market changes, personified by 67 East 11 Street loft sale

a warm welcome for another poster child, please!
When the Manhattan loft #711 at 67 East 11 Street (the Cast Iron Building) sold on March 17 for $760,000 to earned Manhattan Loft Guy poster child status, with a caption “into (and out of) The Peak.” The loft has sold twice before, each time in very different market conditions than the present, and very different conditions from each other:

• Sept 10, 2004 $645,000
• Nov 20, 2006 $875,000
• Mar 17, 2011 $760,000

The ranges are similar to the poles for resales of the loft I profiled on April 9 in 60 Thomas sells +21%, but that’s above 2004 purchase, which only had 2004 and 2011 sales, netting that 2004-buyer-turned-2011-seller a 21% gain. This 2006-buyer-turned-2011-seller at the Cast Iron Building lost 13%, but the loft itself (if you can think in those terms) was up 18% from 2004 to 2011.

a true duplex, not lofted
Unlike some units in this building that take advantage of tall ceilings to market a lofted sleeping area as a “bedroom”, #711 has a real bedroom, up a real flight of stairs. Indeed, the bedroom is on the roof, creating (along with a private roof deck) a true penthouse.

I tend to doubt that the contract was signed within a week of the closing, so it is hard to say quite how quickly the #711 marketing campaign worked. It started on October 16 at $799,000, so the bargaining could not have been too difficult to close at a 5% discount 5 months later in a coop.

Loft #711 is probably larger than a similar “penthouse” loft that sold on January 11 at $705,000 (#704 has significantly lower maintenance, smaller room dimensions, and smaller outdoor space), so these two recent top floor duplexes are probably very similar in price-per-foot values. Perhaps this pair is yet another hint of an occasionally efficient market (as in my April 11 post, 80 Chambers Street loft takes a year to go from $3.5mm to $2.75mm in an efficient (gasp!) micro-market).

Another Manhattan Loft Guy poster child is crowned!

© Sandy Mattingly 2011