keeping quiet about resale of 124 West 24 Street loft at 20% over 2007

at the mercy of the bureaucrats
Because the “1,097 sq ft” Manhattan loft #3A at 124 West 24 Street (124W24; ugh!) sold on December 28, it is not new; but the deed was not filed until March 5 so it is recent news to me. And it is interesting because this resale of a 2007 Chelsea new development gained 20% for the original owners, who bought for $1,117,020 on November 15, 2007 and sold on December 28, 2011 for $1.34mm. We’d have talked about this a month or two ago, if the title company had gotten around to filing the deed sooner, but such is the frustrating life of those who try to stay current with actual sales in the Manhattan residential real estate market.

(At least in this case the contract [December 5] was not long before the closing date, so this sale represents market conditions that were not very old, despite the long lag in filing the deed. Sharp-eyed readers will note that the loft I hit yesterday [March 14, 53 Warren Street loft resale shows depth of bath developer took in 2009] sold on February 16 off a contract just a little more current than this one, December 16; the loft I hit in my March 9, “bring your vision” loft at 111 Fourth Avenue sells +15% over 2004, nonetheless, closed on February 10, but the contract was November 18.)

Billed as a “convertible 2 bedroom”, the footprint is very efficient, wider than it is deep, with “11 foot ceilings [and 5] huge tilt and turn oak casement windows” providing a sense of volume. I wonder if buyers really find the “convertible 2 bedroom” hook helpful, as the suggested additional bedroom on the floor plan results in a “bedroom” that is too narrow to qualify as a bedroom under the building code.

reasonable people make reasonable deals
These sellers wanted more, as sellers often do. They brought loft #3A to market on October 12 at $1.425mm but were reasonable enough to work to a discount that was not quite six figures, signing that contract at $1.34mm by December 5. Eight weeks to contract, 11 weeks to cash and done; that’s pretty quick work.

They had neighbors down the hall who were just about to close when these #3A sellers came to market in October, so that probably helped them be reasonable. The #3C sellers took a little longer to sell their “1,178 sq ft” loft, which is a more rational “convertible 2 bedroom” as it sits on the corner and (at this scale) the ‘extra’ 81 square feet in #3C make a real difference. Loft #3C came out on March 3, 2011 at $1.65mm and needed 2 price drops to find the contract by September 14 that closed on October 19 at $1.3mm.

On a price per foot basis, #3A at $1,221/ft handily trumps #3C at $1,104/ft, and #3A sold for more absolute dollars. As I mentioned, #3C has a corner footprint that more easily adapts to an additional bedroom, but The Market may have preferred #3A for its exposure over 24th Street, compared to the interior block exposures of #3C (note all the brick in the living room window ‘views’ in #3C). You do get treetops from the #3A windows (more easily seen in the full screen feature on the Corcoran website) but you also get the hustle and bustle of West 24th Street.

a premium, reversed & good timing, rewarded
I am surprised by the evident market preference for #3A and the 24th Street ‘view’ over #3C and the mid-block brickwork. If the original developer cares, I bet he is surprised as well, as the developer sold #3C for $1.266mm in November 2007, the same month in which he sold #3A for 12% less. Such is life.

Really sharp-eyed Manhattan Loft Guy readers will remember that I hit that #3C sale when it was current, in my December 6, 2011, over-optimistic loft seller at 124 West 24 Street still beats 2007 buy. In the course of tracking that resale experience (a 2.7% premium, compared to #3A with 20%), I noted the timing of the new development, and the sponsor’s good fortune in selling out all but one unit on the way into The Peak (“developer squeezed about as much as the into-Peak market as possible with as little post-Peak inventory as possible”).

Please keep yesterday’s post about the bath the developer at 53 Warren Street took (March 14, 53 Warren Street loft resale shows depth of bath developer took in 2009) when you read this note from my December 6 post about 124 West 24 Street (and, yes, the italics are added today to drive home the point):

I do not believe that sponsor were rushing in 2007 to complete projects out of fear that The Market would come to the halt that it later did, and it may largely have been a matter of luck as to whether a developer finished within 6 months before The Peak or only 6 months after The Peak. This sponsor did about as well as one could even have hoped, in retrospect. Projects that were not completed until Fall 2008 fell into completely different market conditions.

Unintended Irony Department
I will close with some broker babble snark. The #3A babble includes this bauble:

In unit washer dryer and spectacular natural complete the picture and make this a listing not to be missed!

Can you guess the word that got dropped from that sentence? (“spectacular natural WHAT complete the picture”) I can’t complete the picture without it…. You do hate to see that.

© Sandy Mattingly 2012