682 Broadway loft before ($1.295mm) & after ($2.75mm) gut renovation in 2013

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods noho — No Comments ↓
I hope you’re not tired of the Guess The Budget game for Manhattan loft renovations

I don’t think that I have ever been to a Sunday open house that was as crowded as the one for the pre-renovation “1,350 sq ft” Manhattan loft #7A at 682 Broadway at the corner of Great Jones Street in Noho in February 2013. Everything about it enhanced the feeling of being cramped, from the narrow building foyer leading to the small elevator, to the gatekeeper in that lobby counting people leaving before letting a similar number of people up, to the experience of moving sideways (always sideways!) through the throngs in the relatively narrow unit, to the bottlenecks of people at the doorways to each bedroom, or passing through the dual doorway bathroom. The loft was marketed as “the perfect canvass on which to project ones unique design visions” and there were multiple pairs of people taking notes and photos, discussing just how they would project their own unique design visions onto this blank canvass.

The loft was not quite large enough for my buyer client (though it had terrific flexibility and significant ‘volume’ due to the long line of windows facing north over Great Jones), so he was pleased not to participate in what looked like it would be a vigorous bidding war. The surprise was that the loft went (only) at ask, selling at $1.295mm on June 14, 2013, and taking only 11 days to get into contract.

Fast forward two years. The 2013 buyer completed a “meticulous gut renovation” and the loft was back on the market by May 19, 2015. (Sadly, it appears that the 2013 buyer died, as the 2015 seller was an estate.) This time it took only eight days to find the contract that closed on July 22 at $2.75mm. (Again, a full price deal.)

Let’s defer guessing the renovation budget and consider the work that was done.

The 2013-vintage loft was described as an “authentic artists loft”, but I don’t recall seeing any evidence of recent usage to create art in that space. Perhaps there was an earlier owner (or the 2013 seller, in an earlier life) who used the terrific light at the west end of the loft to create art, but by 2013 the space was more ‘primitive’ in condition and array than it was ‘artist’.

as much ‘stuff’ as you see, nothing quite says ‘clutter’ like having a microwave on the windowsill!

The wiring into which that kitchen appliance is plugged appears pretty primitive, as does the weathered flooring.  Of course, the (brick) walls and ceiling hadn’t been painted in … quite a while.

In the 2013 usage, that’s the public living space in the loft pictured above, with the kitchen unseen behind the photographer, and the master bedroom at the far end  through that doorway. The old floor plan suggests to me that the ‘master’ was added after the kitchen and bath:

a Long-and-Narrow, but hardly classic: windows are on one narrow wall + one long wall

If that far west room was there back in the day, I bet that was the artist workspace. Check the view from those west windows and imagine the quality light at the northwest corner:

certainly, the best view and light in the loft are right here

what would you do with this space?

As noted, as a blank canvass, the space offers a lot of possibilities. You’ve got nine north windows and the four west, you’ve got at least two plumbing stacks along the south wall, and the 11 foot (barrel vaulted!) ceilings help ameliorate the pinch at the entry (only 12 1/2 feet “wide” at that point).

If I only needed two bedrooms I would do what the 2013 buyer did:

the west end is opened up as much as possible, BRs are at the east (more quiet) end

(Note that this floor plan flips north and south, compared to the earlier plan.)

You walk into this space and immediately look west, to the (now open) sunset views at the widest part of the loft. The kitchen separates the public space from private, and the old kitchen wall extends to fitting a laundry room and then two full baths. The entire space is modest in size (“1,350 sq ft”) but the master suite is spacious, the Great Room is both nicely proportioned and relatively large, and even the second bedroom is larger than many secondary rooms.

This is what you can do when you ‘erase the lines and start over’.

Compare the sense of volume in this photo (“After”) to that from almost the same angle above (“Before”):

the public gets all the good space and great light, with no bathroom on the left wall to shrink the volume

gaming the renovation possibilities

The “meticulous gut renovation” extended to the floors, to bringing the brick wall back to a natural finish, and to lovely details, of course:

kitchen features solid walnut Henrybuilt cabinetry, Danby marble countertops and center island, Subzero refrigerator and freezer, Wolfe and Miele appliances and a deep farmhouse sink.
… 7 inch wide English oak flooring ….
Both bathrooms … feature custom medicine cabinets, Duravit and Kohler fixtures, Jerusalem pearl raked limestone and hand-painted talavera tile flooring.
The laundry rooms features a Miele washer and dryer….
Other features … [include] the custom bookcase with integrated projector screen ….

There’s no bragging about new wiring or new windows, so I’d guess they didn’t change those loft elements. But from new floor to refinished walls, to new kitchen, new baths and a new laundry room, to other custom features, this is a brand new loft. In order to play Guess The Number, we’ll start with a guess as to renovation budget.

I’m going to go with $400/ft because of the scale (smaller units can cost more than larger lofts with the same utilities, because proportionately more of the money goes into one kitchen and two baths in 1,350 sq ft than in 2,000 sq ft) and the evident quality of materials and work. For “1,350 sq ft” that suggests the 2013 buyer paid a bit more than half a million bucks to create this lovely loft. That would put his Buy & Fix budget around $1.85mm.

For Manhattan Loft Guy personally, the fun of playing Guess The Number is to assess whether a renovation resulted in more value than it cost. (We played recently in my August 25, from $1.15mm in 2012 to $1.975mm, so we have to play Guess The Budget for 161 West 15 Street loft, and my August 14, before ($1.55mm) + after ($2.935mm) gut renovation of Soho penthouse loft at 8 Greene Street; for a recap of prior posts that folds in conventional Real Estate Industrial Complex treatment of renovation Cost v. Resale Values, see my June 26 LinkedIn post, Renovation Cost v. Resale Value: some real Manhattan loft stories.)

To play fair, we have to adjust the 2013 purchase for the intervening change in market values, as the loft would be worth more than $1.295mm now even if it hadn’t been renovated. I’m still not used to the new StreetEasy Manhattan Price Index (and I’m not certain how I feel about it, except that I know that I hate that it is not [yet??] available as a stand-alone resource) but if you scroll down (and choose Manhattan All) you will see that the new Index is up almost 18% from June 2013 to July 2015 (from $835,777 to $983,207). Thus, the current value of the unimproved loft would be just over $1.5mm, if the new dollar-denominated StreetEasy index is as good a proxy for the overall Manhattan residential real estate market as the old Index was.

Now add my guesstimated renovation cost to that, and I conclude that the time-adjusted purchase price and guesstimated renovation budget of $400/ft imply that the 2013 buyer generated significantly more value by renovating than it cost him. ($1.5mm plus $540,000 = $2.04mm)

Even if you assume he spent $600/ft, there is still a great deal of additional implied value in the observed market fact that the loft was worth $2.75mm on July 22, 2015. ($1.5mm plus [$600 times 1,350 ft, or $810,000] = $2.31mm)

Do that again: if the renovation cost $600/ft, the renovation generated more than $1.50 in value for every dollar spent on the renovation, even after adjusting for 25 months of market appreciation. At $400/ft, the ratio is more than $2.30 in value for every dollar spent on the renovation.

Look at the recent sale through another lens. Someone just paid $2,037/ft in a no-frills 15-unit coop.

This comparison startles me: loft #7A is nearly the same size as the “1,322 sq ft” #9E at 252 Seventh Avenue (the full service uber-condo Chelsea Mercantile). StreetEasy knows that the Merc loft sold for $2.85mm on July 31 (or $2,156/ft) but doesn’t know anything else about the loft or the listing. The listing agent’s website thinks #9E is still In Contract, but it does have a photo and some broker babbling about this 2-bedroom+2-bath condo loft.

