revisiting velocity, as 132 West 22 Street loft sells near a world land speed record

16 + 14 = pdq
As far as Bright Shiny Objects are concerned, it is the dates associated with the sale of the Manhattan loft on the 5th floor at 132 West 22 Street (the Stanwick) that most quickly catch the eye, instead of the prices. (Even though the loft doubled in sales prices in ten years.) It is almost as though they could have done it all in August, if only they’d started two or three days sooner: to market on August 4 at $3.45mm, in contract by August 19, and closed on September 2 at $3.2mm.

Zoom zoom, indeed. New listing to cash in the bank in 30 days.

huge Long-and-Narrow
There is no  floor plan surviving on the StreetEasy listing or on the Core site (which presents this as an active listing; sigh …) but there is a floor plan on StreetEasy from the two week feint on the market last September. At “3,000 sq ft” the loft is fairly large for a Long-and-Narrow, in this case 36 feet wide (or narrow) with 6 windows front and 6 in back (none on the sides), in this case fitting (only) 2 bedrooms across that back wall. All the plumbing is in the middle, sort of ringing the public stairwell.

With this width, and the 13 foot ceilings, there must be a palpable sense of ‘volume’ in the lft, most especially in the living room. The listing claims “extraordinary light and city views”, but the pix don’t go out of their way to support that description; I suspect that the former listing’s more modest claim of “plenty of natural light” is more accurate.

The new listing also claims “all-new, top-of-the-line fixtures and gorgeous mosaic tile”. The space was sold by the sponsor on July 13, 2001 for $1,476,500 with the same 2-bedroom + 2 bath configuration, though from what little detail in what remains in our data-base I cannot say whether there have been extensive upgrades over the last 10 years.

There are also few details about the condition of the 10th and 11th floors, sold by the sponsor in October 2008 and November 2007 for $3.15mm and $3,330,112, respectively. (I am going to guess that the sponsor sold renovated residential lofts on floors as commercial tenants vacated, accounting for the spread between sponsor sales from 2001 to 2008; there are only 10 full floor units in the condo.) Perhaps the 2001-buyer-turned-2011-seller upgraded the loft considerably in the intervening years, without adjusting the floor plan. But the recent (quick!) sale at $3.2mm compares very favorably to the sponsor sale of the 10th and 11th floors (in fully renovated condition) leading into (a 1.6% premium) and just after (at 4% less) The Peak. Very favorably.

about that velocity
I did not find a Manhattan loft sale in the Master List of Manhattan Lofts Sold Since November 2008 that was quicker than the 5th floor at 132 West 22 Street from start to finish. But getting to contract within 16 days is hardly a world record.

The last time I wandered down this path was in my August 2, velocity in the Manhattan loft market / 72 Mercer Street sale was not the fastest, which was prompted by a loft sale (#2W at 72 Mercer Street) that seemed quick at the time (32 days to full price contract, 55 days in all. start to finish). I then counted another 20 Manhattan lofts with deeds between early June and late July that found contracts as quickly as that one Mercer Street, of which 5 were actually as quick or quicker than the 16 days for the 5th floor at The Stanwick. So that was 21 sales out of 101 that had contracts within 32 days of coming to market.

Using that same 32 day standard and using a similar 7-week period (now, August 30 back to July 16; not double-counting 77 Bleecker Street #509 from the earlier post), I found only 9 Manhattan lofts that went to contract within 32 days of coming to market, 4 of which were as fast or faster than 16 days, out of 79 total closed loft sales from July 16 to August 30.

Net-net, if the data scraped in my August 2 post was evidence of high velocity, velocity in the next 6-week period did not match the prior 6-week period.

Still in all, the Manhattan loft on the 5th floor at 132 West 22 Street is a Bright Shiny Object for taking only 30 days for the owner to cash out. Personally, I find it kind of bright and a little shiny that he sold for more than twice what he pad paid 10 years earlier, and a little shinier still that he sold right around where teh sponsor sold two higher-floor lofts around The Peak. YMMV

© Sandy Mattingly 2011