market doldrums at 36 W 15 / selling an old listing
is the market punishing this loft as too old?
I recently stumbled across this listing on the 2d floor at 36 West 15th Street, which I hadn’t seen since January. Yikes! Still out there.
I commented then (nearly six months ago) on January 29 in nothing says ‘motivated seller’ quite like dropped dollars / 36 W 15 St #2 on a roll about (a) its shape, in what may have been my first “long and narrow” description (now just “Long-and-Narrow”) and (b) about its price history – in a word, “breathtaking”:
when is a loft a little like a bowling alley?
This 1,480 sq ft floor-through loft has that classic and limited Manhattan loft layout – long and narrow (in this case, 17 ft 8 inches wide), with windows only on the narrow ends and plumbing stacks limited to one bathroom – so it is set up as a 1 bedroom.
Sara Waisman at PruDE describes it as both “stunning” and “magnificent”, and it may well be. What caught my eye is a price history that I can only describe as “breathtaking”. New to market on December 5 asking $1.75mm, with a price drop to $1.65mm on January 4, followed by another reduction to $1.499mm today [Jan 29, that was “today’ back then].
I have even less breath after noting that the price dropped again soon after this post, on February 18, to $1.295mm.
solid building history
Given the price history in the building, I don’t get this lingering loft listing. Granted, it needs another bathroom, one closer to or in the bedroom; it also probably needs another bedroom, so that to-be-added second bathroom can be in a “master” bedroom. And maybe someone would want to move the kitchen (no bragging about the kitchen, and no pictures either) out a bit to put the new-master-bath behind it.
But high floor units (with light and views, of course) have sold for a good deal more than this one looks as though it can. As I said nearly six months ago:
Past sales in this building should support a healthy price, with adjustments for the low floor and little view of the 2d floor.
The 11th floor closed at $2mm in November, about a week before the 2d floor came to market. That has four exposures (the adjoining buildings are six stories each), with views to the midtown jewels (Empire State, Chrysler, NY Life) and downtown (World Financial Center).
The 9th floor and the 5th floor sold in November 2004 for $1.815mm and $1.610mm, respectively. The 9th floor had the killer views (I saw it when it was being marketed) and four exposures, but the 5th floor probably did not.
Especially with the two year old sale of the 5th floor, one might have expected to do better than $1.6mm for even the 2d floor. But the 2d floor owner is not counting on that, it seems.
how else can the owner say “motivated”?
Sometimes listings just get stale and The Market ignores them at (almost) any price. This baby has been well under past sales on higher floors for nearly five months, and out for eight months. Sometimes you see owners who just don’t want to sell, but serial price drops from $1.75mm to $1.65mm to $1.495mm and to $1.295mm don’t seem as though that is the problem.
Is anybody out there??
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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