Nicely played, 682 Broadway renovator; nicely played.

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from $1.15mm in 2012 to $1.975mm, so we have to play Guess The Budget for 161 West 15 Street loft

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods chelsea — No Comments ↓
games that Manhattan Loft Guys love to play…

The guy who just sold the “1,170 sq ft” Manhattan loft #5B at 161 West 15 Street (in the Jensen Lewis Building) for $1.975mm paid $1.15mm to buy it in February 2012. In between, he finished a “stunning modern renovation”, so not all of the $825,000 (gross) difference in purchase prices went into his pocket. Even recent readers of Manhattan Loft Guy know that I like to play Guess the Budget when presented with a scenario like this, to guesstimate whether the renovation generated more value than it cost, adjusting for marketing timing, of course. (Very recent readers would be familiar with my August 14, before ($1.55mm) + after ($2.935mm) gut renovation of Soho penthouse loft at 8 Greene Street.)

Let’s first estimate the change in the different markets, February 2012 to the present, to ballpark what the unimproved loft would have been worth in the current market. The too-new-for-me-to-have-processed-yet market index unveiled quietly by StreetEasy last week has a Manhattan Index value denominated in dollars from February 2012 of $733,832 compared to $936,683 at the end of the Second Quarter (per the Market Report, as the friggin’ table in the Index link is not very usable when the red line crosses the green line … sigh), for a Manhattan market appreciation of about 28%. That ballparks the loft as worth about $1.5mm today if it hadn’t been changed in between.

Might the 2012-buyer-turned-2015-seller have created a “stunning modern renovation” for under $500,000? If so, he generated more value by doing the renovation than he spent to “create the home of your[!] dreams”; if not, well then he got the benefit of living in your dreams, an outsider’s views of ‘profit’ notwithstanding.

The best pair of Before and After images includes the kitchen and great room:

you can’t quite appreciate the “custom resin counter tops” or the “custom kitchen cabinets … with Bendheim glass panels” but they’re there

the reverse angle, with new 7″ oak flooring evident

The new broker babble is enthusiastic, but not that much more than the former version. Now:

Kitchen by Leicht features a Liebherr Refrigerator, Miele stove and dishwasher, and a wine refrigerator. …. Italian porcelain bathroom with double sinks, Zuma soaking tub, and Dornbracht fixtures. California Closets plus custom built-ins provide great storage. Miele Washer and externally vented Dryer in unit. 7 wide plank white oak floors throughout, with light fixtures by Flos, Foscarini, and George Nelson.

Then:

cook’s kitchen … artistically designed home is a true gem. Custom resin counter tops and appointments throughout. The maple and cherry custom kitchen cabinets are fitted with Bendheim glass panels adding warmth and a luxurious touch. The same woods have been laid on both the foyer and bedroom floors with custom maple cabinetry in the bedroom carrying through. The washer/dryer is vented.

I will leave it to you to toggle between the two floor plans (then, and now), but having done it a few times I can assure you that the only evident change in layout was the placement of closets to the left of the entry.

Net-net, there’s a new fancy pants kitchen replacing the former fancy pants kitchen, new flooring, and a different black and white bathroom (quite possibly, with the same bathroom vanity and sink faucets, oddly enough [then, now]). And a new paint job.

So I guess the guy could have done this well under $500,000. Nicely played, sir; nicely played.

the neighbors might be jealous

At $1,674/ft for the renovated (probably re-renovated) loft #5B with no true bedroom, the much larger but virtually contemporaneous sale of loft #4G with one true bedroom at $1,379/ft is a fascinating contrast, the sort of contrast loft lovers are used to. Loft #4G is nearly twice as large (“2,030 sq ft”) and was babbled as presenting a “professionally-equipped kitchen”. That one boasted “open city views and miles of sky”, with two exposures. Also vaulted ceilings, for those of us who drool over such things. Loft #4G overlapped on the market with loft #5B for the three weeks it took #5B to find a contract, but they are of such different scale that they didn’t really compete with each other.

These differences allowed, the smaller loft sold at a premium of 22% on a dollar-per-foot basis.

The #5B guy wins again.

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before ($1.55mm) + after ($2.935mm) gut renovation of Soho penthouse loft at 8 Greene Street

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods soho — No Comments ↓
to create an authentic classic from a near-wreck is not cheap, but it can be profitable

Let’s say the interior of the recently sold (at $2.935mm) just-barely-Soho loft on the 6th floor at 8 Greene Street really is “1,700 sq ft”, which means the private roof terrace is about 1,200 sq ft. Since we know that the recent seller paid $1.55mm to buy it in “create your own space” condition (with roof rights) in March 2011, and we know that the overall Manhattan residential real estate sales market is up about 28% since then (the irritatingly not truly updated StreetEasy Manhattan Condo Index tells us that), we desperately want to know the renovation budget. Without actual facts, we will have to play Guess The Budget in order to assess whether the recent seller created more value than he paid to build out the space and the roof. I’ll go first, but let’s scale the pre-renovation value through a simple time adjustment to get a sense of the baseline for measuring (guessing) ‘value’ created, as recognized by The Market.

The StreetEasy Condo Index implies that the loft would have been worth about $2mm now, had it not been improved in the interval. Let’s play in round numbers and say that the renovation (build-out) added about 7-figures in value. It seems highly likely that this is another one of those loft renovations that created more market value than was spent on the renovation budget ($350/ft for a nice renovation = [only] about $600,000, add another 6-figures for the [roughly] 1,200 sq ft roof and there is still a healthy margin of added value; you’d have to assume about $450/ft for the interior work and more than $150,000 for the roof before you get close to the break even point).

Nicely played, sir; nicely played.

broker babble doesn’t sound all that enthusiastic

Based on this detail from the listing description, this was probably not a no-expense-spared renovation, just a nice (er … “authentic”) renovation (I will omit, as usual, babbling such as the kitchen being “fully equipped”, as if that were a selling point):

kitchen boasts first-in-class appliances from Miele and Liebherr and fixtures by Hansgrohe. Lacquered wood cabinetry with natural wood shelving …. dining area’s vintage theater lighting ….

The bathroom offers the epitome of elegance and relaxation. A deep oval tub, Dornbracht fixtures and a stunning crystal chandelier…. Custom-built pull-out medicine cabinets are an example of the thorough attention to detail in this apartment. …

… stunning 150-year-old yellow pine floors [and] vintage 500-pound fire hall door suspended in the ceiling’s beams. Modern improvements in the plumbing, electricity, as well as the addition of central A/C, a fully installed Insteon smart home system and surround sound with Bose speakers throughout …. vented Whirlpool washer/dryer.

In a perfect world, babble like this would be backed up with a photograph:

A powder room adjacent to the full bathroom features a one-of-kind art installation in the ceiling creating the perception of an endless ceiling with a double mirror and ladder, yet another intelligent design detail that sets this loft completely apart.

We (still) don’t live in my perfect world, so it is impossible to know how significant this “intelligent design detail” is In Real Life.

This modest language is not the way that many agents would describe a loft that was rewired and re-plumbed: “[m]odern improvements in the plumbing, electricity”, so this does not imply a worst-case (higher cost) renovation for those critical infrastructure elements.

