Sale at 59 West 12th Street~ Why bother listing?

You would think that the agent would actually do some work for a commission on 3.5 million. How about posting a readable floorplan and perhaps a floorplan on a possible combination.

I agree with you about the price disparity. However, only 3 blocks apart, 12th btw 5th & 6th in Greenwich village is worlds apart from 15th btw 5th & 6th no man's land.... even given their close proximity 12th street is many times more desirable, many looking for a GV place will not even consider 15th street no matter how good the deal....

That's ridiculous. I know 15th Street & it is in prime Chelsea, great block. I think it's the building that has that great high-end toy store. Super close to the park, and as you mention only 3 blocks away from what you've deemed manyX more desirable. I doubt there are really "many" for which this would be a real reason to overpay by a million dollars.

Dragonfly - actually Cpalms is right - 15th street was always sort of between Greenwich Village and Chelsea (not really either) - now they just call that block whatever they think will sell the apartment

I lived on 10th btwn 5th and 6th and on 15th between 5th and 6th. Might as well be different universes. While 15th had some charm, the church, trees, etc. it is still relatively garbage compared to a GV gold coast block with 1850s buildings, and in this case a Bing and Bing condo.
Not saying that justifies the specific price at this apartment.

OK, I see I'm outnumbered. But I think you guys really have very little vision. I'm glad I don't live in a universe where 3 blocks difference is a universe away. I'm a big-picture thinker I guess.

LOL, my gf lives on 15th between 5th and 6th and she can't wait to move down to the Village!

PS: that block is ok, but it does in fact have the highest concentration of trash and dog poop psf of any block in NYC! Oh to be 6 blocks south!

I don't know what big picture thinking has to do with coming home to your 1000 sq. ft. apartment every day.

Maybe 20 (and definitely 30) years ago there was a huge difference. Now, I wasn't sure 15th street was in the 41 district, but since they claim it is I sure don't see 12th vs 15th street being worth the cost of having to combine and no doubt gut renovate two apartments plus higher monthlies. There are some people who prefer Flatiron/Chelsea to GV. There is one glitch: the loft doesn't have a doorman and for some people that could be an issue...nothing like paying $3.5MM for your residence and then having to schlepp your packages home from the office.

"You would think that the agent would actually do some work for a commission on 3.5 million. How about posting a readable floorplan and perhaps a floorplan on a possible combination."

Apt23, you don't like looking at the original 1912 floorplan?

I love that they used to dine in the foyer!

If you look at the other listings for that building - this is the lowest priced combination 3 BR/3BTh being offered - hard as it is to believe. One renovated one is asking $4.75M!!

59 west 12th is also a Bing & Bing building which always commands a huge premium. These two places are not good comps....

Bing & Bing, prewar, and, harder to find, like a needle in a haystack, a CONDO

Emory Roth Bing & Bing condo super prime block low profile high celeb building... It's not even a contest if you appreciate greenwich village living...

This is one of the more asinine comparisons I've seen. People complained about "appraisers from upstate" doing "drive by appraisals"? Well even one of them never would use such a ludicrous non-comp.

OTOH, the most recent sales (both in July this year) were a 2 BR for just shy of $2MM and a 1 BR for just shy of $1 MM. It is fairly obvious that the sellers are looking to sell if someone will pay a premium for the potential combination and are on a fishing expedition. But the people who are looking at it aren't looking at grade B buildings in the armpit of Chelsea.

"I know 15th Street & it is in prime Chelsea, great block"

PRIME Chelsea? This is another totally moronic statement. Only someone who is totally clueless to this area would statements like this one. Great block? You mean with the line up for the St. Francis Xavier homeless soup kitchen on it?

"PS: that block is ok, but it does in fact have the highest concentration of trash and dog poop psf of any block in NYC! Oh to be 6 blocks south!"

Nah, dog poop capital has to be the South side of 29th St between 8th and 9th Aves.

The idea of comparing 59 West 12th Street with 60 West 15th is absolutely absurd--NOT because 60 West 15th street is awful, but because it is completely and utterly different. They just aren't comps at all.

If you want to show that the 59 West 12th Street listing is overpriced, why not compare it to the Classic 6 at 51 5th that sold for $1.8 million earlier this summer:

08/11/2009 #12B $1,800,000 -18.0% $2,195,000 %u2193 Sold 2 beds 2 baths 1,700 ft�

It is also a very strange comparison because the unit at 60 west 15th is also dramatically overpriced relative to the extremely recent 4th floor comp:

Sold: 60 West 15th Street #4
Co-op in Chelsea
for $1,950,000
on 05/28/2009

Granted, the 4th floor needed a renovation. But it would have to be QUITE a renovation to justify a $1.5 million price differential.

