Oct. 31, 2008 - 16 Greene Street closes around $1,000/ft, twice

Soho on the cheap, with reason
I noticed yesterday that the Manhattan loft #5N at 16 Greene Street was newly updated in our system as Sold & Closed, but no clearing price was visible yet in city records. But when I checked for #5N I saw that #4S closed there recently, with a deed filed September 2 for $1.415mm. Then I checked again this morning and there it was: the deed for #5N was filed on October 24 for $2.1mm. Quick work ACRIS!

#4S was said to be "1,400 sq ft" and was billed as a "bright renovated classic loft in historic cast-iron building", with a chef's kitchen, set up as a 1 bedroom (plus office/nrusery) and (only) 1 bath. Only 10 feet wide on the back (maser bedroom) and 17 feet wide on front (living room), the main photo presents a 'bowling alley' feel. (Dark floors adn white walls and furnishings were definitely a good idea, with only two windows at each end.)

#4S was new to market in January at $1.55mm, dropped to $1.495mm and found a contract in July.

My draft of yesterday said "#5N won't have done too much better than the price-per-foot of #4S, as it is said to be "2,070 sq ft" and was asking $2.1mm (this was a quick sale: offered pn Jluy 3 and in contract by July 25)" but the "quick sale" did yeield the asking price of $2.1mm (as noted above). I don't know if I have ever seen the locution "actual bedrooms" in a loft listing before, but here is the description: "This mint home has central air conditioning and has been architect designed incorporating actual bedrooms and separate living spaces while maintaining the integrity of the loft." You can see pix on the StreetEasy grab, here. Those 2 "actual." bedrooms ara in the back in the classic Long-and-Narrow array (the good news is that the North lofts in the building are 22+ feet in width at the back). With 3 windows in back and only 2 in front (the loft is billed as 92 feet long), there's a long way between windows -- good thing they are large windows.

how much renovation of #5N?
#5N changed hands in March 2006 for $1.65mm (off an ask of $1.795mm); then being sold as "in very nice condition" (that listing from Corcoran is here ). The 2006 pix show me a fairly primitive condition, but walls and plumbing apparently in the same places as in the 2008 sale. Hard to say from the descriptions and pictures how much renovation was done in between.

The building is old for a coop down there (mid-1970s conversion?), with rather low maintenance -- $999/mo for the larger #5N and only $795/mo for #4S. Especially with that low maintenance burden, $1,000/ft for "a Soho loft" seems low, right? But we are not talking prime Soho here. The building is nearly at the corner of Canal Street, which is a very gritty (hard) border with not-the-most-charming-part-of-Tribeca. Lots of car traffic zigging north from where Chruch Street "T"s into Canal; pain in the butt to get in front of 16 Greene by car or taxi, having to come from Canal Street....

in the Manhattan Loft Guy way-back machine
Astute readers will recall that I have hit this building before. Way back in March I posted about #4S in a post titled "16 Greene Price drops but still crowded", but took that content down in The Purge of April 9. From the archives, here is what that post said:

The link to the earlier January 22 post should still work, in which I hit #4S when it was new to market.

That's what you can get in Soho for $1,000 a foot.

Oct. 29, 2008 - rule breaking over celeb loft for sale at 142 West 26 Street

two Manhattan Loft Guy rules broker, for the price of one
I usually don't identify the current owners of Manhattan lofts for sale, or current residents in a building, out of respect for their privacy. And I usually don't comment on active listings from other firms (some of you may not remember this, end of an era for Manhattan Loft Guy / a new day dawns? from April 9). But I will make an exception in each case here, for reasons that should be obvious.

Curbed linked to a NY Magazine piece about CNN reporter Soledad O'Brien's loft being on the market for $4.6mm, with a video tour with reporter S. Jhoanna Robledo and BHS agents Russell Miller and Mary Beth Flynn. With the NY Mag coverage and the video tour, they are evidently trying to sell the apartment, so I will identify it with a clean conscience as the 5th floor at 142 West 26 Street (BHS web listing here).

Oct. 28, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of October 26

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

This is up 13 in a week (following last week's first [mild] inventory drop in 6 weeks) while -- again -- obviously very well above my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). 

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Oct. 26, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were only 21 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 16 as sold -- a second consecutive week of very slow action in a long time -- and nearly all the new listings in resales
• 12 of the 21 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 7 of the 9 closed sales were between $1mm and $3mm
• only 1 of the 21 new loft listings is in new development, but 9 of the 16 closed sales are in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 21	Sold = 16
  $500k to $999k	2	5
  $1mm to $1.99mm	3	6
  $2mm to $2.99mm	9	4
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm	1
  $5mm+	3

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 21	Sold = 16
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	1	2
  Clinton
  East Village	1
  Financial District	2	4
  Flatiron	3
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	3
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side	1
  Morningside Heights		3
  Murray Hill	1
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  SoHo	2	2
  Sutton Place	1
  Tribeca	4	3
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side		1
  West Village		1

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 1 York Street (One York)

  1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  20 West Street (Downtown Club)	3
  90 William Street (be@William)	1
  247 West 115 Street (Delany Lofts)	3
  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	1
  101 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. For my most recent rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

Oct. 24, 2008 - a telling trajectory? 47 Walker Street sells on 2d floor

what a difference two years make
The Manhattan loft one flight of stairs up at 47 Walker Street #2B has closed. They started in February, asking $1.695mm for "1,830 sq ft", dropped twice to get to $1.595mm by the end of June and found a contract 5 weeks later. (6 weeks is a pretty quick closing for a coop.)

