unsold 3 times at $1.795mm, 4 West 21 Street loft finally sells at $1.915mm

hard for StreetEasy to follow the bouncing ball

Different day, same (similar) story as yesterday. The folks who just sold the “1,518 sq ft” Manhattan loft #3D at 4 West 21 Street in Flatiron for $1.915mm made sporadic efforts to sell for years, not succeeding at the same (lower) price three times. That is, No Sale while asking $1.795mm for 5 months in 2009, 3 months in 2011, and 2 months in 2012, then Ka-ching! 7% higher than that stubbornly unsuccessful asking price. Not as dramatic as the bidding war I hit yesterday (June 19, unsold at $3mm in 2011, 110 West 25 Street loft goes to war to sell at $3.45mm), but perhaps that is only because the stubbornly unsuccessful asking price was way too high, instead of merely just out of reach.

The whole history of loft #3D has gotten tangled on StreetEasy (that seems to be happening a lot lately, hasn’t it?), but here you go, starting with the amount paid when half the couple bought from the sponsor, and with * for dates or events taken from our listing system rather than StreetEasy:

That first period while they beat their head against The Market’s wall is most understandable: thin market, just beginning to thaw when they pulled back. The middle is probably one extended campaign, interrupted by a holiday break and the decision to engage a professional. The last, successful!, campaign was not immediately successful, and did require a discount, but got them what they wanted (out) at a $200,000 (gross gain) over the buy in 2006. Keep that gain in mind, please.

The Market is (finally) smiling on this 2006 new development

My only other post about a sale in this building got into some market metaphysics, in positing that when a loft resale does not make sense compared to when it was purchased, one of these “market” transactions must be wrong. In my April 12, 2012, loft at 4 West 21 Street an outlier, closes 9% off 2006, I suggested that the sponsor (somehow; magically??) got above-market prices when selling in 2006, odd as that sounds, because the 2012 resale price of the “1,658 sq ft” loft #10B seemed like less of an outlier. For present purposes (in relation to the recent sale of loft #3D sale), that post is interesting for the analysis of other original owners selling at losses as late as a year ago, 6 years after their purchases.

The poster child for that group was loft #11B, which took a nearly $300,000 hit when it sold on July 28, 2011. (See that post for another example, and for a “theory about new development froth”.) Since then, #12C sold June 15, 2012 still below what that seller paid when buying from the sponsor before #2C started the trend of selling at a (gross) gain over 2006 when it sold on January 18 this year, a trend that continued with #3D and with #7D on May 10. So far, #3D has shown the greatest improvement ($200,000, remember?) over the sponsor sales in 2006.

Presumably, all other resales should be above water here, at least unless (until?) the market dramatically changes in the opposite direction.

© Sandy Mattingly 2013