I looked at W15 St b/w 5 &6 while hunting for an apartment because I really wanted to like it. It would have been so much less money than the streets just above Wash Sq. Pk that I was beginning to focus on. I did find W15 to be somewhat less money per sq/ft, but still overpriced for what I thought was a depressing, dirty, dark block. St. Xavier's soup kitchen didn't help. And you can't compare walking through the Wash Sq arch to emerging into the chaos of the SW corner of Union Sq and the intersection there. 14th St is toxic to serenity of any kind. Frankly, I avoid 14th St from 6th Ave to Broadway at all costs and go there only to shop for food when I cann't get to another Whole Foods. It is a horrible stretch and the idea of having to go there daily was alone enough to get me to skip 15 St. And FWIW, 16th isn't a lot better. Also dark, and it has the high school on it which is yet another nerve-shattering daily experience.

Still, I do find the 59 West 12th price somewhat out of line, don't you Kyle?

Not in comparison to 299 & 302 West 12th. Great pre-war buildings commanding huge and imho unwarranted premiums given their less prime locale. I would much rather live at 59 W 12th.

For info on the 15th street there is a discussion back on Oculus.

It'll make a good combo. People like those back-to-back living rooms, and on the third floor there's lots of scope to put openings on either side of the fireplaces. I don't know whether $3.5M makes sense, but the factors 30yrs pointed out make it seem not unreasonable, and you can see how the sellers and broker arrived at the number. Can't argue with what people will pay.

A little lower fifth real estate porn for Kylewest: http://robilotti.com/property-dsp.cfm?ID=196

Oh the things I would do to that penthouse... Bye-bye greenhouse, hello conservatory!

buster,
perhaps you prefer 12th street between 5th and 6th to Abingdon Square, but in no sense is the latter location "less prime." I wouldn't want to live at 5th Avenue and 79th Street, but it's still an utterly prime location. I for one would rather live on Abingdon Square than on 12th between 5th and 6th.

I like to drive on 12th Street, and then on 9th Street on the way back. Vroom vroom vroom. Not such idyllic streets, but great for clear shots across town. Clearer than 8th or 14th, anyway. At least 12th doesn't have a bus, though, unlike 9th.

What is the difference between a greenhouse and a conservatory?

OK, so I have thoroughly been put in my place on this one & I'm not afraid to admit it. I think I can compare them (for myself) because I'm looking in a wide range of neighborhoods. My searches are "All downtown" and I'm willing to make trade-offs, space vs. location being at the top of my concessions. *I* just would never value "prime GV" over 3 blocks north for a million dollars. I get it- that's just me.

I also don't live, eat & breathe RE guys. You all love it here & live here, but I'm house hunting and then I'll be out of here. I'm not trying to be in the in crowd. I am learning a lot from you RE breathers, though being called asinine by the in crowd isn't motivating me terribly to continue learning. I'm just a lady who wants to buy a nice apartment for my family... sorry if that offends.

and even though I don't live and breathe RE, I am the buyer (you remember those? the ones with the cash). So my opinion does count for something whether you agree or not.

"I like to drive on 12th Street, and then on 9th Street on the way back. Vroom vroom vroom. Not such idyllic streets, but great for clear shots across town. Clearer than 8th or 14th, anyway. At least 12th doesn't have a bus, though, unlike 9th."

Except for 12th between Hudson and Greenwich Ave can be hell on your suspension. Not just cobblestones, but "moguls", bumps, etc. I'm sure you don't fly down that block. The problem with 9th St is that the lights are poorly timed and almost (if not totally) impossible to make it across with having to stop at just about every one after 4th Ave. (plus the fact it ends at 6th Ave). OTOH, if your trips are entirely on the East Side, you are pretty much right on (except 12th between 5th and University (and even on to Broadway) can get pretty slow in high traffic times.

you have a really lousy set of choices driving across town in that area. Ever try to get across 11th street when PS 41 is getting in or out--I didn't realize the neighborhood was a suburb where people drive there kids to school but apparently it happens more than I thought.

At least they drive their kids themselves, though, right?

-- Mr. Silver Lining

True, but I can't recall a single kid being driven to school in Manhattan years ago (unless it happened uptown which might as well have been the moon...sorry Alan). We walked to elementary school, with a parent until second grade and then on your own. Middle (fka Jr high) and high school we could walk but got train passes anyway so we travel all over the city for free when playing hooky or on afterschool hijinx. (To be fair, alot of kids really needed the train passes to get to school). I found it so incredibly weird to see drive to school parents here...anyother example of the city going to suburban mall hell.

dragonfly, i must confess i'm in your camp. i want a general location, but i can happily ignore many of the peskier details. and i just want something different. a loft, a prewar, decent space, whatevs. but for some people that's not the case.

for some people these will be more compish than for others. for some, they don't come close, because the exact location is THE issue. for others, not as much. they aren't ideal comps, but i get your point.

lizyank, i'm glad i don't drive. my kid cabpools, not that much more expensive than public transpo, going to school, more coming home. i used to make her take the bus home, but it's almost two hours some days door to door, and it's a 15 minute cab ride. i'm cheap, but not heartless, and there's a hell of a lot of homework in her young life.

