28 East 22 Street loft has truly “just sold”, fetched $834/ft

you read it here second
I have ragged before on the “just” part of the New York Post’s regular Thursday real estate feature, “Just Sold” (like on February 25). Today’s edition, in contrast, reports a loft sale that is so “just” that the deed has not yet even been filed. That’s what I call putting the “new” back in “news”.

Flatiron

$1,585,000

28 E. 22nd St.

One-bedroom, two-bath, full-floor loft co-op, 1,900 square feet, with original tin ceilings and maple floors, kitchen with Viking appliances and washer/dryer, den and oversized windows; building features keyed elevator and basement storage. Maintenance $1,990. Asking price $1,625,000, on market 27 weeks.

That sale of the Manhattan loft on the 5th floor at 28 East 22 Street closed on April 4 (per our data-base) is interesting for a few other reasons, not just as a win for old media: the sellers came out on September 23 and held fast to that asking price of $1.625mm until signing a contract by February 3, needing only a 2.5% discount to get a deal done; the clearing price was only $834/ft, for “perfect combination of pre-war elegance and modern technology”; and the listing history shows that the sellers got squeezed out of the market after Lehman’s bankruptcy.

a wonderful One Bed Wonder
The “1,900 sq ft” loft has a classic Long-and-Narrow footprint, 20’ 6” wide at the ends (common stairwell and elevator narrow the space in the middle), with plumbing in the middle of one of long walls, and with the significant benefit of an east window in both the living room and master suite that clear the rooftop next door. The floor plan, however, is classic One Bed Wonder, with the master suite across the entire back wall, with a ‘media room’ between the master and the kitchen. There is no natural place to carve out as a second bedroom, even if one could live with an interior ‘bedroom’.

The “pre-war elegance” components include nearly floor-to-ceiling windows, maple floors, tin ceilings. The “modern technology” includes a chef’s kitchen dropping proper proper names, central air and in-wall sound wiring. Net-net: a beautiful loft on a lovely Flatiron block, in move-in-plus condition, that sold for only $834/ft. That is less on a $/ft basis than 241 West 23 Street #3B with “1,600 sq ft” (see my April 22, 241 West 23 Street loft pushes through market to close below 2007), or #6W at 104 Charlton Street with “2,195 sq ft” (see my March 11, 104 Charlton Street loft takes 18% hit to close), and a bunch of other lofts you’ll see on the Master List of Manhattan Lofts Sold Since November 2008.

missed the market in 2008 (sigh)
The first time these sellers came out as sellers was a terrific market, but a market that would soon evaporate. They asked $1.895mm on August 7, 2008, which might not have been too far off that market if they’d had more time. They didn’t, and a price drop to $1.695mm 3 weeks after the Lehman bankruptcy did not do the trick either. They beat a tactical retreat November 26, 2008, going off the market for nearly two years.

© Sandy Mattingly 2011