2 years to contract for 139 Spring Street artist's loft

one birthday is bad enough…
It is a little unfair of me to say it took two years for the recently sold “2,522 sq ft” Manhattan loft #3B at 139 Spring Street find a contract, even though the loft was brought to market on October 1, 2010. The trick is that there was a contract by February 17, 2011, but that deal fell through sometime before the loft was brought back to market on October 31, 2011. And it took (only!) another 50 weeks to find the contract by October 17 that (finally!) closed on November 6. If you count the way I do on The Master List of Manhattan Lofts Sold Since November 2008 (starting days on market from October 31, 2011 because the was a gap of more than 90 days from the prior marketing period), this loft just missed having a first birthday before going into (a successful) contract; but if you count the way the seller probably counted, she started trying to sell October 1, 2010 and did not get a contract that would stick until 106 weeks later … 2 birthday candles worth of marketing. Either way, an odyssey:

Of course I’d love to know what that failed 2011 contract was, though it is almost certain that it was higher than the eventual clearing price. This campaign involved 5 asking prices, 17 months of active marketing over 2 years, and (of course) those two contracts. An odyssey, indeed, as price discovery was difficult, ending 19% off the first ask.

thin history is hard to read
Price discovery is usually difficult in a building with a thin sales history, and this 9-unit 7-story condo in prime Soho (at the corner of Wooster Street) has no other sales in StreetEasy, and the building page on Property Shark (here, for those who can access that source) implies that this condo was formed in 2002 and that only one other unit has changed hands in the ten years since. (Even though that transfer was in 2008, there is no price record in Property Shark.)

Judging from the fact that at least two of the original 2002 condo owners show on The Shark as having phone numbers at this address well before the condo was formed in 2002 (in one case, from 1978) my guess is that this was a residential loft building back in the day, and that some tenants were involved in the condominium conversion in 2001-2002.

Judging from the condition of loft #3B evident in the thumbnail StreetEasy photos, and on the fact that this “2,522 sq ft” loft sold with only 1.5 baths, this loft (at least) looks as primitive as a loft last upgraded in the 1980s. The agent’s website has better (larger) photos and broker babble that tell the same story. (Don’t go there via the dead-end link on StreetEasy; go here.)

a charming convertible two bedroom one bath apartment with a huge adjoining studio work space with a half a bath. This unique arrangement can accommodate an owner who would like to have a living space in Manhattan plus have the added advantage of having extra space to work on art projects or an owner who is looking to live in a prime location in SoHo and would want to renovate the space to create one spectacular loft

Perhaps the full bath (pic 11 of 14) would be salvaged, but this is otherwise a total gut job. The good news in the floor plan is that the foot print is nearly square, with plumbing stacks in multiple locations. The other news in the floor plan is that the single wall of windows almost dictates that any “bedrooms” be interior.

So we are looking at a condo on a prime Soho corner that sold for $936/ft needing (probably) a complete gut. Price makes more sense with that context, doesn’t it?

© Sandy Mattingly 2012