718 Broadway loft sells at $569/ft, not $1,064/ft, in 2011, not in 2007, or 2006, or 2005

price discovery can be painful, quite
Might do more on this Manhattan loft sale at a later point, but this will be a quick post about a sale that jumped out at me for a dramatically low price: the “1,405 sq ft”  loft #2A at 718 Broadway cleared on April 5 at $800,000, or $569/ft. Having jumped out at me, this loft sale went further out when I saw how difficult it was for the seller to discover the price at which The Market would clear this sale (extended listing history follows):

was it a SOM backlash?
I always thought it was strange that this loft was billed as “designed by the world renowned architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill”. Look at the floor plan, which is unexceptional for a Long-and-Narrow with only one (narrow) wall of windows and the pictures (perhaps they don’t do justice, but the kitchen pic looks rather DIY).

Of course a heartless viewer in retrospect looks at the price history and wonders where this might have cleared had the priced close to The Market in 2005. Or 2006. Or 2007. O. U. C. H.

When #2A began that long hiatus in March 2007, The Market was about a year short of the Peak. The what if #2A stayed on The Market? question cannot be definitively answered, of course, but here’s a hint: #6C was a “1,400 sq ft” Long-and-Narrow with only one wall of windows and a brag-worthy kitchen, but apparently nothing else worth babbling about, when it zoomed through the market a little later, asking $1.2mm on June 7, 2007 and finding a contract after a bidding war on June 22 before closing on October 12 at $1.25mm. That’s $892/ft, just after #2A had left the market asking $1.299mm, or $924/ft.

You’d think that the same market that would generate a bidding war for #6C at $892/ft could find a reasonable bid off an ask of $924/ft for #2A. Sadly, #2A did not stick around long enough to find out. You’d also think that coming back to market after the Peak had peaked, after the nuclear winter had thawed, and while the market had gotten noticeably deeper and stronger would work out, if brought back at the right price.

More recently, loft #2A was for sale in 2010 while the neighbors upstairs in #4C (said to be "1,310 sq ft" and an "OPEN blank canvas for the new owner to design a spectacular Loft residence") were for sale from $1.2mm to $1.09mm in the first half of the year. But that one cleared for $975k, or $744/ft, on July 20, 2010. That is $175/ft more than the SOM designed #2A eventually sold for. (I hit that sale and another the same day in the same building in my August 15, tales of one loft building / the inefficient market at 718 Broadway, circa 2006, weaker market, 2010.)

day late, dollar short
If #2A were a Manhattan Loft Guy poster child, the caption would say something like “behind the market, no matter what”. It was way too high as The Market was improving from 2005 to 2007, though less far behind as months went by and the price dropped; they were away from The Market in the best 12 month period in which to sell a Manhattan loft (April 2007 to March 2008); they came back to a thawed, deep market too high (again! still!!), until getting absolutely hammered by a January 2011 contract at $569/ft.

O. U. C. H., indeed.

© Sandy Mattingly 2011