3 more Broadway babies / yet more open houses under $1,000/ft
Yes, 620 Broadway “lies on the border line of SoHo and NoHo” and, yes, it is priced more like Noho than Soho. #5F is said to have 2,700 sq ft and is offered at $1.875mm and maintenance of $2,423/mo.
Open House Sunday 2 – 3:30.
My calculator tells me that is under $700/ft, but the marketplace is pretty clear that the price is still too high to sell. It has been offered for sale for 13 months, starting at $2.35mm, and has been at the current price of $1.875mm for four months.
No takers (yet).
Part of the problem is layout (Long-and-Narrow with windows only over a narrow side overlooking Broadway), as the “bedrooms” are interior and the two bathrooms are accessible only through the bedrooms.
Part of the problem is probably noise – or the fear of noise. The inter-firm listing information notes that the windows are noise-abatement windows and the photos suggest that the air conditioning is interior, rather than through the wall or in the window.
Maybe one can hear / feel the subways there. The BMT lines (Q, R, N for anyone not of a certain age) run down Broadway and the IND 6 Avenue trains (D, B, F, V) run across Houston Street, which is just to the south of this building.
Whatever it is with this building, it seems endemic – and serious. The last sale in the building was at a similar valuation: #3R (also said to be 2,700 sq ft) sold a year ago for $1.8mm.
Three blocks south on Broadway is generally more SoHo pricing, so the #5F for sale at 510 Broadway for $1.795mm (said to be 1,950 sq ft) seems a relative bargain, especially with maintenance of $1,350.
Open House Sunday 12 – 1:30.
The hints here are both clear and persuasive: this is a “blank canvass” with “real potential”; in fact, it is “almost a raw space”. That’s why this one is under $1,000/ft.
Next we travel way uptown (to 29th Street) to find another open house under $1,000/ft at 1200 Broadway, the Gilsey House. There is a #5F in this building, but it is not for sale. #7B is for sale at $1.795mm for what is said to be 2,000 sq ft.
Open House Sunday 2:15 – 3:30.
Again, this pricing is easy to understand as below $1,000/ft – though maybe still not so easy to understanding where it is at $900/ft. This truly, truly handsome building sits in a tacky commercial zone along Broadway – weekends and weekdays both. (No ‘charm’ here, but a lot of urban ‘grit’.)
The last three sales I see here were #5G at under $800/ft in September, #6C 15 months ago under $600/ft, and #3G 18 months ago at $650/ft.
The listing description for #7B drops the names of a lot of features but doesn’t otherwise brag about a renovation. Hard to tell if the renovation work – whenever it was done – justifies a premium over $100/ft than where other units have traded in the building. It has been on the market since December, starting at $1.949mm with an intermediate drop in January and a drop to the current $1.795mm 2 weeks ago. Will that be enough?
Odd layout item: the entry to the apartment is in the kitchen – literally between the washer and the dryer (I haven’t seen that before).
Odd building item: I have not been in the building in a year, but they used to require that residents go down to the lobby to let in visitors, and deliveries (i.e., there is no way to buzz the front door open from the apartments). Probably still the case. Probably justified by a long-ago security issue. If I lived there, that would get tired in a hurry.
If you noticed my earlier under-$1,000/ft open house previews for this Sunday, you will have noticed that my post yesterday also featured three open houses on Broadway under $1,000. With the traffic, general hustle-and-bustle and noise issues on Broadway, it should not surprise that some Broadway loft buildings command prices lower than the Manhattan average for loft prices.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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