Sep. 29, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of September 28

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

This is up 31 in a week (up 117 in 3 weeks) and now very well above my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). Can you say "Fall Market inventory is beginning to bulge"??

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

Sep. 28, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 31 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 17 as sold -- a major slow down from recent weeks
• 26 of the 31 new ones are offered below $3mm, while 15 of the 17 closed sales were below $3mm
• only 2 of the 31 new loft listings are in new development while 7 of the 17 closed sales are in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 31	Sold = 17
  $500k to $999k	7	2
  $1mm to $1.99mm	10	8
  $2mm to $2.99mm	9	5
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3
  $4mm to $4.99mm	2	2
  $5mm+

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 31	Sold = 17
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea		5
  Clinton	1
  East Village	1
  Financial District	2
  Flatiron	2	1
  Gramercy	2
  Greenwich Village	6	1
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy		3
  Lower East Side		3
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill	1
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  SoHo	7
  Tribeca	5	4
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side	1
  West Village	3

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 90 William Street (be@william)	1
  1 York Street (One York)	1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  420 West 25 Street (Loft 25)	2
  136 Baxter Street (Machinery Exchange)	2
  75 Ludlow Street (Ludlow Lofts)	3

  
  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.

Sep. 27, 2008 - flipper flips 225 Fifth Avenue #5P quickly, poorly

seemed like a good idea at the time
The Grand Madison is, of course, not on Madison Avenue -- that would be too obvious, right? At Fifth Avenue at the northeast corner of 26 Street, this condo at the corner of Madison Square Park was converted to lofts (as either "a" or "the" gift building, I think it had mostly been showrooms) with first sales in early 2007. Unit #5P sold for $965k in the first offering (a "1,024 sq ft" 1 bedroom; part of the last web marketing survives on StreetEasy here), with that deed filed February 14, 2007. That original buyer did not wait too long to flip, selling (profitably, clearly) for $1.245mm with a deed filed May 1, 2008.

one of those eight million stories
That buyer immediately put it back on the market (OK, not the next day, but on May 9), suggesting that something happened in his/her life after signing the contract to buy in March 5. With only one set of transfer taxes to pay, that May-buyer-and-May-seller stood a (small) chance of making a (small) profit, with an asking price of $1.335mm. They dropped to $1.299mm after a month and had a contract for $1.315mm by June 30 (and closed August 19, as now appears in city records) -- so that went pretty quickly above the (reduced) asking price. But I wonder what changed to cause such a quick and dicey buy+sell.

how far does $70k go?
Not far enough. Out of that $70k "profit", take off as round numbers $24k (1.825%) for city and state transfer taxes and -- if the commission was 'only' 5% on the sale -- another $65k. Oops ... that puts this flipped flip about $20k in the hole before getting to miscellaneous costs like attorneys. They never liked living there (they owned for 8 days before trying to sell), but they did get out from under. Hope they are happy with that.

Sep. 26, 2008 - one data point leads to another / net loss on sale at Altair 18

Sep. 25, 2008 - NYC photos / could not stop scrolling

is it memory lane if I am too young to remember (or to have been alive then)?
Hat tip to today's Today's MUG from Manhattan User's Guide for linking to a forum on WiredNY with an amazing collection of photos, mostly of Manhattan, mostly black and white, some more than a hundred years old. Once I started scrolling, I kept thinking, only a few more, then I will get back to work.... But I scrolled through the whole thing in one sitting.

one Manhattan loft angle
I am sure that many pictures could front stories about Manhattan lofts (especially the Broadway shots), but the one that immediately caught my eye with a Manhattan Loft Guy angle is the 10th one down, "Tiffany's Union Square" from 1899. That is the building now marketed as 15 Union Square West, which I touched on in a very early post: July 7, 2006: dynamic city / time runs out on a stripped Tiffany's.

condo inevitability, indeed
But I was wrong about "the inevitable condo": the structure hasn't been torn down for condo development, but stripped to its 130 year old cast-iron skeleton and reclad in glass over the cast-iron  (and gut renovated, of course), with another 6 stories built on top.  http://www.15usw.com/

Enjoy the photos ... see if you can pull away before scrolling through them all.
 

