avoiding the anniversary sale at 514 Broadway
why the market diss?
Unless it sells by Labor Day, #3H at 514 Broadway will be entitled to a cake with one candle on it. Since the September 2006 price of $2.3mm, this “2,100 sq ft” 1 + 1 (one bedroom, one bathroom) has been priced at $2.2mm, $1.995mm and – as of yesterday — $1.895mm (maintenance is $1,709/mo).
is it the 4 windows?
There are four huge windows here, but all at one end. If you put a bedroom there, you take one or two windows away from the rest of the loft. This seller has an open sleeping mezzanine at the other end of the unit, maximizing the space and light.
is it the feet?
The Halstead listing shows this loft as approximately “2,100 sq ft”, but many buyers looking for 2,100 sq ft won’t feel all of them. Based on the dimensions provided, the “main level” is 45 x 28, with a small box near the windows (6×6) and the kitchen and bath, which appear to be 22.5×12 – less than 1,600 sq ft. If you count the mezzanine level 1:1 you get to under 1,900 sq ft in arithmetic, which is not necessarily the same thing as feeling a space as 2,100 sq ft.
is it the stair?
Even for one bedroom layouts, a lot of buyers don’t like spiral stairs. They are … err … tricky, even if you are only drinking coffee. Especially carrying anything bigger than a book. They can be replaced with a small-footprint straight stair, of course, but that does not solve the second issue about the stairs….
The other problem with the stair is that it separates the bed from the bath. It is one thing for the bed to be many feet across a loft, but it is quite another to have to navigate the stair in your PJs.
it’s the shoes, Mars, it’s the shoes
With apologies to both Michael Jordan and Spike Lee, I suspect that this loft lingers on the market because of answer “E” on your SAT sheet – all-of-the-above.
Though marketed as in “mint condition”, the condition is only truly mint exactly as is – for the one bedroom buyer who does not need a closed bedroom and does not mind taking the corkscrew to the bathroom. That is a pretty small slice of the Soho loft market, apparently.
For most people, this will look like an opportunity for a brilliant architect to figure out how to take advantage of the height and the one-sided light to get two sleeping and two bathing areas out of it. Factor that cost in, and it is quite a different proposition.
I wonder how low it needs to go to capture that market slice’s interest. It doesn’t seem quite as simple as answering the question as posed: “If SoHo Loft living is what turns you on, your search is over”.
unhelpful building sales
#4H sold just over a year ago with a two bedroom and 1.5 bath layout for $1.74mm. #6G (a 1,250 sq ft penthouse unit with 800 sq ft of private roof space) sold for $1.4mm in September. I see four other sales last year in the building, but I can’t get enough information about the units to make sense of them.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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