Oct. 10, 2008 - what springs eternal? hope, renovation, or ...hubris?

careful post about a new listing
Yeah, I know I am not supposed to blog about current listings from other firms (if you're new here, check out end of an era for Manhattan Loft Guy / a new day dawns? from April 9 for that story), so I will do this carefully and cryptically. (And ethically.)

I came across a new Manhattan loft listing recently that looked kind of familiar. Our ever-so-irritating inter-firm data base shows that this condo loft had been on the market in 2007 at around $1,200/ft but was "permanently off the market" in the Summer of 2007. Now it is 'new' with a different firm and agent at over $1,400/ft. Hmmm ... that seems a bit brassy, doesn't it?

not so brassy, but what happened here?
Further digging in city records showed that the loft had not been 'taken off the market' last Summer, but had actually sold. For about $1,100/ft. Which seemed brassier still, until I checked the pix and descriptions from the new listing against the old one -- the loft has definitely been renovated. City records show a building permit having been issued soon after the sale data for a job estimated to be $30,000 that is probably for this unit, though the renovation looks far more extensive than that.

what did they spend?
So instead of doing a blog post along the lines of what-were-they-thinking?, as originally drove me, this will just be  a note that I will track this listing with interest. I hope that it sells so that I can explain this better, but for now I can only wonder how much they put into the unit in renovation to seek to generate more than $300/ft over last Summer's purchase price.

This sounds like one of those eight million stories (perhaps of the Lehamn Brothers variety?): happy buyers acquire cool loft at a bit of a discount from the asking price, then immediately set out to do a major renvoation (the condition when they bought it was ceratinly more than 'live in' based on the prior listing description, but apparently not what they envisioned). Then ... something happened and off to market they go.

Interesting times, no?

Oct. 14, 2008 - RE: what springs eternal? hope, renovation, or ...hubris?

It seems that the game the DOB plays with renovations is one where the architect prices the absolute lowest cost the project could be completed for and that is the price that shows up in the DOB (and the price that the fee is calculated on). So, for example, while you are putting in a $2000 Kohler Tea for Two tub, you could have put in an Acrylic tub from Home Depot for $99, and that's how you file your renovation. So a $30k DOB renovation could easily be $500k if the finishes were right.