22 West 26 Street loft sells quickly above 2010 ask, above 2009 ask

if at first you don’t succeed …
The July 6 sale of the Manhattan loft #3C at 22 West 26 Street illustrates a few things:

1. a well-priced loft sells quickly in this market;
2. a loft can sell in 2010 at a price unavailable during the nuclear winter of the Manhattan real estate market in 2009; and
3. yes, Virginia … there are still bidding wars (when the price is right).

nice loft + right price + 2010 = quick deal
Unit 3C is said to be "1,800 sq ft" and was described with a certain amount of restraint:

I know this loft pretty well and I find the restraint in the description both admirable and fitting. There probably should be a Stature of Limitations on how long you can call a space "renovated" after the renovation, but the major part of this (nice) renovation was … a while ago. It was not a single no-detail-overlooked job, but a series of bringing-it-up-to-date jobs. Nothing makes that point better than the main listing photo, with that oh-so-eighties wall of glass brick. (I am pretty sure the glass bricks have been there since about 1985, and 100% certain they’ve been there since 1993.)

As noted below, the loft was listed for a couple of months in 2009. When it was brought back to market on April 8 at $1.599mm the market loved it: a contract by May 3 (SE says May 5, but our system says May 3) at a slight premium (4%) over the asking price. A successful bidding war concluded within 25 days might not be head-over-heals-rapture, but it is love.

Had #3C closed a week earlier, I would have updated my July 7 post, 12 examples of the (rapid) velocity of the Manhattan loft market, to add one to that table of 12 lofts that closed in June after getting a quick contract. As it is, it is another example of 2010 market velocity. More than that, though, it is another example of how different the 2009 market was from the current market.

$1.65mm did not work in 2009, but in 2010 …
As mentioned, #3C was offered for sale in 2009, starting at $1.65mm on May 6, dropping to $1.599mm on June 4, and falling off the market on July 7. One infers that the sellers had "a number" in mind and (correctly) perceived that the … awkward … market conditions of mid 2009 were not favorable. Not being greedy, they came back to market April 8, 2010 at the last (reduced) asking price but (having been right in July 2009) they found a contract (slightly) above the original (higher) 2009 asking price.

This trend is summed up in the title to my July 8 post, another sign that 2010 is not 2009, as 60 West 15 Street loft sells, in which I continued a theme from my June 15, 808 Broadway seller bites painful bullet, closes off 15% since 2006, and my June 30, Chelsea House kinda sorta holds its own, reveals Truths in The Market, about two other poster children for this phenomenon.

Props to the sellers and to Alex Nicholas of Corcoran for figuring out the 2009 and 2010 markets.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010