Aside from restoring those (glorious!) 150 year-old pine floors, the exposed brick, and those (glorious) original beams, it is pretty clear that most of the renovation budget was spent within 10 feet of the common stairwell:

from the kitchen, to the full bath, to the half bath, to the closets in the master (single!) BR … that’s where the money went

The kitchen had to be the single largest budget item:

it’s (15?) ft, along a single wall, with no bragging about the counter; just the appliances + lacquered wood cabinets

The other big Money Room:

(hard to say how the “custom” pull-out medicine cabinets work; if they’re behind those mirrors, how do they open without hitting the lighting??)

Again, I surely wish for a listing photo showing that in the (tiny!) half-bath.

I have no idea about roof budgets, but this should be expensive

They started with this

your basic unimproved roof

… and ended with this

lots of decking means lots of engineering to support it, and that grill set-up (looks great!) needed a gas line

Even looking again at the lovely deck (grill!) and allowing that the roof deck build-out may have cost more money than I know, there’s a lot of room between the $935,000 (or so) in added value and the (likely) renovation budget. It’s not easy to spend a million bucks on a modest (“1,700 sq ft”) loft, even with a roof. The work almost certainly generated a greater return than the dollars spent, which is a common concern in the Media Division of the Real Estate Industrial Complex. (See my June 11, spectacular renovation of Village penthouse loft is not quite as well received as renovator hoped at 42 East 12 Street, for the latest time I addressed this comprehensively, and ended a trio of Guess The Budget posts [UPDATE: I forgot to link to this June 26 summary post on LinkedIn with the actual Media Division references I was thinking about: Renovation Cost v. Resale Value: some real Manhattan loft stories.)

Before I play the nicely-played card again, there is one thing about this building that should give any potential renovator pause: just how big is the market for a sophisticated (single bedroom!) loft that is optimized for entertaining (between the proportionately huge living room and the roof, this is a party space) that has no elevator?? Five flights up to the loft, and another flight (pause to catch your breath here) to the roof.

In this case, in 2015 the market was deep enough. Not to get the 2011-buyer-turned-2015-seller everything he wanted, but deep enough to get him more than (a) market improvement since his 2011 purchase plus (b) his (likely) renovation budget. (He started at $3.2mm and needed a price drop to $3.1mm after 60 days to get the contract in another 60 days that closed at $2.935mm.)

Not to be age-ist, but the buyer pool for 6th floor walk-up lofts skews young. The buyer pool for lofts requiring cash ($750,000??) to fund a renovation contains some wealthy thirty-somethings, but tends to skew older. Fascinating that this seller created a great loft for a single person or couple who love to entertain, and found a buyer with enough friends physically fit enough for repeat visits to the top floor and roof.

Nicely played, sir; nicely played.

different ways to handle a tape measure, I guess

Things that make me go hmmm  …. When the loft was marketed as a create-your-own space opportunity in 2011 there were “12 foot ceilings”. (Click the listing photos to see that the ceilings were closed, i.e., flat.) The 2011-buyer-turned-2015-seller exposed the ceiling beams (“joists”, no?), which had the visual effect of raising the ceilings (the skylights help this, a lot). I suppose that since there are No Rules, babbling “soaring 14 f00t ceilings” is probably within bounds. Just weird to see a ceiling grow two feet.

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tough floor plan, 105 Fifth Avenue coop loft sells at $1,416/ft

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods flatiron — No Comments ↓
one more loft visit to the corner of 18th Street in prime Flatiron

Regular readers of Manhattan Loft Guy don’t even need wonderful memories to know that I hit a loft with interesting ‘issues’ here in the Spring, which will be an interesting hook for considering the more recent sale of the “1,765 sq ft” Manhattan loft #6D at 105 Fifth Avenue at $2.5mm. But let’s start with the hook in the headline. For a loft footprint that large, with plumbing stacks near the (south) entry and along the east wall, there is precious little ‘flexibility’ to this loft. Blame the single (north) exposure, with its six windows split among four (!) rooms:

hard to see how this could be arrayed very differently, if 2 (real) BRs needed

The broker babble is enthusiastic about the finishes, but I have to wonder about at least half of this fluffing:

Massive Living Room and Dining Room give you lots of space to spread out. Oversized Windows (each 9′ Tall) fill the home with light.

That “massive” space running from kitchen to windows zigs and zags a bit, but is rather large. The windows may well “fill the home” with light, but I’d have to see it in real life before conceding that much of that light gets very far into the massive space we were just talking about. Once you are about halfway into the loft, you get this view if you are standing along the east wall:

those 2 big windows are *the* 2 windows in the public space

There are other ways to bring some light into the public space, and this array plays a few of those tricks. The second bedroom has a glass wall and an offset doorway (see the NE corner of the floor plan, and the 4th listing photo), allowing the living rom to have those two windows and allowing some light from the last window to seep into the public space through that glass wall. If you keep the door open in the (removable) study, as in the photo above, you get some of that light into the public space.

But you will see no windows on entering the loft until you clear the refrigerator corner, in yellow in this photo looking back toward the entry on an angle:

other ‘tricks’: bright lighting, white walls and ceiling

That yellow refrigerator corner is about 40 feet from the windows. And if you toggle back and forth among the various listing photos that show the round dining table and the floor plan, you will see how closely one passes that table to get to the rest of the public space (indeed, to get to the bedrooms or study), squeezing between the table and the built-ins or credenza on either side.

can this loft pass The TV Test?

Speaking of awkward layouts, look up at the floor plan again before looking at any photos. Where would you put a television? Alas, the floor plan artist gives you the answer (d’oh! “media” on the east wall after the last zag), but note that this is pretty much the only answer. The wall the two bathrooms are on won’t work, because that’s the natural dining room. The wall of the study might fit a screen, but then you’d have to awkwardly arrange furniture in front of the glass wall of the second bedroom.

Nope, “media” is it. And now note how well cropped this photo is:

the couch starts just at the edge of the screen and (see floor plan) where’s that column??

So in that “massive” living room you pretty much are forced to put the television on this wall, leaving just a few dots on the rug to pass between the television and the couch. As I said, not a lot of flexibility here. (It may feel different in real life, of course, but it doesn’t appear to have the promised “lots of space to spread out”.)

One of the fun things about lofts is that owners can do pretty much anything they want to a loft. Including, as in this case, building a very long and narrow “study” and stick a small child in it. (The tiny bed featured in listing pic #7 is just visible in the first photo above.) There’s “flexibility” in that sense, even (especially) if you are willing to design (or repurpose) space within an inch of its life.

The recent sellers bought the loft in 2006, though StreetEasy lacks the listing from that era. Trust me: the photos and floor plan are in our listings system, and show the loft with the exact same configuration and elements except for that “study” (kid’s room) and some cosmetics. At some point, the recent sellers had the second child and (probably) kicked out Kid One from the second bedroom in favor of New Baby (Kid Two).

Without that “study”, here’s what the space looked like in 2006:

the third window really makes a difference in the far living room

As the current floor plan says, that study is removable. (So are the other interior walls, of course, but they make a point about that wall for good reason, as in the 2006 photo just above.) Once removed, you can move the television seating back a foot or two (again, squint to see 2006). Once removed, you get the benefit of three full windows in the living room, plus the through-the-glass-wall light of the easternmost window.

meanwhile, up on the 7th floor, lofts were sold

I mentioned up top that we were here in the Spring. That was my May 19, what would have happened if they renovated the kitchen to sell 105 Fifth Avenue loft?, in which I contrasted the then-recent sale of the “1,522 sq ft” loft #7E for $2.05mm and the November 2014  sale of the “1,750 sq ft” loft #7B at $2.695mm.  Check that post for listing photos, floor plans, and my review of the specific choice the #7E seller made to do a major renovation that left the kitchen in (apparently) somewhat primitive condition.

