Bobby Abreu manages 34% increase over 2005 prices

It's interesting that there are no comments on this post after 2 hours. If the thread was entitled "Bobby Abreu loses 34% on 2005 condo purchase", I wonder how many comments there would be.

Sidelinesitter: I think the lack of commentary reflects the absence of adequate information about the sale. On one hand, a listing that debuts at $7.9MM, drops to $5.9MM and ultimately sells for $5.1MM isn't most people's idea of a home run. On the other hand, Abreu did wind up safely in the black, and $5.1MM represents a big uptick from the $4.425MM that the nearly-identical #38B fetched last March.

Another complicating factor is that so many of the sales at One Beacon Court are linked to corporate relocations, exchanges and write-offs of one sort or another. In Abreu's case, it's possible that his original purchase was subsidized by the Yankees (note that he appears to have paid an above-market price), and the $5.1MM exit was a relo guarantee in his old Yankee contract, or that the Angels set up the LLC to buy the apartment as part of his recent extension. If you assume that both transactions were completely arm's length, Abreu's profit is fairly impressive; but that's a big assumption.

The Times reporter wasn't able to get answers to any of these questions, but she ran the story anyway.

West81st: I agree with some of this (the contention that it's not a home run transaction because of where he initially listed it, not so much), and you are more knowledgeable than I ever would have been about the ins and outs of One Beacon Court.

I still contend that if the headline had been as I hypothesized there would have been no shortage of knee-jerk bears dancing on the grave of Abreu's investment. To your explanation for the lack of commentary, I'd just say that there is no shortage on these boards of people claiming that an individual data point, whether or not supported by extensive information and context, "proves" their preconceived notions. For example, if the headline had been as hypothesized, there would have been a much better chance of this sale ending up on the Midtown comps thread as evidence that "the market" is down 34% than there is of it showing up now as a 15% increase over a 2009 comp. Those kind of trades tend to be ignored as comps and filed on the "sales that defy reason" thread, or whatever it's called.

sidelinesitter: You're probably right: a trade that demonstrates downward movement is more likely to be documented in the IYCDMMWC threads. That's partly a function of poster bias, but also keep in mind that most "gap-up" trades in the past two years have involved significant renovation, so it's hard to tell whether the underlying vlaue of the property went up or down. Obviously, that's not a factor at One Beacon Court, but it's a big issue in pre-war coops.

Read the article, the deal was consummated in August 2008, before Lehman wents tits up. Only after that time did the market fall 25-30%.

No, the article states the sale occurred recently, and that it took 20 months from the May 08 listing. So that would be a sale around January 2010.

Rhino86: Does the article really say that???

In addition to taking your own advice on reading the article, you could look at the StreetEasy history in the listing page. It went to contract in December 2009 and closed on Feb 12.
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/407341-condo-151-east-58th-street-midtown-new-york

sls, i'm a bear (obviously). and if you notice i don't really cover the high-end stuff, except for recent new development trends. and even there i tend to focus on the under $3mm market.

i think you get very strange results in trophy locations. sometimes i see prices that seem way too low and sometimes way too high. some rich people are very cautious with their money, some would love to sleep where a star slept. some people want a certain building and will pounce if a unit opens up. it's a bit different to me, seems a bit removed from the reality that most of us face.

is it interesting? absolutely. but kind of interesting in the way we now hear that people are shopping at hermes again. does nothing for the gap. and a lot of our product is k-mart, frankly.