No, at least on the UWS when I was growing up there was no driving that I'm aware of. Maybe on the East Side, but probably not. We had pretty much the same weaning schedule as you did, except I think for 3rd grade we had to wait for a parent -- any parent -- to show up and get us across wide 86th Street. That might have been only because my little sister (two years younger) was with me.

Yeah, the car thing freaks me out too. But staff-driven cars much much more so.

AR, If I think I've followed your story correctly, your daughter attends a school a rather long distance from where you live. (And my guess, given my very limited knowledge of school geography is that its a long schlepp to the train). Cabpooling is not exactly having mom or dad drop you at the curb as if you lived in Great Neck or Greenwich. I am talking about a neighborhood elemantary school. Frankly, having looked for parking in the west village when my Mom lived there, I am shocked anyone would give up a space to do what can be done on foot in 20 minutes. Or if your car is garaged, it no doubt takes them longer to get it than it would to walk. Assuming some are reverse commuters who drop off the kid and continue on to work, but I doubt very much they all are.

A couple of years ago, a mom was profiled in NYT - bought a Prius to drive her kid to private on UES from Tribeca. I also know someone who keep a car on the street in Harlem and drives her kids to school on UES and activities on UWS.

If my kids end up going to school cross-town, it might be easier to drive them myself. There are many garages close to me. Is that so weird?

lizyank, i agree entirely. the block in front of the kid's school is reprehensibly filled with black cars, and even worse, hummers, luxury sedans and other large vehicles driven by the driver. and we are a low-key school. but it only takes 30 or so vehicles a day to destroy the traffic on a block.

In particular, the Harlem mom has a largish SUV. It's terrible for the block her kids' school is on, but any other way would be very impractical, no?

not to further conspiracy theorists.... but there must be a way that people can alter listing histories in streeteasy because I could 99 percent swear that this combo of units was on the market for most of 2008, and it does not say this in the history. The agent with the listing lives in the building and I am pretty certain I brought clients there in early 2008. I have an eidetic memory for numbers and conversations and I am pretty positive about this. I have also noticed similar instances of this in the past when comparing for example my companies database to streeteasy--

I'm totally in the dark about non-neighborhood schools. Don't many offer bus service? I see a lot of yellow school buses around during the school year.

If you live more than X distance from your public school, you get yellow bus service (G&T, out of zone kids, NCLB, etc).

I think you can even get yellow bus service for private schools. The annoying thing for kids & parents is that you have to get up earlier.

10023, i have no problem with the vehicles themselves, it seems as though they are often driven by people who need not only to drive their children to school but to also spend much time in the school while they are double parked. we've been parked legally any number of times when we are going upstate only to have someone park the huge machine next to us, jump out, and not return for close to a half an hour, blocking us in.

could you just drop off the kid by 2nd grade and not have to walk upstairs already?

2nd grade? Heck, I'd drop the kid off at K if I could and not jump out...

10023, you can get yellow bus service but someday i'll tell you my tale. awful.

Bump - I just commented on the CD combination w/o realizing there was already a discussion earlier.

IMO, the CD combination (can't speak for view/exposures as I have never been there) beats the renovated, combined "G" line for flow.

My interest has been piqued, I will make an appt to see this place.

Seems a lot of the better buildings, 299 W 12, 302 W 12, 59 W 12 are seeing more listings. They haven't been hit with price declines that much, some are still listing for $2000 psf. A lot are nicely renovated.

But, I think that there seems to be a flood of owners who think they better get to selling soon. And although owning in some of these buildings might be once in a lifetime opportunities, the prices aren't once in a lifetime prices, and therefore we might see starting now some long listing periods. There are only so many people who want to spend $1.5 million for 800 square feet.

"299 W 12, 302 W 12, 59 W 12 "

those plus 45 Christopher were all converted at the same time by the same sponsor, and originally built around the same time by the original builder. However, IMNSHO, aside from being close to the only real prewar condos in the Village, I don't know if they are necessarily "better buildings" architecturally: especially in 299 and 302, the 2 br layouts are really not so hot, and while not as bad, the 1 br layouts are inferior to many other prewar Village buildings.

What comes out as a better layout for a prewar building in Greenwich Village (west or central/)?