For present purposes, the dollars-per-foot for these 2BR+2bath lofts are what is most interesting: #7B at $1,540/ft in November 2014, followed by #7E at $1,347/ft in April, and ending with #6D at $1,416/ft in July. Loft #7E had the (major) deficit of a kitchen in need of being brought up to the quality of the rest of the space, while #6D has a far more awkward footprint than #7B, which also had two exposures. It is not likely that a difference in condition contributes to a difference in value of #7B and #6D, the two are almost exactly the same size (15 sq ft difference), and market conditions when #7B sold were marginally less strong than when #6D sold.

Yet #7B earned a premium of 9% over #6D on a dollar-per-foot basis unadjusted for time. That’s the power of an awkward footprint.

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rare small, low-ceiling Tribeca loft sells near $2,000/ft at 355 Greenwich Street

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods tribeca — No Comments ↓
is there a scarcity premium for small lofts in Tribeca?

There are not many true lofts in Tribeca around 1,000 sq ft. There are not many true lofts (in Tribeca or elsewhere) with ceilings just over 8 feet ‘tall’. There are more than a few Tribeca lofts in buildings that lack elevators. And there are a great many Tribeca condo lofts that sell near $2,000/ft, though probably not too many in no-frills buildings, and none that I am aware of with the combination of small size, low ceilings, and walk-up status of the “1,002 sq ft” Manhattan loft #2B at 355 Greenwich Street, which sold for $1.988mm at the end of June. (I don’t know why StreetEasy cannot tell that the listing is for the same unit as the deed record, but this sort of thing is happening a lot lately …. arghhh.)

This doesn’t look very loft-y:

8’2″ ceilings, per the listing description, no loft character evident other than hardwood flooring

But this does:

this simple facade just blows me away … elegant! beautiful!! loft-y!!! (Note To Self … find out what it was built for in 1891)

Yes, that’s a nice little kitchen, and a lovely bath, and the timber beam and column are classic loft elements to die for (see the listing pix), but this is a small loft with two small bedrooms squeezed into a footprint that is either “1,002 sq ft” (as StreetEasy has it for the condo deed) or “1,075 sq ft” (as our listing system has it).

not such an unusual loft floor plan, though it would look better if everything were a lot larger

Yet, this happened: to market on May 8 at $1.775mm, in contract by June 3, and closed on June 26 at $1.988mm. That’s seven weeks from start to money-in-the-bank, 12% over ask. At $1,984/ft in a no-frills, 4-unit condo without an elevator. (I use “1,002 sq ft” in my Master List of downtown Manhattan loft sales because my default for size is what StreetEasy has, which matches what Property Shark has, which gives me confidence that is what the City’s ACRIS system has.)

can anyone start in Tribeca any more?

There used to be ‘starter’ lofts in Tribeca. Not at $2 million.

(Here’s another smallish Tribeca loft that should make ‘starter’ buyers look elsewhere: the “1,200 sq ft” #12B at 261 Broadway sold a week after #2B at 355 Greenwich Street for $2.005mm; that one’s a coop, not quite as nice a Tribeca location, but with an amazing view; net: $1,671/ft.)

A simple scroll down the Master List finds these Tribeca loft sales below $1,984/ft:

“sq ft” deed price per foot
66 Leonard St #2E [Textile Building] 2,368 June 1 $4.65mm $1,964/ft
110 Duane St #PHN 2,254 June 5 $4.25mm $1,886/ft
39 Vestry St #5A 2,230 June 12 $3.875mm $1,878/ft
53 N. Moore St #5E [The North Moore] 1,887 June 16 $3.28mm $1,738/ft
27 N. Moore St #2C [Ice House] 2,300 June 16 $4.3mm $1,870/ft
53 N. Moore St #5F [The North Moore] 2,436 June 24 $4.13mm $1,695/ft

None is ‘comparable’ to loft #2B at 355 Greenwich Street because each is larger, and many have both nicer finishes and more amenities, but that’s my point: this modest (dare I say ‘cramped’?) no-frills no-elevator loft traded at a higher price-per-foot than of lofts generally viewed as vastly superior. And this table is just June sales.

does that facade remind you of anything?

About that Note To Self in the building photo caption above … 355 Greenwich Street is just one block north and one block west of 67 Hudson Street, which I am pretty sure was built as a medical dispensary. I don’t think the similarity in the two buildings is a coincidence, so maybe 355 Greenwich Street had a similar or related usage:

similar brick work, similar verticals, two blocks apart

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did rising tide eventually sell huge 141 West 26 Street loft (with rising hotel)?

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods chelsea — No Comments ↓
when wrong is wrong, until it’s right, Chelsea loft edition

The “4,050 sq ft” Manhattan loft on the 2nd floor at 141 West 26 Street was offered for sale at $3.95mm for nearly a year, having been brought to market on May 30, 2014 and not finding a contract until May 4, 2015. If you view ‘market facts’ the way I do (not everyone does!), that asking price was ‘wrong’ for the better part of a year, in the sense that the asking price did not attract a buyer willing to pay a price acceptable to the seller. Certainly that was true for seven months in 2014, and was probably true in the first quarter of 2015. But some time in April that same asking price did its job, provoking the negotiation through which a buyer and the the seller agreed by May 4 that the loft was worth exactly $3.8mm.

Funny how that works: the demonstrably too-high price became the just-right price simply by tearing off calendar pages in a rising market. (From May 2014 to February 2015 the StreetEasy Manhattan Condo Index was up only 5%, so there was not a dramatic rise in the overall Manhattan residential real estate market.) There simply was no one willing to pay $3.995mm (or within 5% of it) for seven months in 2014 and at least a few months in 2015, and then … there was!

a large loft space with a few issues to chew on

The footprint for the loft permits lots of flexibility, with 29 feet across the front (facing south, West 26th Street) and 45 feet in the rear, plumbing stacks in the front, middle and rear of the loft, with an unusual patio in the southwest corner of the loft. The broker babble hints that the present floor plan is not likely to survive long after the sale (the oh-so-inviting “bring your architect” card is played) and there is an alternate floor plan to stimulate the uncreative types. With 12 foot ceilings, this is a huge residential loft:

this is more of a working loft than a living loft, at least based on allocation of space

This is a floor plan optimized for whatever work went on in the studio, where the good light is (was). The front of the loft is a (proportionately) small square in which any indoor public activity occurs, with sleep areas sharing the west wall with store space for the studio (the largest room on that wall is for storage!).

(nearly all) the public space, with the kitchen visible through the pass-through on the wall facing you on the left, and a LR ‘view’ of a big tree

The sellers realized that any buyer will be expected to dramatically change the usage of space in the loft, as the market for 1,300 sq ft studio space is rather small. This proposed alternate may not actually be built, but there’s a logic to it:

the long and wide footprint permits a variation on the classic Long-and-Narrow floor plan (3 BRs splitting the rear windows), with the kitchen pushed back to the middle

Obviously, one issue to chew on before buying this loft is renovation expense. Think “gut” and go from there. And “4,050 sq ft” will take a lot of chewing to renovate. At a modest $250/ft for a $3.8mm purchase, that’s another million bucks.

