perfectly terrible storm hit sale of 77 Bleecker Street loft

opera fan or stage fan?
Sometimes there is human drama in a dry set of Manhattan real estate purchase-and-sale data. It is difficult for me to look at a two-and-a-half year sequence culminating in the recent sale of the Manhattan loft #102 at 77 Bleecker Street without thinking of tragedy of even Wagnerian or Shakespearean scale. Can you feel some of the pain behind this sequence?  

Look at the milestones embedded in this narrative:

• The Peak of the overall Manhattan residential real estate market was about the First Quarter of 2008, so the purchase was not more than a month post-Peak.
• Lehman’s bankruptcy filing, which was probably the last catalyst for precipitating nuclear winter, was September 15, 2008, so the resale effort began 10 days after Lehman’s thunderbolt.
• Speaking of the resale effort, something happened to the plans these folks had when they bought, if they went into resale mode within five months (eight milion stories in the naked city…).
• Other than taking a summer hiatus from the market for August 2009, these “sellers” sat on the market at the same $1.399mm from November 2008 until the contract in July 2010, in retrospect making the wrong choice highlighted in my November 15 post, flight or fight? the disappointed seller’s conundrum, 30 East 21 Street and 205 West 19 Street lofts edition.
• Finally, it took them 2 years to sell for $1.281mm what they bought for $1.635 (a loss of $354,000 before expenses, or 22%).

there’s good and there’s lucky; then there’s unlucky
In my December 4 post, loft at 8-10 Warren Street is first resale of 2008 new development, but is still smiling, I highlighted a developer who was extremely successful in “timing” the market peak, but probably did so more by good luck than smart planning. These Bleecker Court sellers were probably more unlucky than ill-informed. Sometimes the external market moves in your favor, and sometimes it moves against you. These folks got killed!

in and out of 1,850 sq ft on 3 levels in 2 years
The single coop at 77 Bleecker Street called Bleecker Court was converted in 1983 from 3 separate buildings, so it is an understatement to say that the floor plans in this coop vary. The multi-level spaces like #102 are among the largest original footprints, in this case “1,850 sq ft” with ceilings in places as high as 17 feet and windows to match. (80 Warren Street in Tribeca is another single-coop-out-of-several-buildings that has varied and funky floor plans.) Here the windows all face the interior courtyard, away from busy Bleecker and Broadway, and from less-busy Mercer Street.

Loft #102 is 2.5 floors of long-and-narrow space, proportionately five times as long as it is narrow, with the half-floor a 25 foot long mezzanine bedroom over the front part of the main floor. The pix show better on the Corcoran listing than on StreetEasy, with the first pair of photos being on the downstairs (‘rec room’ level), which does have windows; the middle pair are the main level with the 17 foot ceilings at the far end; the mezzanine bedroom is in the third pair of photos. Better yet, also look at the StreetEasy photos from the 2008 sale for additional angles, including the way the mezzanine hangs on the main level. While it is large space at “1,850 sq ft”, with three levels and only one exposure it is challenging space.

The recent sale at $1.281mm comes to $692/ft, with the mezzanine at full value. That compares with the much smaller spaces in #815 (“600 sq ft”, no mezzanine) going for $791/ft on November 1, and at #603 (“850 sq ft”, but 2 proportionately large mezzanine spaces) going for $588/ft on November 16. Back in the day, the similarly large #116N (“1,800 sq ft”) sold for $800/ft on September 3, 2009 (overlapping, that is to say, competing with #102), also with 2 floors plus half-mezzanine. You will need to click on the three floor plans on the Corcoran listing to see how the shape of this space is much less challenging than the long-and-narrow #102.

Clearly, The Market values different mezzanine spaces at Bleecker Court at different levels.

calling that female dog
Clearly, hindsight shows that the #102 sellers would not have done worse taking the “flight” course as disappointed sellers, instead of fighting the market (nearly) every day for two years.

Bad fortune, that. Cue the fat lady….

© Sandy Mattingly 2010