victim of 2009 chill, 395 Broadway loft sells quickly at premium

timing = everything. price too
I am not sure there was anything the sellers of the Manhattan loft #10C at 395 Broadway could have done to get a sale back in the day, but I am sure the sellers did what they could by coming to market on March 17 at a price The Market liked so well that it bid up a bit to get the contract by April 12 that just closed a month ago. Terrible timing then; excellent pricing now:

(Note that I don’t believe some of the StreetEasy data and use the inter-firm data-base where there is a conflict.)

Back in the day, #10C might have been offered at the right price, but it was offered at the wrong time. Coming out about two weeks before Lehman filed for bankruptcy was bad luck, but their first reaction was fairly quick, but ineffective: a price drop of $100,000 four weeks after Lehman. They then seem to have dug in their heels, waiting 5 months for the next price drop. You have to wonder what happened to that June 2009 contract, but whatever it was, it spooked the sellers enough to drive them off the field for 21 months.

Coming back, they tested the market near where they had been before, and the market passed the test: that quick contract at a small premium (2.5%). They had a lot more fun this spring than for the 10 months they were getting squeezed by The Market in 2008-09, no?

a one-sided square
This “1,200 sq ft” loft has the benefit of a square layout, but suffers from the fact that all four windows are on the north wall. The proposed floor plan shows plumbing stacks away from the walls, offering some challenges for a renovation, but a second bath can be added, as well as a second bedroom (if you’d trade one public window for the bedroom). I wonder if that floor plan is wrong, as the listing says there is also a half bath, and the prior listing floor plan shows a half-bath as well as a full second (unbuilt!) “new bathroom”. And if the current listing pix are accurate, that “office / guest room” is still the walk-in closet depicted on the former floor plan.

Ceilings are said to be 12 feet and the windows “tall” (see the old listing), but this loft is not described as light-filled, a function of the tall building directly across Walker Street to the north.

we’ve been here before
Careful readers of Manhattan Loft Guy will remember this building, as I hit another above-ask sale here in January, and the sale of a very different lower-floor loft in February. All three sales are close in price, essentially identical in size, but of very different lofts.

That premium sale was of a very light loft (“all day sunlight and unlimited views”) that was a complete gut-job “needs it all”). (January 26, gut job loft at 395 Broadway provokes war, gets $1,000/ft) The “1,200 sq ft” #15A took two weeks of asking $1,050,000 to get to contract last November at $1,201,000.

I indulged the green goddess when I hit the sale of #5E that occurred just two days after my #15A post (February 23, renovated 395 Broadway loft is jealous of primitive top floor + of 505 Greenwich Street loft). #5E was “1,217 sq ft” of done when it sold January 28 for $1.15mm.

As I said, three very different lofts. #15A needed a total build-out but has amazing light; #10C is move-in condition but there’s no bragging about light or the finishes; #5E was the runt of the litter in terms of price, but easily in the best condition, with light that can’t be much worse than #10C. Yet they sold at $1.225mm (a premium), $1.201mm (a premium) and $1.15mm, all with contracts within 3 months.

Only #15A has something that money cannot build or fix, and the buyer paid a huge premium for that light and those views, given that a contractor’s bill ($250,000?) was still ahead of them.

Comping is hard!

© Sandy Mattingly 2011