Sep. 24, 2008 - one sobering data point / 684 Broadway loft sells slowly, reluctantly

 (9.26.08: my apologies about the hrrible formatting of this post originally; undoubtedly it was human error [fire that guy!])

one small data point for NoHo, how big a fact for broader market??
The Manhattan loft 684 Broadway #7E has been on my radar since it came to market almost a year ago, as I thought (and wrote) then that it looked like a pretty reasonable asking price and I was pretty familiar with the building. Now that it has sold and the clearing price has been posted on city records, it is clear to me that the market for this loft building is flat in the past year-plus. The $64,000 question is what this small fact portends for The Market generally.

first, the facts about this loft
I hit #7E when it was brand new (on October 4, 2007), 684 Broadway has a new one, where reader Larry pointed me to the difference in footprint between #7E and the other "E" line units sold ("2,700 sq ft" vs. "3,100 sq ft"). My original comment placed #7E's then-new price in the context of #5E, which sold as a complete gut job, and #3E, which was 'done' when sold:
 

Allowing for the difference in size (THX again, reader Larry) and in the condition of one, the clearing prices show -- at best -- a flat market since April 2007 to September2008. Allowing for the difference in view and light from the higher floor (which clears the roof line of 680 Broadway to the south across Great Jones Street), this 7th floor clearing price shows a softening market since #9E sold in April 2006.

The agent's description and pix for #7E show that it had at least a comparable level of finishes as #3E (I saw #3E but have never been in #7E). As reflected still in StreetEasy, #7E was described as the "most spectacular designer NoHo loft on the market". #3E closed at $1,000/ft, as requested, which is essentially the same as #5E if the needed renovation of #5E could be done for just under $200/ft (a somewhat risky assumption, with no discount for the time and trouble of a renovation).

trading prices give me pause
While #7E is oddly smaller than other "E" lofts in this building, it's September 4 clearing price is exactly in line with the sales of #5E and #3E even though it sold 17 months later, even though it is almost 50 feet higher than the 'done' #3E and even though it is renovated to at least $600k worth of difference from #5E.

Perhaps more significantly from the perspective of market trends, #7E traded at a lower price per foot this month than #9E cleared at almost 2 and a half years ago. (They were asking $3.675mm for the "3,100 sq ft" of #9E in November 2005, and closed at $3.4mm in April 2006; thx again,  StreetEasy.) While the $300k difference between #9E in April 2006 and #3E in April 2007 may be attributable to light, views and (possibly) finishes, one wonders (well, I wonder) why the improved light and views of #7E took so long to do so poorly, compared especially to #3E. I bet the #7E seller and agent wonder also....

optimism, punished?
The market reaction to #7E may be explainable as missing a market, serially. #7E started at $3.25mm in October 2007 -- a price that did not strike me as ridiculous at the time. (Remember that #9E traded at $3.4mm for "3,100 sq ft" in April 2006.) They dropped #7E to $3.05mm after four months (in February), then waited only another 4 weeks to change the (crucial?) first digit, down to $2.995mm. It took almost another 3 months to find a contract off that price, on June 4. As we just learned, that contract price was $2.65mm -- a hefty 10+% discount from that last asking price, and nearly 20% off the original asking price.

Long-to-sell lofts can skew the market, as buyers tend to view mature listings with suspicion. Absent multiple buyers being interested in a mature listing at the same time (as sometimes occurs), mature listings can get hammered. Based on the fact that the #7E seller negotiated to an 11% discount off the last asking price, I have to believe that the seller understood s/he was getting hammered.

what does hindsight cost?
Had they started #7E at $2.65mm in October 2007 I have to believe that they would have gotten that or better. Perhaps significantly better. They didn't, so we'll never know. But what does this say about The Market, going forward?

damned if I know
One of the things about me that my sellers (and buyers, as well) probably hate is that I don't like to make predictions. As I hope you can tell from this blog, I like fact-based analysis (which is why I always pay attention to  The Miller, and am amused by agents and RE firm managers who pontificate, as evident from last Friday's post  Brown Harris vs Brown Harris / 25% drop in coop value at the top already??).  

Based on this one data point, the very-local-to-Broadway-at-Great-Jones-Manhattan-loft-micro-market looks to be flat or worse, year-over-year. I would be very leery of premium-over-last-sale pricing here. And I would certainly look closely in other neighborhoods to test the supposition that The Manhattan Loft Market (overall) has softened. (Not much of a limb to climb out there on, I know, but I will close with tongue partly in cheek by quoting a major Manhattan firm owner quoted in Friday's post in the immediate wake of the Lehman-AIG froth:)

 

While it is clear that there will be an effect, it would be irresponsible to provide a market forecast and we remain confident in the fundamental strength and resiliency of our market over time.
 

(Except that I don't like predictions, so any comment I would make about the fundamental strength and resilience of our market over time would have to make it plain that I was talking about over a long period of time....)

What do you think?

Sep. 23, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of September 21

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

This is up 43 in a week (second time in a row) and now well above my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). Can you say "Fall Market inventory is beginning to bulge"??

