too pushy in Chelsea / trying to keep secrets??

waiting for the ignorant buyer?
This post started out being about the recent sale of a Chelsea loft, but it got more interesting (and April 9 complicated) because the same unit on a lower floor is also for sale. I can appreciate that sellers don’t want to lower prices more than they have to, but I have to wonder about the pricing strategy here. That puts the for-sale loft into the category of the Manhattan loft Goldilocks thread, leaning towards the too pushy side in my mind.

I am going to use made up numbers and dates here to preserve the anonymity of the sold and for-sale lofts, but the adtes and prices are similar in scale to the actual facts. The two lofts have the same layout and size, they appear to have the same level of finishes and were renovated at the same time; the sold loft is on a higher floor.

Sold Loft History
to market in Summer for $2.1mm
price drop to $2mm after 1 month
2d price drop to $1.9mm after another month
contract after another month (closing price is not public yet)

For Sale Loft History
to market before Sold Loft for $2.1mm
price drop to $2mm after Sold Loft signed contract off $1.9mm asking price

We won’t know more until the clearing price for the Sold Loft is available, but then everyone will know what the Sold Loft was worth on the date the contract was signed, which is extremely likely to be less than the asking price for the For Sale Loft by $100k or more.

is 5% significant?

Yes, at the scale of a $2mm loft (more or less) $100k is not a significant difference (5% either way should normally generate an offer), but this is not a normal market is it? (At least, not compared to recent Manhattan history.) I don’t see the logic of pricing a loft above where you know The Market is, but I am not the seller, or the seller’s agent. There is a real risk that you will follow The Market down (if you have to sell; perhaps they are sellers-at-their-number-only).

Can’t wait to see how this one turns out — though it may be a while….

© Sandy Mattingly 2008