lying brokers or unethical ones..

In the big deal they write about the Apthorp and Alec Baldwin, and ara Jessica checking out units. The story is troubling on two fronts. either is a poor attempt to entice buyers thinking they'll have celebrity neighbors or it shows brokers showing no respect for the privacy of would be buyers. You decide....(of course desperate times call for desperate measures) Big Deal The Apthorp Adjustments... [more]

In the big deal they write about the Apthorp and Alec Baldwin, and ara Jessica checking out units. The story is troubling on two fronts. either is a poor attempt to entice buyers thinking they'll have celebrity neighbors or it shows brokers showing no respect for the privacy of would be buyers. You decide....(of course desperate times call for desperate measures) Big Deal The Apthorp Adjustments By JOSH BARBANEL Published: June 5, 2009 THE Apthorp, one of New York’s grandest apartment buildings, has been an ugly duckling of New York real estate development for many months, despite its sprawling interior courtyard and vaulted limestone arches. Skip to next paragraph Alec Baldwin, house hunter. The question now is, can Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Tommy Mottola and other bargain-hunting buyers turn the long-troubled building back into a swan? The Apthorp was built by the Astor family in 1908 as an abode for the rich on a full square block between Broadway and West End Avenue and West 78th and 79th Streets. In March 2007, at the height of the market, it sold for $426 million, which translated to $2.1 million per apartment. That is the highest price on record paid per rental apartment. Since then, as the market slid, plans to convert the rental to a condominium faltered, and the partners began feuding in and out of court, as the lenders threatened foreclosure. Asking prices on the condominiums fell to an average of $1,950 a square foot from $2,400 to $3,000, at least for the buyers of the first 25 or so apartments that must be sold before the condo plan can be declared effective. Two units went into contract last fall, and then sales all but stopped amid uncertainty over the future of the embattled project. But last week, the owners announced that all outstanding disputes had been settled, and financing with the lenders — the Anglo Irish Bank and Apollo Real Estate Finance — had been restructured. Howard Lorber, the chairman of Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that under the agreement, prices would soon fall further because the sponsors must sign up the requisite number of buyers by September, the deadline set in the offering plan. He expects an amendment to the offering plan cutting prices to take effect in the next few days. In the meantime, the sponsors have begun making individual deals well below the official asking prices, drawing in buyers who have been looking at both restored and unrenovated apartments. “We have 8 to 10 deals in the works at various stages,” Mr. Lorber said. None have yet gone into contract. One would-be buyer was said to have offered less than $1,500 a square foot, a price so low that brokers said the sponsors would have to go back to their lenders for approval. Mr. Lorber said that offer was among a number under consideration. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own in one of the great buildings in New York City at substantially below market price,” Mr. Lorber said, “because we have to sell to get the plan effective.” Among those seen passing through the Apthorp recently was Alec Baldwin, who has been looking at an 11th-floor space with the idea of creating a sprawling 6,000-square-foot space with river views out of three existing apartments. It has an official offering plan price of about $15.5 million, though Mr. Baldwin was said to be tendering considerably less. His broker, Dolly Lenz, said that it is usually a bad idea for brokers to try to negotiate a deal in the press. But “this is a different time and a different place,” she said. “It is an unbelievable world.” She said Mr. Baldwin, who spends much of his time in an oceanfront house in Amagansett, was a “West Side kind of a guy” who walks everywhere and loved the rich detail in the apartment and its 12-foot ceilings. He may also appreciate the building’s celebrity-friendly history. In recent years, it has been home to Nora Ephron, Rosie O’Donnell, Conan O’Brien and Al Pacino. Asked about Mr. Baldwin’s offer, Mr. Lorber said that it was under consideration. But he noted that Mr. Baldwin was not the only celebrity to have been looking at the Apthorp lately. Mr. Lorber said that Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband, Matthew Broderick, had been through, as had Tommy Mottola, the music executive, former husband of the singer Mariah Carey and current husband of the Mexican singer Thalia. “If you price these apartments right, they will sell,” Mr. Lorber said. [less]