454 West 46 Street loft sold after MUCH longer campaign than in the NY Post

This looks like a pretty quick sale, right? Four months to get a deal at a 5% discount from asking price.

The reality is not surprising, and rather different. In fact, the listing history on StreetEasy for this loft, #3AS at 454 West 46 Street (the Piano Factory), shows that it was actively marketed by PruDE beginning in March 2009. There were less than two weeks between the end of the PruDE listing period and the Corcoran marketing that began on February 5, whigenerated a contract by March 24, a sale on May 27, and a NY Post "Just[!] Sold" feature on July 29.

Looking just at the new firm marketing, that is pretty quick: less than 7 weeks to contract, at that 5% discount from list.

Looking at the entire, essentially seamless, effort the seller made, they were at it for a year and sold at a 21% discount from their original asking price. Given that they were out there during the nuclear winter, this history and price history is not surprising.

Not only did they work it very hard in that tough market (our data-base shows they did 21 open houses from March to December 2009), they tried to react to the chilly market, as this price history shows:

The Market is not efficient
Not that the spread between the last listing price (at which they held from October 8 to January 26) was only 7% higher than the eventual closing price. I have to believe that this loft got punished in the Autumn for being a tired listing. That $1.12mm asking price should not have scared off a buyer willing to close at $1.045mm.

They re-booted the listing by having a ten day hiatus between listing firms, giving the new firm the opportunity to do the New Listing thing, probably exposing it as ‘fresh’ to people who either were not paying attention before, or who needed a New Listing nudge to get them to take a new look at an old listing. That should not happen in a rational market, but there it is.

duplex loft
I would love one day for someone (not me!) to determine the difference in value between lofts that are duplexes and lofts all on one level. Particularly at the scale of this loft ("1,380sq ft"), the sense of space is completely different in a duplex, before even considering the ‘waste’ of space the stairs take on both levels. I can appreciate that some people prefer the separation and privacy gained in a duplex, but I suspect that there is generally a market deficit for duplexes … at least until you get to pretty large spaces (perhaps 3,000 sq ft, or 1,500 on each level).

#3AS has just enough room upstairs for a bedroom, bath, a window-less study (roughly 12 x 10 ft), and those stairs. Once you close any door upstairs, there is significant separation from any noise coming from the kitchen or living area. That will be attractive for many people, especially people who don’t mind growing a child in that study, without natural light. But most spaces as big as 1,380 sq ft have a much easier layout for 2 (or more) real bedrooms.

redux
Careful readers will have thought by now that some of this sounds familiar. I hit this loft when it closed, but in that June 5 post, sale at 454 West 46 Street strikes an off note, down 5% since 2004, I highlighted the recent sale price weakness compared to that (ancient) prior sale in 2004:

1. August 12, 2004:  $1.1mm
2. May 27, 2010:       $1.045mm (after "beautifully [sic] renovations")