more non-news: well-priced lofts sell quickly at 55 Greene + 55 E 11 : Manhattan Loft Guy

Manhattan Loft Guy

Dec. 5, 2006 - more non-news: well-priced lofts sell quickly at 55 Greene + 55 E 11

if you price it, they will come

I did this three weeks ago (news alert! well-priced lofts sell (sometimes quickly) … d’oh! / a tale of 2 lofts at 22 W 26), but it bears repeating: lofts that are well-priced sell in the current market, others languish.

Two examples that flew in with today’s news as contracts just signed, after coming to market in October.

driving 55

The 4^th fl at 55 Greene St, the Gunther Building, marketed by Karen Fromer at Barkin Associates was offered at $2.699mm for 2,300 sq ft set up with 1 bedroom and 1.5 baths. (Not a lot of info on that website.) Interesting here that the commercial tenant pays for the building’s maintenance, so the “maintenance” for this unit is zero. This one took a little while to find the right price, even since October, as it started at $2.8mm before bumping up to $2/875mm before settling into the selling zone at $2.699mm.

pushing the price envelope worked here

Can’t tell at this point what the contract price is, of course, but the unit was sold in April 2005 for $2.4mm off an ask of $2.5mm so they tried this year a little aggressively I would say. But it worked.

Meanwhile, the Smiling Blumsteins at Corcoran are in contract as of today at the Penguin House, 55 E 11 St, 3^rd fl. This is a similar size at 2,325 sq ft, also 1.5 baths but 2 bedrooms. The ask was $1.95mm for an “excellent opportunity to create [your] own space”. As they said, “opportunity knocks!” but in this caser it didn’t knock for long.

conservative pricing worked here

The Blumsteins know the market for this building, having sold the fifth floor for $1.91mm (above the $1.9mm ask). So the 3^rd floor owner priced it essentially flat from that sale. (curious discrepancy on that sale between Property Shark which shows a January 2005 closing, and the inter-firm database, which shows January 206 for the 5^th floor closing.) Regardless of whether it was one year or two, this pricing strategy worked, too.

As I said in my Nov 15 post:

Buyers definitely have more power than they had in 2005 but well-priced lofts still attract strong interest from well-qualified buyers. The stuff that has been on the market for a while (and which may be suffering death-by-small-increments, like #8A at 4 W 16 St, which is still on the market at $1.225mm) give buyers relatively more power. But if a loft is well-priced they should expect competition.

BTW, #8A at 4 W 16 St is still on the market at $1.225mm; it has now been out there for 8 months.

Of course, neither 55 Greene nor 55 E 11 St has a doorman.

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Dec. 23, 2007 - RE: more non-news: well-priced lofts sell quickly at 55 Greene + 55 E 11

Posted by David

Just a short story to amuse all you real estate moguls out there.
My family had a manufacturing business on Bleecker and Greene from 1935 to 1954, when they were forced to move for the NYU expansion. They eventually bought 3 buildings at 132, 134, & 136 Greene St, for a combined cost of about $350,000. Yes, this is not a typo, 350 thousand for 3 buildings. They eventually sold the buildings, all 3 of them, in 1976, to individual condo owners,mostly artists in those days, for a total of under one million dollars,,,they thought they made a killing. My father and uncle retired on the money and lived out their lives happily ever after. Never underestimate the power of real estate & MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

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