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

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

• there were 49 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 26 as sold -- another active week on the listing side
• 32 of the 49 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 20 of the 26 closed sales were below $2mm
• 18 of the 49 new loft listings are in new development (14 at Alexander Plaza), and 10 of the 26 closed sales are in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 49	Sold = 26
  $500k to $999k	6	7
  $1mm to $1.99mm	16	14
  $2mm to $2.99mm	16	3
  $3mm to $3.99mm	5	2
  $4mm to $4.99mm	2
  $5mm+	4

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 49	Sold = 26
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	3	2
  Clinton	1
  East Village	3	1
  Financial District	4	7
  Flatiron	3
  Gramercy		2
  Greenwich Village	2	5
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights		1
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West	1
  SoHo	8	2
  Tribeca	7	5
  Turtle Bay	14	1
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village	3

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 90 William Street (be@william)	1
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	1
  1 York Street (One York)	1
  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	1
  315 East 46 Street (Alexander Plaza)	14

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  90 William Street (be@William)	6
  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	3
  247 West 115 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.

Sep. 19, 2008 - Brown Harris vs Brown Harris / 25% drop in coop value at the top already??

Sep. 15, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of September 14

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

This is up 43 in a week and 53 from two month low mark two weeks ago -- and back to my benchmark (my first count on May 19 was 745). Can you say "beginning of the Fall Market"??

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

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Sep. 14, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were 42 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and 41 as sold -- the most active week in a while, with much of the action in Tribeca
•  18 of the 42 new ones are offered under $2mm and 9 above $5mm, while 26 of the 41 closed sales were below $2mm
•  only 10 of the 42 new loft listings are in new development, and 18 of the 41 closed sales are in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 42	Sold = 41
  $500k to $999k	6	10
  $1mm to $1.99mm	12	16
  $2mm to $2.99mm	7	7
  $3mm to $3.99mm	5	4
  $4mm to $4.99mm	3	3
  $5mm+	9	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 42	Sold = 41
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	2
  Clinton	2	2
  East Village	2	1
  Financial District	6	4
  Flatiron	2	4
  Gramercy	1
  Greenwich Village	1	4
  Kips Bay	1	4
  Little Italy		4
  Lower East Side		1
  Morningside Heights		1
  Murray Hill		3
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  SoHo	7	2
  Tribeca	16	11
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side	2
  Upper West Side
  West Village

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 45 John Street	3
  475 Greenwich Street (Zinc)	1
  67 Murray Street (Griffen Loft)	3
  1 York Street (One York)	1
  157 East 84 Street (The Legacy)	2

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  90 William Street (be@William)	1
  16 West 19 Street (Jade)	1
  15 East 26 Street (Madison Square North)	3
  136 Baxter Street (Machinery Exchange Lofts)	4
  415 Greenwich Street (Tribeca Summit)	7
  25 Murray Street (Tribeca Space)	1
  247 West 115 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.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Sep. 12, 2008 - no country for old FSBOs? no Manhattan lofts above $1mm

Manhattan sellers pay to sell
It has been quite a while since I parsed the NY Times online Manhattan residential real estate listings for brave for-sale-by-owners of lofts (last was December 13 no loft FSBOs for the Holidays; before that July 10, 2007  where have all the loft FSBOs gone? nary a two on NYTimes.com ), but I did it yesterday.

Searching in the range of $1mm to $5mm, NYT has 742 Manhattan loft "listings" (more on that below), none of which are offered for sale by owner (other than one offered by a broker selling her own loft, which is not really a FSBO). Not one. Perhaps that is a sign that sellers appreciate that the market is a not more difficult for sellers, so that it is worth paying for some help. Or -- given that none of the 677 lofts I searched in December on NYT were FSBOs -- it just says something about there being few Manhattan FSBOs in general.

one flat fee listing, seller does the work
I thought I had one at around $1.5mm in Flatiron, actually, until I did some digging. Turns out that the NYT listing that looks like a straight FSBO is being marketed through a Century 21 affiliate that does flat fee "listings", as it is in our inter-firm database offering 3% commission to a buyer agent.

Not surprisingly, when I expanded the NYT search up to $10mm there 93 lofts listed but will still no FSBOs. But I did find 2 or 3 out of 305 listings for lofts from $500k to $1mm (2 are plainly FSBOs; one might be but sounds suspiciously like an agent is involved without the required legal disclosures).

1,140 lofts for sale in Manhattan? not so much
How concerned am I that last Sunday's count of Manhattan loft inventory offered from $500k to $10mm (Manhattan loft inventory as of September 7) was 'only' 702 compared to the 1,140 found in the New York Times on line yesterday? Not very.

I talked about the fuzziness in counting "lofts" in the inter-firm data base in my May 19 post about counting inventory, but the difference between my 702 and the NYT 1,140 is less about problems with the inter-firm data as it is about problems with the Manhattan real estate business: my 702 is pretty reliably actual lofts actually offered for sale by agents with exclusive listing agreements, while many of the 1,140 in the NYT are for lofts that have already been sold, lofts that don't exist (or are not really for sale), are real lofts offered for sale by another real estate firm, or are duplicate ads.