Another issue to chew on is the light in the back. You can see clear through to 27th Street from the listing photos, but that situation is temporary.

north light is great, especially for a studio, right?

I can’t remember if the agents talked about it in detail, or if we had to dig in the public records to find out what was going on in that big (temporarily) empty lot to the north of this second floor loft. But dig we did, and learned that the hotel to be built there would cover the entire width of that lot and would be 20 feet from the windows above. (I can’t embed the zoning diagram, but you will see it on the New York City Buildings Department Building Information System here.) In short, there would be a one-story structure in the southwest corner of the new hotel and a ground floor “rear yard” across the remaining two-thirds of the hotel width, with the flue for kitchen exhaust somewhere near the middle of the hotel width, probably opposite some of the windows of the second floor loft at 141 West 26 Street.

In other words, there would be no light back there, with a hotel rear wall about 20 feet away, and very likely a restaurant flue staring at you. How’s that for a lot to chew on??

My buyers couldn’t … er … digest all this comfortably, even with the knowledge that most full floor residential lofts put bedrooms along a rear wall that is ThisClose to another building. And even with the knowledge that there are few lofts with anything like this outdoor patio that this loft includes.

it’s in a canyon, with no breeze or view, but you probably don’t get much 26th Street traffic noise

Even with the north light to be lost here, this is fascinating (and unusual) outdoor space for a residential loft on a busy Chelsea street.

a real estate aphorism, revisited

Remember that stuff way up at the top of this post about the price being wrong-wrong-wrong … -right!? The logic of that truism still holds (that’s what truisms do, dammit), but in looking again at the challenges any potential buyer of this loft would have to consider (as my clients did), there is another way to look at this loft: this loft took 49 weeks to find a contract only 5% off the lone asking price because the buyer pool for this loft was probably small, once entrants in the pool started chewing.

It’s not just a (near) $4 million purchase, but it’s a million dollar renovation (or a two million dollar renovation). And how many people really need 4,000 sq ft? Or are intrigued by a second floor patio that fronts on 26th Street? And how many buyers are willing to live through the construction of a 21-story hotel? Not to mention, end up with that hotel sitting within 20 feet of their rear windows? Possibly, with a restaurant exhaust flue?

On reflection, this loft is one of those it takes the right buyer lofts, which means that the sellers have to be confident in their asking price and patient. The time to contract proves they were patient, and the 5% discount from ask (likely) proves they were right to be confident about the ask.

It can be a tough business, this selling a loft with ‘issues’. I assume these sellers are happy with the result. (Hope so.) The loft was fun to visit, and to contemplate the challenges; the sale is fascinating to ponder as an outsider to the transaction.

 

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classic loft at 42 West 15 Street sells at $1,700/ft without windows in living room

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods flatiron — No Comments ↓
an unusual floor plan on a classic Manhattan loft footprint

The “2,000 sq ft” Manhattan loft on the 3rd floor at 42 West 15 Street took a while to sell, but it closed last month at $3.4mm, two numbers round enough for you to calculate the (healthy!) price per foot easily. I am less surprised by the days on market than I am by the (healthy!) price per foot, as the loft currently has a rather unusual usage for a classic Long-and-Narrow footprint.

as the stairway position implies, the top (north) is the front of the loft, where you often see a living room; the rear wall is split between 2 BRs, as is typical

For a full floor Long-and-Narrow loft, the 3rd floor has a few things going for it, including having plumbing stacks on both long sides in the middle and an additional plumbing stack toward the front, opposite the stairs. Here’s the way broker babble tries to make lemonade out of a typical problem with Long-and-Narrow lofts:

a large square living room immediately off the entry gallery [has] exposed brick wall and clever use of mirrors tucked into old windows to reflect light throughout the space.

I don’t know quite how old the “old windows” are, but this is the third floor and there’s no light coming in from the long side walls. In nearly every case with such a typical footprint, the front windows open into a living room; if more sleeping areas are needed than the two true bedrooms on the rear wall, you will see an interior “bedroom” (say, with clerestory or full glass windows, say, behind the stairway along the west wall).

Not in this case, where white walls and those clever mirrors help brighten life in the living room:

the insert for the bookshelves must be an old window, right? (we are looking toward the back BRs)

There are not many buyers for whom “no windows in the living room” is a Must Have. If the recent buyers need only two bedrooms, I suspect they will use the front as public space. But note that there would still be very little light past the elevator; unless they do a more expensive renovation, removing that huge bathroom opposite the stairs (along with the closets on each end), without that change the path for light still narrows after the kitchen.

As nice as the space is (high ceilings! all that brick! vaulted ceilings, no less!) and as convenient as the location is, many buyers are going to scratch their heads over the living room without windows. Somebody satisfied themselves that the loft is still worth $1,700/ft, despite this being a no-frills coop, and (with sparse history) no loft ever having sold for $2 million before. Pretty healthy! indeed.

does the loft look better In Real Life than in broker babble?

The listing description is fairly restrained, but I found one hint in here of a commitment to quality materials:

Find a large square living room immediately off the entry gallery with exposed brick wall and clever use of mirrors tucked into old windows to reflect light throughout the space. Chefs will feel at home in the large kitchen with ample custom cabinetry, including large pantry, top of the line integrated appliances and center island with two inch slab marble counters. An adjacent laundry room is the definition of convenience. Floating over the treetops with pleasant northern light, absolute serenity is found in the enormous master suite with custom closets. The ensuite master bath is the essence of luxury with radiant-heated floors, double vanity and oversized shower with frameless glass enclosure. The secondary bedrooms are on the southern end of the space and bathed in light throughout the day. A separate home office is conveniently tucked away lending itself to organization and utility.

I don’t count “radiant-heated floors” in the master bath as a hint, but a “center island with two inch slab marble counters” seems pretty committed.

Of course there’s another hint: $1,700/ft, blowing well past prior (ancient) sales in the building. This is the more enthusiastic babbling for the 2nd floor when it sold for (only) $1.655mm in March 2010, the last time a loft in this 7-unit building sold:

Brand New Designer Kitchen w/ Porcelain Floors, Soft-Close Cabinetry, Subzero Fridge, Bosch Cooktop, Glass Tile Backsplash, Bosch Washer/Dryer, Separate Storage Room / Work Space, Grand Master Bedroom Suite, Extensive Built-Ins & Walls of Deep/Tall Closets, Triple Exposure – North, West & South, Large 4-Piece Bath w/ Jacuzzi Tub, Track & Customized Lighting, Add’l Window Can Be Added To Home Office/Bedroom.

Making a simple timing adjustment based on the StreetEasy Condo Index, that 2nd floor loft would be worth about $2.25mm now (the Index is up 34%). There’s a huge spread between the implied current value of the 2nd floor and the observed value of the 3rd floor, suggesting that there may be something special about the 3rd floor that is not obvious from the listing description or photos.

what sort of Manhattan loft owner puts a dark living room in the middle of a loft?

You can’t do this on StreetEasy, because StreetEasy doesn’t have the listing description or photos from when the recent 3rd floor sellers bought the loft in June 2006. Bear with me on this search (or skip down to the architect photos below) as this will take a few steps.

Step One. I know that the recent sellers bought in June 2006 because that is what our listing system says, and what this peculiar sales record confirms. That sales record is peculiar because it isn’t obviously linked to the 3rd floor, but the buyers are the same as the recent sellers on the 3rd floor deed record, because it is “commercial”, and because it purports to be for a huge loft. And, note the name of the 2006 seller.

