what happened on the 5th floor at 73 Worth? 3rd sale this year

an idea spreads
73 Worth Street is not a big building as relatively recent Manhattan condo loft conversions go, with 30 lofts. Nor is it an old building, with the first sales (following some protracted sponsor ‘issues’) in April 2005. The very first resale was not until a year ago, #4B. The next three resales were all on the 5th floor: #5B on January 21; #5D on February 4; and #5C on June 2 (in NY Post Just Sold feature this week, but not yet on StreetEasy or in ACRIS).

That’s a little weird, with three units on the same floor changing hands in 6 months, after only one other in the building has sold since 2005. I doubt it has anything to do with that floor per se, but it is striking.

It is also weird that the Post scooped StreetEasy with details about the closing, but I will take it:

TRIBECA $2,060,000

73 Worth St.

Prewar two-bedroom, 2½-bath loft condo, 2,238 square feet, with kitchen with wine refrigerator and Sub-Zero, Wolf and Bosch appliances, master bath with soaking tub and separate shower, media room, keyed elevator and balcony; building features doorman, garage and roof deck. Common charges $1,757, taxes $1,197. Asking price $2,195,000, on market 29 weeks.

How did these neighbors do, in comparison to each other? From the

Master List

:

Both #5D and #5B slogged through the post-Lehman nuclear winter for the Manhattan real estate market, taking 13 and 7 months to get to contract in difficult market conditions. Yet the pricing is remarkably similar, once you make allowances for the different footprints.

The "B" line at 73 Worth St has a terrific corner layout, with windows on one narrow side and on one long side; the "C" and "D" lines, in contrast, are classic Long-and-Narrow footprints, with no side windows and two bedrooms in the back. #5C did a bit more bragging about finishes in its listing description, name-dropping a "renowned designer" and using the word "custom" a lot, but The Market does not seem to have appreciated that #5C was in a much better condition than the new-and-high-end-in-2005 condition of #5D.

2003 pricing and 2005 pricing for 2005 sponsor sales
Remember those protracted sponsor ‘issues’ I mentioned? They account for the differences at which these three neighboring lofts in identical condition were sold in 2005. The original contractor for this conversion could not finish the building, and the developer went bankrupt. The lenders took control and finished the building, but in the meantime the early contract signers were given the right to rescind; the remaining lofts in the building were marketed again in 2005.

The #5C and #5D buyers signed contracts in 2003; the #5B buyer signed shortly before closing in 2005. The contrast between 2003 contracts and 2005 contracts is quite evident from the StreetEasy page for 73 Worth, with many differences in scale similar to the spread between the sponsor sales of #5C and #5D. While those early 2003 signers got a "deal" (compared to the 2005 contracts), their lives must have been pretty messy. They had a contract deposit in escrow and one bit of bad news after another about whether the building would ever be finished (and, if finished, if they wanted to still live there).

that first resale was … painful
Remember that I mentioned that #4B was the first resale in the building a year ago? I hit that sale when it closed in my June 26, 2009, 73 Worth Street closes by biting a very large bullet in one bite. I related a bit of the sales history of the building (and the history of no-sales), and Reader Jess provided a link to information about a large assessment to condo owners here in 2009. All of which may help explain why the #5B seller in January 2010 (who got the highest price per foot of the three resales on the floor) sold in January 2010 at a 10% discount from the original sponsor purchase in September 2005.

© Sandy Mattingly 2010