Sep. 11, 2008 - September 11, again

I will re-post what I said on this date two years ago, slightly updated:

Sep. 9, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of September 7

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

This is up 10 from two weeks ago, which is still (essentially) my two month low since I started counting (my first count on May 19 was 745). See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Sep. 8, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were only 19 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 8 as sold -- the second light week in a row and (again) the (new) lightest week I can remember
•  17 of the 19 new ones are offered under $3mm, while 5 of the 8 closed sales were below $2mm
•  only 1 of the 19 new loft listings is in new development, and only 1 of the 8 closed sales is in new development (second week in a row in which only one new development sold and one new development came to market)
  
  

  By price	New = 19	Sold = 8
  $500k to $999k	6	2
  $1mm to $1.99mm	5	3
  $2mm to $2.99mm	6	1
  $3mm to $3.99mm		1
  $4mm to $4.99mm
  $5mm+	2	1

  
   

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

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 1 York Street (One York)

  1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  247 West 115 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.

© Sandy Mattingly 2008

Sep. 3, 2008 - 434 East 10 Street closes / way east with stairs + work to be done

$641/ft, perhaps
The Manhattan loft Unit 4 at 434 East 10 Street closed with a deed filed on August 29. There's no clearing price available yet through city records, but the asking price of $995,000 (about $641/ft for "1,550 sq ft") looks pretty darn strong to me,considering (a) that it probably needs a gut renovation (the web listing says " currently configured as a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with a huge living room plus a massive open artist workspace, it could be re-configured into a 2 or 3 bedroom .... bring your vision and architect"), (b) there's a bunch of stairs to this penthouse (a 4-story building), and (c) it is way east -- almost at Avenue D, 4 long + 4 short blocks to the "L" at First Avenue or 7 long + 4 short blocks to Union Square.

Alpha City indeed
On the one hand, the self-managed coop has been here for 20+ years (they just re-did the facade and installed large double-pane windows; nice job with maintenance of $510/mo), with a mix of old tenement buildings, garages, warehouses and other artist-type loft buildings on the block. On the other hand, there's a park and outdoor pool across East 10th Street, a self-storage warehouse next door to the east, and a pair of NYCHA buildings across Avenue D. Did I mention that it is way east?

On yet another hand, it didn't take long to sell: it came to market on May 27 at $1.095mm, dropped $100k in 3 weeks, then found a buyer and contract 2 weeks later.

long + winding road next door
I hit a listing in the building next year way back in July 2007, price drop for raw Alpha-Land space at 430 E 10 St (bring caution).
 

They changed firms with that listing in January and in February dropped the price (again) to $1.825mm.

building page (

) shows a completed sale in April for this space, but I don't see a clearing price anywhere and I can't tell if any C of O issues remained. Assuming they got the most recent asking price (a generous assumption in this scenario), that is roughly $500/ft for a huge amount of space and a large renovation budget. Not to mention, all those steps.

Street Easy has information on 434 East 10 Street,

.

Sep. 2, 2008 - Manhattan loft inventory as of August 31

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

This is up 2 from last week, which is still (essentially) my two month low since I started counting (my first count on May 19 was 745). See my May 19 post for what I am counting, and why it is difficult.

Sep. 1, 2008 - new Manhattan loft listings + closed sales in last 7 days

• there were only 16 Manhattan lofts reported as new to the market in the last 7 days and only 12 as sold -- the lightest week I can remember
•  10 of the 16 new ones are offered between $1mm and $3mm, while 9 of the 12 closed sales were below $3mm
•  only 1 of the 16 new loft listings is in new development, and only 1 of the 12 closed sales is in new development
  
  

  By price	New = 16	Sold = 12
  $500k to $999k	2	2
  $1mm to $1.99mm	6	5
  $2mm to $2.99mm	4	2
  $3mm to $3.99mm	3	1
  $4mm to $4.99mm		1
  $5mm+	1	1

  
   

  By neighborhood	New = 16	Sold = 12
  Battery Park City
  Chelsea	3
  Clinton
  East Village		1
  Financial District	2	2
  Flatiron	2	1
  Gramercy
  Greenwich Village	3	2
  Kips Bay
  Little Italy
  Lower East Side
  Morningside Heights
  Murray Hill
  Midtown East
  Midtown West
  SoHo	2	2
  Tribeca	4	4
  Turtle Bay
  Upper East Side
  Upper West Side
  West Village

• 
  
   
• New loft listings in new developments

• 1 York Street (One York)

  1

   
• 
  
   
• Sold lofts in new developments 

  
  

  90 William Street (be@William)

  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.