“gotta sell” at 315 West 36 Street, so dropped 40% — and sold

seven figures of motivation
The Manhattan loft #12C at 315 West 36 Street was marketed with some urgency, some big price drops, and all caps (I have taken that annoying formatting off): "major price drop, must sell immediately!!!". Darned if they didn’t do it (not "immediately", but they did it).

long downward trail
They started trying to sell this newly renovated loft ("designed from the ground up in 2008"; "from the ground up" on the 12th floor??) in May 2008 asking $2.65mm for "1,658 sq ft" that "architecturally speaking … is a masterpiece". You can’t say they weren’t paying attention, as they dropped $300k right after Labor Day (after the Fall of the House of Lehman), then another $110k 5 weeks later. They changed firms around Thanksgiving, with a new price of $1.98mm.

That didn’t work, either, so they pulled out the ALL CAPS and exclamation points when they crossed the $1,000/ft threshold with the March 6 price of $1.595mm and the "must sell immediately!!!" come-on. That ploy worked, though it took until May 13 to find thecontract that closed last week (June 15) at $1.439mm — 10% off the last asking price and a round 40% off from where they started a year earlier. That is 40% as the crow calculates, but also $1,211,000 off that original ask.

long time getting started
This building was converted to white-box residential lofts in 2003 but this one seems to have been left in its original primitive state until this "ground up" renovation in 2008. (It was originally marketed this time around as "[c]ompleted in 2008 from a raw loft space". When purchased new in that not-quite-raw condition in May 2004, the June 2009 seller paid $895k. On a gross basis, they certainly made some money selling in June at $1.439mm after buying in 2004 at $895k and renovating "from the ground up" (that odd phrase really gets to me). Of course, they paid two rounds of transfer taxes and apparently did not even live there after buying it, so the net-net ‘profit’ is more limited.

That 2004-buyer-turned-seller was an LLC so I wonder what happened. Perhaps partners ran out of money or could not agree on renovation?? Whatever the reason, they carried this thing empty for five years. That will eat into profits, as well as generate losses. (Tax write-offs??) Probably not their original plan, however.

nice (long) reno, no?
I think they did a nice job (when they finally got around to … yes … indulge me … renovating from the ground up) with a layout with windows only along one wall. The floor plan is pretty conventional (split bedrooms, open living / dining / whatever area in the middle), but the cool thing (for me, YMMV) is the glass (bedroom) walls that go opaque at the touch of a button. I doubt that the opacity-on-command helps sound insulation much, but it must surely look terrific.