm. It found a buyer and contract May 15 and closed on January 12, 2007. Apparently, they did not like the (low) level of sales activity beginning in October 2005, but found the stage of construction more conducive to contracts by Spring 2006. Except for #4D, of course.

one more, and I will stop
#3D has an interesting history, according to our data base. Offered in October 2005 at $2,631,200 then pulled back, and then the data got garbled. Not sure when the contract was signed, but the developed sold to someone who -- per the data on Street Easy -- flipped it through PruDE, starting at $3.495mm in January 2007, dropped immediately to $3.395mm (so quick the first resale price may have been a typo), then in contract by February 22 and closed by March 29, 2007 at $3.2mm.

This is a bit garbled because StreetEasy does not show the original sale, just the flip in March 2007. Property Shark, in contrast, does not show the flip, but does show the original sale at $2.2mm as being recorded on March 27, 2007. Perhaps this flip was an assignment?? So the original buyer bought at $2.2mm (the Property Shark price) and transferred the same day at $3.2mm (the StreetEasy price)??

Whatever, the key is that the flipper/assignor in #3D began to offer that unit in January 2007 at $3.395mm just 3 weeks after the developer pulled #4D off the market after not selling at $3.3mm -- and #3D got a contract and closing in March at $3.2mm, while the developer waited until October 2007 to bring #4D back at $3.6mm. Fortunately for the developer (and for Halstead), #4D ended up fetching $355k more than #3D, though I bet the developer made a concession about transfer taxes.

I have to stop. That was so garbled even I have to go back and look at the numbers in order to follow what I am saying here. Let's just say -- if you have followed along this far -- that the #4D sale reported in last Sunday's Times was not "recent" and that the developer recouped on #4D a Little of what it 'lost' on #3D (after all, the #3D flipper grossed $1mm but had to pay at least one set of closing costs, probably two).

as always...

To keep up with this building fairly easily, check the StreetEasy page for this condo here.

 
© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Jun. 11, 2008 - data point in a sideways market / closing at 32 West 18 Street

poster child for "selling less" in Altair 18

32 West 18 Street #2B (Altair 18), had been for sale since October, starting at $4.6mm, dropping to $4.2mm, then $3.995mm, then $3.75mm, then (finally) $3.5mm in April, with $5,186/mo (condo). [The original PruDE listing info is gone from their site but Street Easy is a good ("easy") source of information about past sales (and current listings) in a building; this building's page is here.] It had a signed contract in May and shows up as Sold & Closed in the inter-firm data today. While that is undoubtedly a huge relief for the sellers after 7 months and 5 prices, that sweet relief comes at quite a cost.

The closing price is not yet posted on city records that I can see, but the price trajectory suggests they did little better than the final asking price of $3.5mm (if that). The now-breathing-again seller was the original buyer of this unit (although he never moved in) in August 2007. He paid $3.45mm then (his during-construction contract was signed in August 2006) and launched his flip attempt within 3 months of closing, looking for a 33% bump. That did not work out.

The market for this particular loft has been flat, at best, over nearly a year -- something that neither the seller nor his agent predicted.

been here, hit that (twice)

I hit this loft as part of a nice pair of dueling open houses in January (back when I was doing that sort of thing) with a similarly priced loft at 217 West 19 Street. That post was old enough that I did not get around to scraping it off when I pulled posts thatcommented on then-current listings from other firms, so it is still here: January 18, dueling $4mm open houses at 217 West 19 Street + 32 West 18 St.

happier seller on 19th street

The other half of that 'dueling open house' pair fared better. As I said in closing that April7 post, above, it found a contract within 6 weeks of coming to market in January at $4.1mm, after one price drop to $3.995mm. It has since closed (7 weeks ago) at $3.9mm, less than a 5% discount from their original asking price.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Jun. 10, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of June 8

This total is essentially unchanged since my first count on May 19, which was 745. See that May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Jun. 9, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 31 lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 23 as sold
• 17 of the 31 new ones are offered above $3mm, while 16 of the 23 closed sales were below $2mm
• 5 of the 31 new loft listings are in new development, and only 2 of the 23 closed sales were in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 31	Sold = 23
  $500k to $999k	7	5
  $1mm to $1.99mm	3	10
  $2mm to $2.99mm	4	3
  $3mm to $3.99mm	7	3
  $4mm to $4.99mm	2	1
  $5mm+	8	1

  
  
  

  By neighborhood	New = 31	Sold = 23
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	4	4
  Clinton
  East Village	1	1
  Financial District
  Flatiron	4	6
  Gramercy		1
  Greenwich Village	10	2
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy	1
  Lower East Side		1
  Murray Hill
  Midtown West
  SoHo	2	2
  Tribeca	3	3
  Turtle Bay		2
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village	6	1

  
  New loft listings in new developments

  30 West 21 Street	3
  159 Duane Street	1
  133 Second Av (Theatre Condo)	1

  
  Sold lofts in new developments 

  420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	1
  650 Sixth Avenue	2

  
  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.