Step Two. Our listing system has a single photo and no floor plan, but this description of the 3rd floor listing in 2006:

This stunning 2+BR/2Bth property designed by George Renalli [sic: Ranalli] has been published in over 9 architectural magazines and books. The full-floor loft integrates original prewar character and modernist design with soaring 12 +/- barrel vaulted ceilings, maple floors, exposed brick and beams, and plaster with Baltic birch walls. The open kitchen is a clean and understated design of white. The master bath has a steam shower and there is a washer/dryer in the apt.

I was confused at first by the “2+BR”, but if the 3rd floor in 2006 was “published in over 9 architectural magazines and books” it was likely in pretty sweet, well-considered condition.

Step Three. I couldn’t have done this if the architect hasn’t been identified, but The Google found the guy and this residential project pretty easily. Remember the name of the seller in 2006? Hence, the “K-Loft”, described (click on the grey strip on the left; my emphasis added) in architect-speak as follows:

The renovation of a residential Chelsea loft preserves the lofty expanse of existing space, while providing its occupants, two artists and their child, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a combined living and dining area open to a large kitchen, and workspaces for sculpture and printmaking. The architectural resolution centers on a unifying spatial theme not unlike a traditional courtyard house. The central spatial feature of two large sculptural elements is elaborated by architectural variation, within a soaring barrel-vaulted space.

Inside the 2,100 square foot rectangular loft, at the front, a central foyer leads into an artist’s studio, with a new bathroom expanded from its original configuration. A separate entrance leads to a piazza- like interior for living and dining, which includes a large open kitchen. Nestled at back are the family’s private quarters, including two spacious bedrooms, and a large bathroom. An antechamber outside the bedrooms, spacious enough for a private moment, or conversation, improvises space between more personal areas and the large expanse of living room.

Sculptural forms, defining the design of the kitchen, bathrooms, and bedrooms, undulate rhythmically beneath an existing vaulted brick ceiling; geometric spaces, within cabinetry, provide sculptural movement across transitive surfaces. A balance of materiality, extended further by honey-colored wood furniture, light fixtures, and cabinetry, moves across walls, and around doorframes, emphasizing and protecting corners and edges. Each interior design element echoes the planar inflections of the architectural design, fabricated at the same high-level of craftsmanship, producing a composed atmosphere. A combination of delicate lighting against the substantial brick ceiling, smaller lateral light sources, and tinted transom windowpanes, introduce an essence of the ephemeral into an otherwise solidly constructed space.

To answer the question in the sub-head above: the sort of Manhattan loft owner who puts a dark living room in the middle of the loft is an artist, who needs the front light for an artist’s studio. (Or two.) Of course!

Step Four. It is obvious that the architect’s interior photos are very different from the recent listing photos. What I’d love to know is how different the loft looked in 2006.

all the flourishes (“the planar inflections of architectural design”) aside, even the kitchen configuration is different, 1995 to 2015

Going top-level (for once!), my guess is that the client who commissioned the architectural flourishes in 1995 had made some changes to the decor before selling it in 2006, but not to the shape or room count or placement. Whatever changes that 1995-2006 owner made, the logic of the design was sufficiently compelling for the 2006-2015 owner to keep it except to trade the front artist studios into a master suite.

Kitchen stayed where it was, bathrooms too, most likely. Most critically for present purposes, the usage of the space with the public rooms in the (window-less) middle remained. Either it was wonderful in flow and function, or simply too expensive to ‘fix’. (Remember: to really open up the front you’d need to remove the master bath plus two sets of closets along the east wall, and then find another space for a second bath.) With someone recently having paid $1,700/ft as-is, I very much suspect the former (“wonderful in flow and function”) explanation.

I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun obsessing over a floor plan!

welcome back to Manhattan Loft Guy, architect George Ranalli

Speaking of having fun, I made a half-hearted effort to search the ‘publications’ link on the website of the architect of the 3rd loft, to see if I could learn anything else about the usage of the space by that 1995-2006 owner. No luck, but I came across this January 2011 Sunday New York Times Real Estate Section Habitats feature (which was an OMG moment for MLG) about the architect’s own loft.

Longtime readers of Manhattan Loft Guy with very good memories will recognize the loft in the article as the one I hit in my January 24, 2011 (the next day!), NY Times loves the architects who (live in +) love lofts / West 15 Street Lego edition. The architect for the 3rd floor at 42 West 15 Street in 1995 was then living on the next block in a small studio he bought for (wait for it) … $35,000 in 1985, and later combined with a small 1-bedroom next door into the 2-bedroom-plus-master-sleep-loft configuration featured in the Times. I won’t lengthen this post with more photos, but if you are curious you will find some of the same design flourishes in the architect’s own West 15th Street loft as in the 3rd floor loft at 42 West 15 Street, circa 1995.

I like my 2011 summation of what the architect did to design for a client (his family) that he knew intimately:

With (only) 12 foot ceilings, I wonder if he stands up in the loft. The daughter’s bed also sits on a yacht-worthy jumble of storage, but the son’s room seems not to have taken advantage of the height. (Perhaps when he is older….) When you know exactly what your client (family) needs, you can design within an inch of pain, I guess.

As with the bento box family, to ask what about resale? is to introduce an irrelevancy into the client’s enjoyment of the space. It works for them, with all the hidden storage and visual tricks to ‘expand’ the space. Who cares if anyone else would like it?

The what about resale value? question looms large in considering the 3rd floor at 42 West 15th Street. The 1995 owners needed studio space, and engaged the architect to give them that in the front of the loft, where you would typically find the living area. The cost of that choice was to leave the entire public space of their loft in the middle, with no windows, which is such an unconventional choice that Conventional Wisdom would carp about it (would shout the what about resale value? question).

You can argue that resale value would be higher with a classic floor plan. But I can say that The Market didn’t really care, even as the former artist studios was converted into an unconventionally located master bedroom suite, because: $1,700/ft.

Good for them!

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rising tide meets patient seller, so 13 Jay Street loft sells

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods tribeca — No Comments ↓
April 4 listing leads to April 10 deal for Tribeca loft, though there were many holidays in between

Far be it from Manhattan Loft Guy to tempt fate by saying something like “there’s nothing worse than …”, as Life can surprise you in all the wrong ways. So let’s begin the discussion of the June sale of the “1,860 sq ft” Manhattan loft on the 3rd floor at 13 Jay Street by saying that there are few things as frustrating for searchers ready to buy a loft than to be confronted with a seller who is both (a) over-priced and (b) in no hurry to sell. As they say, it takes a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither under compulsion, to make a market. My buyers saw this lovely loft soon after it was first offered, were intrigued, but we agreed that the loft was then asking beyond what the value was for my buyers (and, likely, beyond what The Market would offer).

The first price drop didn’t help (enough). By the time the asking price more closely aligned with The Market, my buyers were about to buy another property, which they did. The Market gave this seller a lot of feedback, much of which was ignored until Groundhog’s Day:

April 4, 2014 new to market $2.995mm
May 20 $2.85mm
July 31 hiatus
Sept 4 back on the market
Nov 24 hiatus
Feb 3, 2015 back on the market $2.695mm
April 10 contract
June 26 sold $2.65mm

That’s 53 weeks between coming to market and contract, though the two extended hiatuses had the loft on the sidelines for five weeks at the end of last Summer and then 10 weeks from Thanksgiving to Groundhog’s Day. Even after coming back to market at $2.695mm, it took almost another 10 weeks to (finally!) get to contract … at a time when the common narrative was that (well-priced) Manhattan lofts were flying off the shelves. (My Master List of downtown Manhattan loft sales under $6 million has 19 lofts that closed between February 3 and April 10 and took 30 days or fewer to get into contract, and another 16 that took between 31 and 60 days to get into contract.) Those last 10 weeks suggest that buyers were not eager to bite even after the last price drop, but that someone eventually acquiesced to a seller who was reluctant to budge (much).

