48 East 13 Street mint loft goes for $866/ft

is the (missing) 2nd bathroom so valuable?
I am having some trouble with the last two sales in the Manhattan loft building at 48 East 13 Street. The “2,250 sq ft” #9B sold on October 27 for $2.85mm, but the “1,500 sq ft” #4A only got $1.3mm on April 8. (Scratches head.) Both were marketed more on bones than finishes, with an “open chef’s kitchen” in each. Ceilings are said to be 12 feet on the 4th floor, 13 feet on the 9th floor. The smaller loft has 2 bedrooms, and a challenging layout for anyone interested in a third; the 9th floor has much greater flexibility, with 3 bedrooms plus a ‘bedroom / office’. One sold for $1,267/ft, the other for $866/ft. WTF??

Lest you think #4A is deficient in condition, it was babbled as “in mint condition”. Lest you think that it is permanently damaged for having only one bathroom, the prior listing claimed that “second bathroom can be installed easily”. WTF??

I don’t think I can conjure a rationale for a 46% premium for the larger loft on a $/ft basis, but there may be a layout-based reason for some (small!) difference in value.

riddle me this history, if you can
Perhaps the #4A sellers were seduced by the success of #9B:

If so, that seduction was premised on a real sale. A real sale of a larger loft on a higher floor, but a real sale nonetheless. The #4A sellers allowed an adjustment for the difference in floor height, asking $1,063/ft in early October instead of the $1,267/ft that #9B had already been in contract for for 10 weeks by then.

The Market did not think that adjustment was enough, obviously.

a blocking issue?
As I said, the layout of #4A may be sufficiently light-challenged in real life to account for some of the spread between #9B and #4A, but I can’t see a 46% difference. Note that #9B has three exposures and 17 windows on the top floor, and note the building photo featured in the #4A listing: the long east exposure on the top floor (with 7 windows) is open. The #4A floor plan, in contrast, has only east and west windows, on a floor that has buildings directly abutting both east and west, at least at the north face of the building.

Presumably, #4A is set back from the north face of the building, as the windows are not directly bocked in the photos. However, the windows are curiously high off the floor in the living room and dining area photos (just clearing the rooftop next door?). Is that a ventilation duct right outside the dining room window?

Whatever the reason (scratches head), The Market valued these two lofts extremely differently. Go figure.

© Sandy Mattingly 2011