Auction of units in New Amsterdam Condominiums

Oops, meant to say "tells me"

2,787 open houses FLMAOz

Here's the new and greatly expanded post: http://malcolmcarter.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/queens-manhattan-condos-are-auctioned-successfully/

whoa...where's carolst?---last seen foaming at the mouth walk the east river shoreline--2 LIC penthouses go for under 300psf

erichooooooooooooooo

My wife and I attended and bid (not successfully) at the auction for The New Amsterdam condo units. The building is located at the East side of Washington Heights, Amsterdam Ave at 177th Street.

We were aiming for PH3 (listed as 1488 sq. ft; according to my calculation using the floorplan rather about 1300 sq. ft. interior space) or PH4 (listed as 1525 sq. ft.; according to my calculation about the same size interior space as PH3), which got sold for $425,000 ($420,000?) and $430,000. Our ceiling price was $410,000. Not very much off the winning bids, apparently. The penthouses had been announced beforehand to be sold with reserve, but then the sellers decided at the start of the auction to sell all apartments, except one, including the penthouses without reserve. Those sale prices give a price/rent ratio in the range of 10 to 12. So yesterday's sale prices for these penthouses are quite good for NYC! My impression is that bidders got excited later in the auction, and the winning bids for the lower floor units were much higher compared to what my ceiling prices would have been, though, i.e., also higher price/rent ratios.

The offer plan disclosed that the loan balance still outstanding to TD North Bank is about 8.9 million. So, I suppose the largest part of the loan can be paid off with the proceeds from the auction, but not the full balance. It looks like the developers have made some loss with this project. The units in the building had been put on the market in 2008, and the sponsors had sold only three units and the commercial units since then until yesterday. In 2008, the ask prices for the two larger PHs were above 1.1 million.

Since the auction went so well, and the units in the condo got finally sold at the lower prices, I wonder whether this auction and the sale prices there will have some effect on the NYC market with all the empty new condo buildings and many thousands of units still waiting to be sold.

thx for the post rootless..interesting

I'm a Washington Heights booster, but the location is horrific. Highbridge Park across the street is beyond noisy. Then again, if the cc's end up not being too high, owners can rely on naive Columbia med students to rotate on a yearly basis and still make a decent return.

It provides easy access to the Cross Bronx, though. Just zip out of the building's garage, and 100 feet plus two hours' waiting time and you're right on the on-ramp.

To be more precise. The numbers mentioned by me above were the winning bids for the penthouses. The sale price is winning bid + 10% of the winning bid (seller's premium). With a rental sq. ft. price of $24 to $27, this gives a price-rent ratio in the range of 11 to 13. Still quite decent for NYC.

I heard this, too, that the Highbridge Park is very noisy during the warm season, although the building isn't directly opposite the main part of the park. There is a big rock opposite the building. The lower floor units don't have an open view. It's a view at the rock. There is an open 180 degree view from the upper floors centering around East or so. From the balconies of the upper floor units at the East side, one can see midtown Manhattan, e.g. the Empire State Building. However, the view to the left is quite bizarre, with the Crossbronx River and its exit and enter ramps circling close by. I like bizarre. ;-)

The units themselves like the whole building are OK, but not great. The kitchens are small. Utilities looked cheap, there wasn't even a microwave in the kitchen. Hookups for laundry and dryer are to be found only in the PH units. There is a shared laundry room on each floor. Each floor has five units, except the two PH levels with the 4 duplex PHs. The building doesn't really have anything, except a common rooftop terrace. It's called "luxury" condominium, but it's not really luxury. Only more modern than the other buildings in the surrounding neighborhood. Then again, I guess it's a better match for the neighborhood, which is one of the poorer ones in Manhattan, compared to if it was a super luxury condo building. So I would have been OK with this.

Sorry you didn't win, rootless, but I agree with you about the value with the big caveat that I haven't seen the units and don't know that section of Washington Heights.

rootless,

do you know how much the other apartments sold for. I was considering the 2BR/2BA units. The minimum bids on those listing in the brochure was $175K to $215K.

thanks.