NY Times “recent” residential sales? not so much (at 252 Seventh Avenue)

standards at Old Grey Lady go all to hell
You’d think that the regular Sunday real estate feature in the New York Times, Residential Sales Around the Region, would be … you know … "recent", as the sub-head always is: "a comparison of recent residential sales by region and price range". In at least the case of the "recent" sale of the Manhattan loft at the Chelsea Mercantile, 252 Seventh Avenue, for $1.52mm ("1,510-sq.-ft. open-space condo in a converted prewar factory; 24-hr. doormen, renovated kitchen, 11-ft. ceilings, oak floors") you’d be wrong for thinking so. Wrong, that is, if by "recent" you don’t mean something that closed more than four months ago.

You can’t blame the Times for the reported Time On Market (here, said to be 17 weeks) because they get that from the agent who reported to them the transaction. But in this case that figure is as accurate as reporting on January 31 that a sale that closed on September 16 was "recent". (See the feature from Sunday’s paper here.)

what a STRANGE history!
There’s a lot about the listing history for this listing that is strange. The loft in question is #5W at 252 Seventh Avenue. StreetEasy tells part of the story:

02/07/2009 Listed by Corcoran at $1,850,000.
03/02/2009 Price decreased by 3% to $1,795,000.
03/19/2009 Price decreased by 5% to $1,699,000.
04/03/2009 Price decreased by 3% to $1,650,000.
04/25/2009 Price decreased by 4% to $1,590,000.
05/07/2009 Price decreased by 3% to $1,550,000.
05/21/2009 Price increased by 10% to $1,700,000.
05/31/2009 Price decreased by 3% to $1,650,000.
06/05/2009 Price decreased by 4% to $1,590,000.
07/01/2009 Listing entered contract.
09/16/2009 Listing sold.
09/16/2009 Sale recorded for $1,520,000.

If you are keeping score at home, that is five price drops by early May after coming to market at $1.85mm in February, then a price increase and two more price drops before finding the contract July 1 that closed on September 16. Talk about a roller coaster!

The inter-firm data-base contains a fascinating hint about what happened in mid-May, between the fifth price drop (to $1.55mm) and the May 21 price increase (to $1.7mm). The note says "SELLER’S REMORSE KILLED DEAL IN CONTRACT". Evidently, there was an apparently successful negotiation off that $1.55mm asking price that the seller balked at after signing a contract. The remorseful seller had been a manifestly motivated seller, dropping the price five times about every two weeks from February into May. But that remorseful-in-May seller was emboldened enough to raise the asking price $150,000 to come back to the market by May 21.

Remorse again gave way to motivation, however, as the May 21 price of $1.7mm was dropped to $1.65mm May 31 and to $1.59mm on June 5. Some form of stasis set in, as the price did not change again before (again?) going into contract July 1. (Presumably the new buyer began negotiating before the seller had time to do another every-two-weeks price drop.)

full circle?
One wonders about the emotional roller coaster the seller had been on, to blow up one deal in May off the $1.55mm asking price but to accept by July 1 the deal that closed September 16 at $1.52mm. One also wonders what the jilted May buyer thought when the July contract cleared publicly at $1.52mm. Did that not-buyer deem the experience a tragedy or a farce?

which 17 weeks?
There are roughly 17 weeks between the back-on-the-market price of $1.7mm on May 21 and the September 16 closing. But it makes more sense (to me) to count only until contract (if eventually consummated), which would be only 7 weeks if you count from May 21, or 21 weeks if you count from the first offering date of February 7.

But in a world in which the august New York Times refers to a 4-and-one-half-month old closing as "recent", quibbling over the time on market of 17 or 21 weeks is mere quibbling indeed.

bleeding value, even from a peak two years ahead
Not surprisingly for a loft that traded in November 2005, July 2006 and then in September 2009, the first two prices (heading towards the peak of The Market) exceeded the last price (descending from the peak of The Market). The details for this "1,510 sq ft" one-bedroom-convertible-to-two-bedroom loft looking south over 24th Street:

Note that the November 2005 buyer must have suffered a loss on selling 8 months later, after netting closing costs such as brokerage commissions; neither did that July 2006 buyer have a capital gains tax problem selling 38 months later for $190,000 less than the 2006 purchase price.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010