(too rich, too thin) too stylish to sell (well)?

vanilla (sold) vs. guava with hints of chili (languishing)
I was going to do this post about a recent sale of a Manhattan loft (one of those great price! 3-weeks-to-contract price discussions), possibly followed by an aside about the remaining unit for sale in the same building (if I was willing to keep the whole thing anonymous). But then I looked at the loft still for sale in the building and the two price histories and realized that The Story is more about the one left behind at this point, rather than the one that succeeded. With that convoluted introduction, let’s get to the meat of the matter….

There is a lovely (anonymous!) Manhattan loft for sale that is almost a One Bed Wonder (haven’t talked about one of those for a while). It is rather large, wonderfully renovated in a manner tres chic moderne, and has had a bit of trouble finding The Market since coming out for sale in January (3 price drops). Interesting (to me, at least) that it was in competition with a neighbor with an identical footprint but different floor plan. Some day this post will mature into a (completed) neighborly competition post (like neighborly competition leads to neighborly mistakes? the laboratory at 24 East 22 Street from November 30), but until this one closes this post will fit the incomplete competition mold, such as April 17, break away to win the neighborly competition / so many lofts, so many dollars … but no sales (yet) , January 7, are they fooling only each other? / 3 neighbors push, 1 smiles , December 12, more unintended consequences in petri dish of Tribeca neighbors , and December 7, selling the neighbor’s loft / unintended consequences in a Tribeca petri dish?.

neighbor vs. neighbor
The neighbor who sold in this building slightly undercut the asking price of this loft, to which this seller responded within two weeks by matching the interloper’s asking price. Problem is (for this seller), that that interloper found a contract [about 8%] off that asking price within 3 weeks [updated 7.9 to reflect actual clearing price], while this one did not. Indeed, this one did not find a buyer with an asking price reduced by another $100k; or with an asking price further reduced by $100k. So, this might be a situation such as at 144 West 18 Street, where there seemed to be exactly (and only) one buyer above $1,200/ft so one neighbor got that price while the other neighbor (same apartment, just a bit slower to react in pricing) took another 6 months to clear at $1,050/ft. (June 11, neighborly competition / laggard at 144 West 18 Street closes off 15% since December)

But these two lofts are not very similar (identical footprints notwithstanding), so maybe this is an instance of The Market truly preferring one loft to another.

No disrespect intended to the loft that sold (to the contrary, it sold), but that one has a conventional layout to carve 3 bedrooms (plus additional space) out of a Long-and-Narrow with good light at each end, and is done in entirely neutral tones (white walls, white kitchen, light finish on the hardwood floors, light stone in the bathrooms). It is something of a poster child for being in "sale-able" condition — using a palette that all buyers could easily envision to base their own lifestyle on if they bought that space. The degree to which this one is neutral is perhaps best appreciated by reference to the other one (The One That Has Not Sold [yet]).

The One That Has Not Sold (yet) gives one entire end of the loft to the master suite and squeezes a (proportionately) tiny guest room into the other end. Like the one that sold, this one has a white ceiling — but otherwise is a (comparative) riot of color and texture, with many vertical surfaces in dark shades, a dark finish on the floor, and rather dramatic design elements (oh that bathroom!). Plus, there are curves and arcs where the other one had straight lines and right angles. The color, layout and ‘design’ differences between the two are so dramatic that there are probably few people who would be conflicted in choosing one or the other, assuming rough dollar parity.

back to ice cream preferences
The one that sold is lovely, tasteful, (apparently) high-end, but somewhat … vanilla. Let’s upgrade that to french vanilla, maybe served with that long vanilla bean and a airy wafer cookie. Many, many people like french vanilla ice cream.

The One That Has Not Sold (yet) is lovely, somewhat dazzling (distracting?), definitely high-end art-y and even … spicy. Let’s upgrade this one to hand-turned guava with hints of chili. Some people love this exotic taste; others appreciate the composition but not the flavor (at least not enough to buy it). There are many, many fewer potential buyers for this taste, even without considering price.

The right buyer for The One That Has Not Sold (yet) will love this space and have a life-style suitable for an almost One Bed Wonder, rather than a 3 bedroom-plus layout. Chances are, if one were to try to re-format the space to add bedrooms one would ruin the thing that makes it guava-with-chili.

repeat after me: a thin market is …
… a dangerous market for sellers. (June 15, price drop can re-set expectations IF low enough) And an especially dangerous market for sellers of ‘unique’ properties. Plus, a thin market exacerbates the anxiety in pricing any ‘unique’ properties: there should be buyers out there at $Xmm and dropping the price might not make much of a difference. These sellers have dropped twice since the other one went into contract. It is a very tough call to hold and wait for that buyer (singular) with appropriate (a) money, (b) taste, and (c) lifestyle (family structure). This is one of those Manhattan lofts that might sit on the market a good bit longer and be (relatively) impervious to price drops.

FAS–cin-a-ting, indeed. I will watch this one avidly and hope that it sells so that we can take the wraps of anonymity off this post.
 

 
© Sandy Mattingly 2009