Open House Report: 251 West 89th Street #3D

So how long do you think this will be on the market before a price drop?

Unless I'm missing something, that 8D comp at $1.8MM is not going to help things here either.

seems ambitious = > borker speak for "even if bought with an insider discount of 20%, this mtherfker is fked, w/o lube. Holy crap was I wrong professionally to call a bottom in 2009!."

Don't let a same line comp that is $900K cheaper than your prohibit you from finding a borker to list it for you. You know what they say... even a nasty hooker is sometimes amazed at what a cheap crack head hooker will do for $5.

Flmaozzzzz

Ouch. That's quite an ambitious ask for low floor,no view/light.

A shame that whoever renovated chose to paint over what is likely oak or mahogany wainscoting/beams, but at least they still exist if someone is ambitious enough to restore.

Floor plan link is broken so I cannot see the layout.

Must say, though, that the pic with the TV guts featured prominently in the foreground is unfortunate. C'mon--why??

Just a little more color...
Current owners poured an additional 300K into the place. It's only for sale because the owners are divorcing.

Also, while this is wildly overpriced in my opinion, the award for the most assuredly overpriced apartment on the UWS right now goes to 252 West 85th street, 9A10F (A 1300 SF Schwartz and Gross WWI-era Six with one bath duplexed with a studio add-on in a nn-doorman building).

Assuredly = Absurdly

Oh the money ran out and so they are divorcing.... WTF on SE said that financial woes are the #1 Cause of DIVORCES?

BOY they kept their shit together when money was being spent.... pssssss... pssssss.... Marriages are tested when the worst hits the fan., not when you are buying overpriced tulips and patting each other on the azzz... especially a flabby azz.

FK them for over-paying, not being committed to each other, and seriously over RENOVATING... .fktards. One down 700K more units to go.

8D had combined the two front bedrooms into one. Not that that matters.

Looking at the pictures from 3D's 2008 listing, I don't see where the current owner's $300,000 went. The built-ins flanking the fireplace are new, the kitchen has new cabinets, and I guess the rest somehow went on closets and odds and ends.

I can't figure why they replaced the baroque(?) mantel on the decorative fireplace. The new one is off-period, and as bramstar said, if you're going to tear things apart then hide the f'ing TV cables.

Thanks rsm321. I missed some of the post-purchase "improvements". $300K is hard to fathom, although it's really easy to spend a lot of money in New York if you're not careful. Overall, #3D shows a ton of wear - especially in the bedroom wing - for an apartment that had $300K put into it in the last three years.

With regard to #8D, it needed work, but I don't think an appraiser would give #3D more than about a $200K edge for condition versus #8D.

This is a great thread and a great reminder of the irrational exuberance found at and leading up to the peak. The Grey's are about to get their ass kicked. They would have been better off for their apartment to burn to a crisp as compared to their marriage.
Let me tell all of you how this ends.....

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/house_divided_scjb1PyGFvtuaF7nWsXwkJ
Doing his best King Solomon imitation, Judge Eric Prus on Thursday ordered feuding couple Pinchs and Nechama Gold to split their 3,000-square-foot home in half as they go through a bitter divorce.
The Golds have two weeks to agree on where the wall should go -- or the court will decide for them.

Or say goodby to 100K+

Wait, I take that back...say goodby to 1M+ (that's more like it).
Oh the pain, oh the pain...

Inonada could rent this apartment for $2000, but he has to share a bed and master bath with his choice of the husband or the wife. But seriously, for $2000, why would you worry about the bed or bath. Oh, and if he chooses the wife, it's not available on Thursdays when the book club is over, or in the case of the husband, Sunday and Monday.

wow, how do you even list this apartment in this market without considering the difficulties of disposing of a body? what goes through your mind? Can't dump the body out by Jones Beach...that is so yesterday. You might take your spouse diving of the coast of Aruba or prehaps to a Playa Del Carmen all inclusive. This way you're not dragging big duffelbags out of the apartment. How much do you think this poorly timed purchase and the lack of natural sun light contributed to their demise?
This has cautionary tale written all over it.

BIGGEST FKING UNDERSTATEMENT OF THE YEAR BY A NYC RE BORKER:
w81 => "although it's really easy to spend a lot of money in New York if you're not careful"

And to THINK THIS GUYS is speaking about the "RENOVATION" costs in NYC. NEVER mind the $900K azz kicking this divorcing foolz of a couple lost by BUYING AT THE PEAK!

I guess to a borker the $2MM in capital loss from buying in deflating bubble comes from a different pocket that the $300K in overpriced shower fixtures!