But the deal got done. Fifty-three weeks and 11% off the first asking price, 46 weeks and just over 7% off the second asking price; just those last 10 weeks and less than 2% off the last asking price. It helped that the overall Manhattan residential real estate market was up about 6% while the loft was on the market (as measured by the StreetEasy Condo Index, of course); it probably helped more that the seller decided she really did want to sell.

do you see anything flexible about this “3-bedroom” layout?

The loft is a classic full-floor Long-and-Narrow loft, with the three windows on the back wall split between two bedrooms and the three windows in the front split between a home office, the entry, and … the elevator!

no side windows, as is typical of many Long-and-Narrow lofts; the fireplace is not typical, however

As far as light is concerned, the good news is that that home office (“which easily converts to a guest bedroom”) has walls that don’t reach the ceiling and glass french doors; the bad news is that only that middle front window brings natural light into the space.

you’re looking at the only ‘public’ window, and at lighting fixtures bright enough to cast a shadow around the kitchen island

With both long walls being brick, the space would be much darker if the east wall (the longer of the two) did not feature a long run of bricks painted white, as in the edge of the kitchen above. The shorter west wall gets natural brick and features the sort of inset archway that just had to be functional, back in the day:

nice character in that natural brick, moderate in amount and color

Regular readers of Manhattan Loft Guy will understand what I mean when I say that the elevator placement in this footprint is in the ‘wrong’ place for residential purposes, and was almost certainly added in a prior commercial use. Otherwise, why take up one of only three front windows?? And I will bet you a quarter that the first elevator installed in this building opened onto the sidewalk, through the lovely (brown) shutters:

13 Jay is the two windows with fireplace and the line of windows with the white signs, no doubt saying “shaftway” to protect emergency responders

I wil bet you another quarter that the building to the left was built at the same time as 13 Jay Street, by the same owner, at the same time, with elevators added to each at the same (later) time.

With this footprint, there would not be much interior light to be gained by putting the elevator at the far end of the public stairwell instead of in that third front window, so little commercial reason for whoever owned the building when the elevator was put in; and in 1986, when the building was converted to coop, little reason for a developer to go the expense of installing a new elevator north of the stairway (especially as the building was likely to have been residential lofts before being converted to coop as late in Tribeca as 1986).

I’ll not post another photo, but you can see for yourself that the rear windows must face the back of the buildings on Harrison Street just to the north … drawn sheers in listing photos compel that conclusion, even if I hadn’t already peaked though those sheers in real life. In other words, this loft is not going to attract buyers for whom light is a priority. Nor, with that single 3rd floor front window and the buildings across Jay Street being 6 or more stories, will this loft attract buyers with “view” on their wish list.

What you see is what you get: this loft has a sense of volume, some classic loft-y brickwork and detailing, two bedrooms, and the “flexibility” to remove the home office up front to expose that other front window. (Seriously: I don’t see any other flexibility.) Finishes that are nice enough, but as implied by the modest broker babble (and confirmed by my visit In Real Life) neither triple mint nor current. The 5-unit coop is pure no-frills: no basement storage, no roof deck, no amenities. (Maintenance is just a buck and a nickel per foot.)

The buyer pool for this loft loves being in the middle of Tribeca, loves the experience of walking the cobblestones of such a short street, loves the interior experience with the brick and the fireplace. All plusses and minuses taken into account … $1,425/ft in prime Tribeca for a truly lovely loft.

The Market is The Market, is The Market. No matter what the seller may have wanted at the start, or in the middle.

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lofts sell by the foot, not by bedrooms, as at 53 N. Moore Street in Tribeca

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods tribeca — No Comments ↓
a serendipitous pair of closings at The North Moore line right up with Theory

I’ve had this conversation so many times, about how room count (specifically, bedroom count) is the key to the size (and value) of Manhattan “apartments”, while size (the slippery “square feet”) is the driver for Manhattan lofts. That’s one reason the awesome tools of UrbanDigs.com are not so useful in the downtown Manhattan loft market, compared to their great utility for the apartment market (particularly, the both-sides-uptown commodity buildings with 3-digits of units). The conversations, even among seasoned professionals, can feel so … theoretical. Imagine my joy on seeing that two essentially identical-in-utility lofts in the same building sold last month, at prices that reflect their differences in size, not their similarity in rooms (real or imagined).

That would be the “2,436 sq ft” loft #5F at 53 N. Moore Street (The North Moore) that sold at $4.13mm on June 24 and the “1,887 sq ft” (down the hall?) loft #5E that sold at $3.28mm on June 16. If there were no dimensions on the floor plans, they’d be hard to tell apart:

#5F is your basic Long-and-Narrow with 2 BRs splitting the rear wall

 

#5E is your basic Long-and-Narrow with 2 BRs splitting the back wall

It has been a while since I have been in 53 N. Moore, so I can’t remember how the units fit into the overall condo footprint. This residential loft conversion, circa 2000, integrated what had been four buildings (paper mills, according to the StreetEasy building page), which can make for some interesting (if subtle) intra-condo differences. Three of the originally separate buildings are evident in this photo, running west along N. Moore Street:

both #5F and #5E have eastern exposures but neither has windows south, so you can’t see either one in this photo … right?

[For loft-nerds like Manhattan Loft Guy, this sort of same building variation is fascinating, if frustrating. Kinda sorta like using neighboring lofts as comps in fairly large Manhattan loft residential conversions like 252 Seventh Avenue (the iconic Chelsea Mercantile, made up of four buildings), 250 Mercer Street (four?? separate buildings??), 28 Laight Street (Cobblestone Lofts, originally three buildings, with many lofts having load-bearing walls along the former intra-buidling lines), 77 Bleecker Street (Bleecker Court, originally three buildings), and 303 Mercer Street (Snug Harbor, out of three buildings, only two of which have elevator access); there are probably dozens of other examples.]

The two units sound somewhat similar, but the broker babbling suggests that the smaller #5E may be just a bit nicer:

luxurious living space and nearly 11′ ceilings…. The chef’s kitchen has commercial grade appliances including a vented 6 burner Wolf range with an over the stove faucet, massive granite counters, a glass sub-zero fridge/freezer, stainless steel sinks, a garbage disposal, and an under counter micro/convection oven. Custom cabinets, a huge slide out pantry and a built-in Electrolux washer and dryer are some of the extras. … a state of the art garbage/recycling chute that sorts your glass/metal/paper and trash with the push of a button. … a separate bar/entertaining area with a wine fridge. The sun-drenched living room faces east, has oversized windows, a hidden surround sound system with wall mounted controls and has been pre-wired for further expansion. The large master bedroom has walls of custom closets, huge west facing windows, and picturesque views. Its bathroom offers a soaking tub and a large walk-in shower with a resting bench plus great counter/storage space. The second bedroom offers the same views and huge closets. There are gorgeous wood floors throughout, custom features, prewar details and a stunning full second bath.

