how The Market can change / NY Times reported sale at 684 Broadway
GREENWICH VILLAGE $3.1 million
684 Broadway (Great Jones Street)
3-bedroom, 2-bath, 3,100-sq.-ft. co-op in a renovated prewar loft building; keyed elevator; oversize windows, 11 ½-ft. ceilings; maintenance $1,758, 48% tax deductible; listed at $3.1 million, 49 weeks on market (broker: Corcoran Group)
If I did not know anything more about this loft, I would think it interesting that it was on the market for 49 weeks, yet sold for the asking price of $3.1mm. But I do know more, so this unit’s history suggests how The Market changes.
But first, you loyal readers will recognize that this unit is #3E at 684 Broadway, one of the lofts included in my favorite-post-so-far, my March 15 Jagger’s Law of Imperfect Lofts / life is compromise (sigh), where I said about this unit (comparing it to a preferred-but-not-available #5E in the same building):
Did I mention that nothing is ever perfect? The change in altitude from 5th floor to 3rd eliminated the rooftop views, but not so much light; the original pivot windows on 5 were not available on 3 (but were replaced by quiet City Windows); sellers in #3E put in a sauna (who needs — or wants to pay for — a sauna?); the bedroom array was not quite as they would have built it in #5E; and there was some (not-very-usable) essentially dead space. But the owners had done a nice renovation, the kitchen was in the right place, their lawyer had already done the due diligence, and the buyers had already made a certain emotional connection with the building and neighborhood.
The 49 weeks “on the market” noted by the Times includes (according to our inter-firm database) five months when the loft was temporarily off the market, but – more interesting – 12 weeks when it was offered for sale at $2.995mm. Twelve weeks in which it did not find a buyer, leading to 5 months off the market.
When it came back to market in January this year, the new-and-improved price was $3.1mm. My buyers in this range (about whom I wrote about Jagger’s Law on March 15, above) hoped that this price history suggested there would be some negotiability from the $3.1mm asking price.
But The Market changed between August and three weeks after the unit was back on the market in January – there were at least three qualified bidders by February, resulting in the buyer signing a full price contract in mid-February.
Kudos to Julia Hoagland at Corcoran for realizing that the same unit that had not sold in the Summer could sell for more in the Winter.
© Sandy Mattingly 2007
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