data dump: 27 Manhattan lofts sold in 2007 + recently

[UPDATE 4.12.10: added 7 more! so I also added 2 paragraphs near the end]

[UPDATE 3.18.10: added 3 more, all from The Grand Madison, all showing mild declines from the prior sale in 2007]

[UPDATE 3.12: I have added 3 lofts to the table that have recently had deeds filed (55 East 11 St, 111 Barrow, 40 Mercer), and played with the text as a result. Edits are indicated by strikeouts or [ ]. Sorry if this is cumbersome to read, but it is obvious that A LOT of readers have bookmarked this, so I don’t want to ruin that by updating in a new post. Chances are that I will update this yet again when more recent deeds are filed. ]

not much editorializing, for now
I promised when I finally caught up on my Master List of Manhattan loft closings that I would do some interesting things with that data (February 16, master list of Manhattan loft closings is up to date!), and this will be the first day that I have kept that promise.

There are 14 17 20 27 lofts on my Master List of Manhattan loft closings that sold in 2007 and also have recently been re-sold, i.e., for which we have Sale and Resale data. I am not going to say much about them now, just dump them out there, but let me explain what I did. I went back only to November 1 to find paired resales, to try to keep it "recent" sales but also to get enough sales for this to be interesting.

The data should be self-explanatory, except that — particularly as I was intrigued by some of the apparent price appreciation — I checked the former listing description against the recent description for evidence that the loft had been renovated in the interim. (In a data set with hundreds of points this might not matter, but with only 14 17 20 27 ….) Two Four gains are driven in part, at least, by improvement ore or renovation; in one [other] case, the phrase "fully restored" is ambiguous in comparison to the former listing description, but the prices strongly suggest that the condition was improved between the two sales. In two three cases with market value increases [and in one four six cases with a decline], the lofts were sold as new developments in 2007, so may reflect contracts signed much earlier [where I could find reliable contract dates I have added that info].

I hope it is obvious that this is inexact ‘science’.

I am surprised that only 3 of 14 4 of 17 20 27 demonstrate a market change (for each very specific loft) of a decline of 10% or more, regardless of whether you can ‘alibi’ some of the gainers.

[here’s an (exciting) new pair of paragraphs!]

This latest batch of 7 paired sales (added on April 12) provides a good deal more depth than I had before (nearly twice the number of pairs that I started with). Some additional observations are in order: (1)  five of the 11 ‘losers’ come from a single 2007 new development; (2) the new mix of Gains-Flat-Declines is 14-2-11; (3) there are still only four declines greater than 10%, but those four are now out of a much larger sample (still a small sample, but much larger than I started with).

Thus, it seems to me fair to conclude (provisionally, always subject to more data) that the trend for Manhattan loft resales from 2007 is more likely to be positive price changes than negative, even allowing for the number of lofts that were improved from 2007 to the current resale. Buyers in 2007 at 225 Fifth Avenue have (so far) shown mild declines but the five resales there overweight the experience in that one building in this paired resale analysis. Of the four Big Losers, one was a 2007 conversion, one a 2005 conversion, and two were in buildings converted to residential living many years ago. ENJOY!

Is this interesting enough to do again, with 2006, or in a few more months?? [

Although none of you has commented, the fact that there are so many people clicking on this post repeatedly tells me the answer is YES, but …  please … feel … free … to … comment. PLEASE.]
 

© Sandy Mattingly 2010