Maybe the #5F selling team was simply more restrained, but this is a different level of enthusiasm about the finishes:

east facing windows that provide great light. The kitchen includes Bosch stainless steel appliances, ample counter space and a pass through sitting bar. … the over sized master bedroom includes a walk-in closet/dressing area and en-suite bathroom; equally as large, is the 2nd bedroom and nearby is the 2nd full bathroom. Both bedrooms can accommodate king beds with dressers, seating and space to spare. There is also a small interior room that could be used for office or storage. Washer/dryer in unit, A/C throughout, and internet/cable connection in every room.

The “F” line at The North Moore is wider than the “E” line (and longer!), and has more loft character:

sorry about the dropped ceilings, but the massive beam and column (neutered here in an all-white scheme) could be more prominent

Blame the sponsor for the dropped ceilings and (probably) the soffit running north-south in the “E” line (for central air??), which needs no column to keep from falling down:

note that the “E” line east windows are very different from the “F”, in both size and array

As a bonus, note how the “B” line lacks even the beams of the “E” or “F” lines:

this unit has only south windows, so it is somewhere off the corner, down N. Moore from Hudson Street

Same condo, three rather different lofts. Ain’t comping fun??

the 3-bedroom Tribeca loft market has a different buyer pool from the 2-bedroom pool, though there’s some overlap

Generally speaking, buyers who have to have 3 bedrooms look at different lofts than buyers who have to have 2 bedrooms. That’s nearly tautological, in fact. Though the #5F broker babbling claims that “there are endless possibilities to add a 3rd bedroom or office”, I doubt very much if any 3-bedroom buyers took that seriously. The extra width compered to loft #5E means that you can steal some windows from the living room (east exposure), as in the first alternative floor plan, but consider what that does to the volume of the space, converting a nearly square living room (apart from the dining room opposite the kitchen) to more of a bowling alley with a nearly 3:1 ratio:

just ‘cuz you *can” doesn’t mean you *should*; this array also cramps that lovely column + beam

Note that the flexibility of the “2,436 sq ft” loft #5F resulting in a sale last month at $1,695/ft, compared to the 2-bedroom-only footprint of the “1,887 sq ft” loft #5E, which sold at $1,738/ft. On the one hand, that’s a trivial difference of only 2.5% (well within the range of ‘market noise’, a level susceptible to over-determination); on the other hand, that is an observed-in-fact preference for the smaller loft on a dollar-per-foot basis, however mild.

While we are noodling over $/ft differentials, it is interesting (if distracting) to note that the developer thought that #5F was worth $401/ft in the original sale, and #5E $459/ft (they sold within 10 weeks of each other in 2000; scroll down and click “see all activity”, then scroll down again). That’s a 2000 dollar-per-foot spread of nearly 15%. Which spread is sufficiently greater in scale than the 2.5% in 2015 to prompt a digression about the differences between wholesale sponsor pricing (acceptable to The Market) and single-unit-single-seller pricing (acceptable to a single buyer), but that’s one digression too far for today.

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even a Chelsea Mercantile loft will struggle if over-priced

by Sandy MattinglyPosted on Posted in loft neighborhoods chelsea — No Comments ↓
loft sellers can’t simply name their price, no matter a Chelsea loft icon

In a world of bad (bad, bad!) news for buyers of Manhattan residential real estate, lofts and otherwise, there’s only a limited amount of cold comfort to be taken from the fact that not every Manhattan loft sells quickly and/or above ask. (You know the bad news, exemplified by this July 1 New York Times article about the Second Quarter market reports, Home Prices in Manhattan Hit New High.) But this history reflecting a virtual marketing Odyssey of the “1,263 sq ft” Manhattan loft #17F at 252 Seventh Avenue (Chelsea Mercantile, aka The Merc) should be worth a few degrees of summer cooling:

Sept 26, 2014   new to market $3.1mm
Feb 17, 2015 $2.975mm
Mar 17 change firms $2.995mm
April 8 $2.825mm
April 27 contract
June 12 sold $2,775,500

Ignoring the 12 days off the market between firms (as is my wont), I count 223 Days on The Market for my Master List of downtown Manhattan loft sales. Needless to say, that’s a great many days on this market (though there are no snowy listing photos for this one, the market campaign having started in the Fall instead of the winter), from start to contract. And four asking prices, one of which zigged rather than zagged.

the hyper-local view premium has its limits

Long-time readers of Manhattan Loft Guy are aware of my obsession about interest in the premium in this building for lofts close to the top of the building that have horizon views, compared to low floor lofts that look across Seventh Avenue, West 24th Street, or West 25th Street, or any lofts that look into the building courtyard. (Most recently in my February 19, open eastern view is worth $425,000 at Chelsea Mercantile (approx) (at least), but most comprehensively in my January 20, 2012, privileged Chelsea Mercantile loft clears near $1,700/ft at 252 Seventh Avenue.)

This table sets the … er … table for the prose that follows, as I realized in writing that prose without a simple table (you’ll see what I mean):

#16L sold Dec 18 open east view “1,601 sq ft” $2,077/ft
#4U sold Jan 20 east ‘city views’ “1,652 sq ft” $1,775/ft
#17F sold June 12 open north views “1,263 sq ft” $2,198/ft
#12L sold June 26 east, city views “953 sq ft” $1,695/ft

 

Loft #17F is one with “full north exposures from every room with unobstructed views”, a feature that is babbled as being shared only by “a dozen lofts” here. Asking $2,454/ft to start (through a very experienced agent in this building), loft #17F sold for (only!) $2,198/ft, compared to $1,775/ft for the (low floor) “1,652 sq ft” loft #4U in January with no (real) view, compared to $2,077/ft for the (high floor!) “1,601 sq ft” loft #16L in December with an open eastern view, as I discussed in that February 19 post, and (breaking news alert!) compared to $1,695/ft  for the tiny (“953 sq ft”) #12L, with “open city [east] views” and a very disadvantageous floor plan, that sold just two weeks after #17F.

Yes, Virginia, there is a significant view premium for top floor horizon views in this iconic condo, but it was something less than 1% for this north view compared to the east view of loft #16L six months ago. And it is most assuredly not the 18% premium to #16L that was sought at the same time that #16L was being offered.

Bummer, dude.

the charm of The Merc does not lie in its floor plans, Miles

The #17F floor plan is nothing to write home about (or, to base a blog post on):

could be from any postwar residential building, anywhere in Manhattan

Given that the space is “1,263 sq ft”, the rooms are each fairly large. But the array is uninteresting, with no logical place to put a dining table except where it is:

the kitchen is immediately to your left on entry, and you must squeeze past the table to reach the main space

In other words, there’s nothing loft-y about the footprint, though with 11 foot ceilings and “massive” windows, there is much more volume in real life than in any mere postwar apartment.

Obviously, the selling point to this unit is what is outside those massive windows. But there are only six of them, all on the single exposure, with the living room lacking the wall-to-wall window experience that would open up this space. (Nothing to be done about that; you have to support the building.) Still, that open view is what makes this a premium unit on a dollar-per-foot basis, compared to lesser (or no) views in the building, a building in which even a crappy floor plan like that of #12L can sell for $1,695/ft.

long, narrow, single exposure that is not a wall of windows + no bedroom … yes, the very model of a crappy floor plan (yet: $1,695/ft)

Having the best amenities package nearby will do that for you. Especially when the condo has (originally) 352 units to share the expense for those amenities, and especially when it was created in a much different property tax environment, such that both taxes and common charges are relatively low ($1.67/ft in the case of #17F). The combo … that’s how you make an icon.

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