Does he even know what he just put in black and white?

Who needs w67 to point out borker stupidity when they do it to themselves every minute of every day?

Here is the REAL punchline.

The old owner bought for $200K in 1998. Sold for $2.7MM in 2007. Five years later can buy back at $1.5MM, leaving the old seller with the SAME fking apartment with $300K in renovations and $1MM in the fking bank.

NO NO NO, NYC RE did NOT HAVE A BUBBLE.... holy shit batman. We need to increase the radioactivity in the bubble x ray vision glasses for 99% of NYCers.

If that's $300K of work someone really ripped these people off. I can tell just by looking at the photos that the woodwork is thick with layers/decades of paint (why wouldn't they strip that?), the floors are meh and the kitchen is a hybrid of low-end materials + bad taste. What exactly did they DO with that $300K??

It's also a bad sign that there was a $300+ assessment in place last time the unit was on the market (three years ago) and there is STILL a $300+ assessment today. Not good. NOT good.

'The old owner bought for $200K in 1998. Sold for $2.7MM in 2007. Five years later can buy back at $1.5MM, leaving the old seller with the SAME fking apartment with $300K in renovations and $1MM in the fking bank.'

That was a beautiful piece of Schadenfreude.
equal only to covering them in paper cuts and throw them in salt water

Falco... I'm guessing the 2007 sellers are still happily married...... :)

If I was the wife... I'd be giving it to him every nite. And if he wants me to howl like a dog, I'd ask "low or high howl?"

That $200K record may not tell the entire story. It is possible that sale was for a studio or one-bed purchased by a shareholder to combine with an existing unit. Unlikely that $200K bought an entire UWS classic 7, even in '98.

this one can sit on the unit until next bubble

so it's a very good indicator for the next "buy" sign

Great thread, very entertaining read. Kudos to all the posters above, all contributing in their own special way.

It's unlikely that the 1998 200k sale was an arm's length deal. It was for the entire unit, not a 1br or studio. The 1998 buyer is in the RE development biz, and probably has a connection to the sponsors.

I saw 8D a while ago and also saw 10D. I liked 8D much better. The combined bedrooms felt spacious and they had several very nice custom designed closets, one for shoes only, in the bedroom. The third bedroom was tiny, really more an office space or for a preschooler. The bathrooms could have used updating. The size of the living room and dining rooms were nice and the dining room had some mahoghany finishes which were nice. You needed to put in a washer/dryer in 8D and renovate the kitchen and put in a better kitchen table seating which was very cramped. The floors were uneven with marble in the entryway and then a step down to the original floors. 10D had the original 3 bedrooms and not a great size in original form. Their kitchen had a big step up which could be problematic for some people. I don't remember much else about 10D. I recall the broker saying there were plans for a gym and some kind of restaurant or catering thing on the roof which could bring in alot of outsiders to the building and security problems. Big building, big lobby, maybe security issues I thought.

Also no views from any windows and the windows facing Broadway in the bedroom needed to be soundproofed , an additional expense.

Bramstar/10023/w67: My read on the 1998 transaction was that the apartment was encumbered at the time by a rent-regulated lease.

By the way, the Admaston was the site of a rather daring mortgage fraud involving rent-stabilized apartments:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/realestate/04deal3.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=realestate&adxnnlx=1254586672-WzczIG7GKhanRGs//sWpBg
The two apartments mentioned in the Times article are #9D and #10A. WaMu was also duped on #6E - same scam, different straw-man buyer.

>>Bramstar/10023/w67: My read on the 1998 transaction was that the apartment was encumbered at the time by a rent-regulated lease.<<

That makes sense. Well, the buyer was one of the lucky ones because as most landlords are painfully aware, rent-controlled tenants rarely die.

I really think that's unlikely because a bank underwrote a 500k mtge at the same time for that apt (yes unless that was on the assumption that the tenant was likely to leave). The '98 buyer has a history of buying for less-than-market prices from sponsors, so I think that being in RE is meaningful - no-one else could get that same deal.

"The '98 buyer has a history of buying for less-than-market prices from sponsors"

does it mean that guy very likely used bribery techniques to get insider deals?

The first price cut is in: reduced $195K, to $2.5MM.

If this sale was represented by 'the grey scale' and black delineates a sale, this price cut is off-white.

$200k @ 2.75% 30yr. That's like what $800/month. That ain't a cut. I don't feel pain until it hits $3k/month. So the converse is 'I don't feel pleasure until I save $3k/month.'

But it might sell in 11 days!