The marketing was all about 'soul' and 'volume' (as yoiu will see in a bit, these guys corner the market on 'soulful' marketing) and the "Viking, Subzero, Miele Appliances" you could put in (I am not kidding), so this one sounds like a fairly primitive loft. (Check out the part of the web listing that still survives on StreetEasy, here; the building link is here.)

I saw this a month ago when it was updated in our system as closed, but the clearing price has not been public until more recently. The deed was filed September 18 and the price was $1.56mm. That's $852/ft.

a bit of historical context
One more flight upstairs, #3A closed in October 2006 at $1.27mm -- $75k over the asking price -- for "1,350 sq ft". StreetEasy has the surviving part of that listing here; you will see an even more exuberant* listing description (ahh, the go-go days of that market ...), the requisite "soul" clause, and no bragging about finishses (just about bones and character). So, that one sounds like it was in a simialrly primitive state as #2B, but one more flight up the stairs.

That was $941/ft for #3A two years ago.

While these two sales are not exactly comparable, they are awfully close. They would appeal to different Manhattan loft buyers because the second floor unit is said to be 500 sq ft larger, but in both cases most buyers would expect to put in money to update, if not fully renovate. In both cases, the lack of an elevator shrinks the buying pool (the third floor should have had more shrinkage here). Being in the same building, there should have been no difference in value for being in nearby-but-NOT-prime Tribeca (the block between Broadway and Church).

Time has not been kind to values in htis building.

agents having fun (nothing wrong with that)
*Exuberant? Here's the full listing descrition for #3A from 2006 from the inter-frim data base (no boring broker-babble for these guys):

Oct. 21, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of October 19

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

This is down 4 in a week (mild, yes, but the first inventory drop in 6 weeks) while -- again -- obviously very well above my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). 

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Oct. 19, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days This is my fifty-first 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. The s

• there were only 23 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 9 as sold -- the slowest action in a long time and nearly all in resales
• 20 of the 23 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 7 of the 9 closed sales were between $1mm and $3mm
• only 4 of the 23 new loft listings are in new development, and 2 of the 9 closed sales is in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 23	Sold = 9
  $500k to $999k	4
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	3
  $2mm to $2.99mm	11	4
  $3mm to $3.99mm	1	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm		1
  $5mm+	2

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 23	Sold = 9
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	3	4
  Clinton
  East Village
  Financial District	7	1
  Flatiron	1
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  SoHo	4
  Tribeca	4	3
  Turtle Bay	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side		1
  West Village	1

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 90 William Street (be@William)	1
  45 John Street	1
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	1
  1 York Street (One York)	1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	1
  520 West 19 Street (520 West Chelsea)	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. For my most recent rant about how soft this data may be, see loft or not? caution: active ranting ahead.

Oct. 15, 2008 - fuggedabowdit (or not) / polite New Yorkers?

There are few generalizations about the 'character' of New York (and its denizens) that are more (... well ...) general than the image of the irascible New Yorker -- too busy running slow-moving out-of-town pedestrians over to offer directions, or even a smile. Or to hold a door. Or to help pick up your dropped papers. I will admit to feeling a bit of rueful recognition (through clenched teeth) when I see one of those fugly T-shirts hanging from a pole in touristy shops:

. (What's

favorite New Yorker rudeness story?)

The good folks at Reader's Digest are having none of it, as they set out to measure how polite 36 different cities are. New York is the only US city on their list, so Minneapolis may still have something to say, but the list of 36 global cities touched every inhabited continent. Their unscientific survey measured reactions to 3 situations: whether people entering a building held the door for the person trailing them; whether they helped someone pick up papers dropped on a busy sidewalk; and whether shopkeepers said thank you to people making small purchases.

New York not only out-paced cities such as Zurich, London, Paris, Auckland and Montreal, we kicked the proverbial rear-ends of Mumbai, Moscow and Helsinki.

is from the website of the Canadian Reader's Digest.

I think the Canadians were surprised by the results:

Fuggedabowdit!

(hat tip to

of The Atlantic Monthly)

Oct. 13, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of October 12

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

This is up 20 in a week (up 157 in 5 weeks) and -- again -- obviously very well above my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). Repeat after me "Fall Market inventory is beginning to bulge"??

See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Oct. 12, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 39 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 16 as sold -- nearly all of the action in resales
• 31 of the 39 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 9 of the 16 closed sales were below $2mm
• only 1 of the 39 new loft listings is in new development, and only 1 of the 16 closed sales is in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 39	Sold = 16
  $500k to $999k	8	3
  $1mm to $1.99mm	14	6
  $2mm to $2.99mm	9	2
  $3mm to $3.99mm	5	3
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+	3	2

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 39	Sold = 16
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea