Renwick penthouse loft at 808 Broadway underperforms the neighbors

it is nice to have comps
There is nothing wrong with the Manhattan loft #PH-L at 808 Broadway (the Renwick) that sold for $1.805mm on October 12. There is “1,700 sq ft” of interior space on 1.5 floors (the master sits a ‘real’ stairway above the wall end of the loft) with a “450 sq ft” terrace atop the front of the loft. The Market liked it well enough: offered on April 20 at $1.999mm, it took a June 19 drop to $1.845mm to get the contract by July 12. Less than 3 months to get a contract (just) above 90% of the original ask is not to shabby.

One other Renwick penthouse sold this year, and two sold last year. Each of those sales was discussed in a Manhattan Loft Guy post, and each proved to be more highly valued by The Market than #PH-L.

My May 31, 808 Broadway penthouse loft lost 15% of value since 2007, hit #PH-C, with “1,400 sq ft” of duplexed interior space and “400 sq ft” of terrace that sold for $1.695mm on May 19. That post focused on how that sale compared to its prior resale leading into The Peak (poorly) but there is a lot in there about that layout (also awkward) and finishes (brag-worthy; unlike #PH-L).

In my October 29, 2010, how to sell a loft quickly? (not a secret!) another 808 Broadway loft does it, the focus was on how #PH-A compared to the then-very-recent sale of #PH-H. Obviously, I found the #PH-A marketing campaign to have been a good example of price-right-to-sell-quickly. The two lofts are of very similar interior size, but the respective terraces are much different (“558 sq ft” in the case of #PH-A; only “125 sq ft” in the case of #PH-H). I read the listing descriptions as indicating that they were in similar condition.

Before comparing these other 3 penthouse sales to #PH-L last month at $1.805mm, I want to look closely at what is and is not presented about it.

a floor plan that grew with a family?
The strangest thing about the current floor plan is the northeast bedroom, but the southeast bedroom + office + closet is close behind. That NE ‘bedroom’ not only lacks a closet, but it blocks the living room from the east windows (leaving the living room dark except for the skylight, unless the bedroom doors are fully open). That just screams to me that this bedroom was added late in the life of the loft, when 2 bedrooms turned out to be not enough for the owners’ family and/or lifestyle.

Now look at the SE wall, with that bedroom + office + closet, accessed by 2 sets of doors, and including a hallway. I will bet you $0.25 that this entire complex was the second bedroom originally, with no office space carved out, and no hallway. At some point, the needs of the owners changed so that a 25 ft 2nd bedroom was an extravagant use of space better utilized by carving it up. Had that office been part of someone’s original plan for the loft, there’d be no need for that segment of wall creating the hallway between the walk-in closet and the living room.

Note that the pictures tell a different story than the floor plan. The “master bedroom” on the floor plan is shown as used for some work space (lots of tables!) that use magnification, while the captioned “master bedroom” in the pix is that NE bedroom … the one without a closet and furthest from the bathroom. (The pictures are bigger and captioned on full screen view on the Corcoran website.)

Note also that there are no photos of the kitchen or either bathroom. Nor any bragging in the broker babble about them. (describing a kitchen as both “large [and] open” is the opposite of bragging.)

I will offer that quarter that I won on the bet about the bedroom + office + closet complex and bet that this loft has not been updated in at least 15 years, other than carving the office out of the former 25 ft long 2nd bedroom. I won’t risk any capital on it, but I think it likely that these owners started out using the floor plan “master” as the master, then added the NE bedroom at some point, then carved up the SE bedroom at some later point … perhaps at the same point that they moved downstairs to the NE bedroom and began to use the upstairs as work space. Probably when the nest emptied.

The new owners will, almost certainly, take down the wall (doors) separating the NE bedroom and its windows from the living room. And update the invisible kitchen and baths.

playing in the sandbox with numbers (and a special friend)
Direct comping among these four penthouse sales over 14 months is difficult because of the different sizes inside and out, but the trend is clearly against #PH-L; these values adjust all the outdoor space at 25% of the interior (an arbitrary but consistent approach, based generally [of course] on The Miller’s approach):

Adjusting all the outdoor space at 50% of the interior (an equally arbitrary but consistent approach) yields little difference in the comparative values and no difference in the value rank:

The Market loved #PH-H and hated did not love #PH-L. #PH-H bragged of a chef’s kitchen and updated baths, and was set up in a logical and efficient 2-bedroom layout; I have hit (and hit again) the challenges implied in the listing description and floor plan for #PH-L, which should be a 2-bedroom and probably needs significant upgrades in the wet spaces.

another hit, another pair of lofts in the building
The Renwick is a cool building at the eastern edge of central Greenwich Village. I also hit it in my May 14, 808 Broadway loft sellers did not move far, about people moving within the building to get larger space and a garden, describing both the loft that they sold and the loft that they bought. Nothing directly relevant to the penthouse valuations, but (more) fun stuff….

© Sandy Mattingly 2011