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.