Name that price!

Not a clue without seeing it, but I wouldn't buy anything right now anyway. Of course that would have been my advice to the woman who bought my Miami Beach apartment 2.5 years ago for $1 million, and now couldn't offload it for $700k.

But she did me a giant favor.

joepa - $2.7.

inquirer, no: minimum $3.2.

$2.6, sounds very nice. Would like to see comps. It is a coop. Condo would be over $3

no clue, without seeing, but 800 bucks a sq foot on a coop (today's good price) * 1300 gives you just over a mill.

this ofcourse, assumes there is no underlying mortgage (in which case you would deduct from the 1 + mill)
also, price could vary significantly by:
- view
- rental policy
- state of apt
- a host of other things

at this price, you should be ok if your horizon is 8 - 10 yrs. more you pay, longer your horizon should be to be "safe".

Minimum $5 million. Prices are rising by the moment.

Tomorrow who knows? Maybe $10.

Ask: $1.495MM.
Bid: $1.450MM.

Any price today, will be to much tomorrow. Don't do anything for the next 6-18 months.

I was hoping this wouldn't turn into another springboard post to vent about the pitfalls of buying in this market - guess I was wrong. Thanks to those who gave honest opinions. That's quite specific there West81st - how did you arrive?

Who said "rent"? It's not even on this thread.

Give us a link to the place. Layout's king, exact location is king since there are tons of projects in that area. Face the park, face Broadway? There are too many unknowns just to give a price. Median $psf in that area is $1,107.

But that doesn't make it worth that.

Joepa - what are the ceiling heights? What year was the building built?

today? ~2.x mill

next year? ~1.x mill

=D

MMAfia - check out my bet with malraux on How aggressive are you these days?.

Yes Stevejhx, keen observations. As we all know, madison avenue in the 80's is positively riddled with projects, and most apartments have all those pesky views of oh-so-nearby broadway to contend with.

Stevejhx - it's upper east - not upper west. No broadway and no projects anywhere near that area. It has south and east exposurues. It's a post-war building (1970s) - ceiling height is about 9 feet, but that's a guess.

I stand corrected on the side of Manhattan.

I know next to nothing about the East Side, except I hate going there. Show us the link.

If I show the link, wouldn't that defeat the purpose in guessing the price?

steve, if you meant UWS, where are there a "tons of projects" on the UWS in the 80's a block from Central Park?

If you are serious about the place joepa, don't show the link, there is nothing good that will come out of it. If you can get West81st to have a look at it offline somehow, that would be valuable. Having the king of bullsh&t and his band of merry bullsh*tters look at it will do you no good at all. If you buy it, the last thing you want is a bunch of negatives about the building in archives on this board for all future buyers to see (and possibly believe). Trust they will have nothing good to say about it.

stevejhx, do not steal from the lemmings =]

1970s, I doubt the ceilings are 9ft. Probably more like 8ft.

Nothing worse than living in a place with low ceilings.

Joepa: I was looking at comps, and at one listing that might even be your unit (if not, it's very similar, but a bit smaller). If you got what I think you got for the price I think you got it for, the only major risk is that Manhattan goes down the tubes and takes you with it. And even in that scenario, Carnegie Hill probably retains more value than most neighborhoods.

Given the uncertain state of the market, it's possible that you're "catching a falling knife". It's more likely that you took advantage of a dip to get a good deal (again, assuming that your purchase is roughly what I think it is). At 20-30% below the best year-ago comp, your price would already reflect the correction the rest of us are arguing about. Could you get it for 25% less a year from now? Maybe. I think there are enough threads debating that question. You asked about a specific apartment at a specific point in time.

JuiceMan: Thanks. I left the mortgage business eight years ago, cleverly avoiding the greatest boom in the history of the financial industry, and the wealth it created. I was a quant, and an unfashionably conservative one. You can imagine how popular that made me at the dawn of alt-A and sub-puke; so I have a certain smug affinity for stevejhx's thesis regarding a return to sound underwriting principles. I'm neither bull nor bear really. Also, I owned a co-op for nine years (post-war, UES), and a house in the exurbs for twenty, so I can appreciate both sides of the owner-renter debate. I don't take sides on that stuff. I'm just glad to see lenders tracking valuations, the way they should, rather than driving valuations, the way they have for most of this decade.

"so I have a certain smug affinity for stevejhx's thesis regarding a return to sound underwriting principles."

As do I West81st, it is a really good thing. steve actually has lots of very good points, his problem is that he continually exaggerates facts to try and strengthen his argument. He’s like the really funny guy at a party that tells jokes for about an hour too long. He is still funny, but the extra hour of jokes did little to like him more and you probably walk away from the party liking him less.

I'm happy to read a factual bear argument, but I have a disdain for exaggerated (or made up) numbers and inaccurate (or painfully dramatized) "facts". As a quant, I'm sure you understand.

By the way, I'm an UWSider and enjoy your commentary on the neighborhood and buildings. It is great information.

I don't exaggerate, JuiceMan, I'm just a drama queen, remember? :)

There are projects running from about 87th to 90th Street along Amsterdam and Columbus and that vicinity. The West Side Urban Renewal Area. The UES is full of projects starting about 96th Street.

BTW I like the UWS - I'd just look around the neighborhood. Ditto Chelsea: look around the neighborhood.

You claim I "exaggerate facts." I claim that almost no one else posts any facts. In the 'interest rate' thread you ask me to quantify the risk of an ARM, which I plainly did with real numbers using real products that you can check for yourself. You answer, "you haven't adjusted the risk for the probability of it happening. Nor have you offset it with the probability of your rate going down or the fact that you can refinance at some point during the loan. Bottom line is, for someone with good credit that can afford the property, there is next to no risk at all of an ARM. You know this, otherwise you wouldn’t have one yourself."

No one knows the probability of the reset happening, unless you have crystal balls, in which case my advice is that they shatter when smashed. I say that interest rates have risen very high in the past, and can as well in the future. You answer, "Now we are going back to the 80's with 25% interest rates! Why do I bother with your nonsense! Thanks for the entertainment steve. Have a good night."

Thus I present you with a fact, and rather than admitting the reality that interest rates can rise to the cap in 1 year - as per the terms of the mortgage - doubling your payment, you merely become dismissive. Typical JuiceMan - confronts reality with his fingers shoved in his ears.

Steve - The projects start at 98th. Between 90th and 96th, there's a boundary effect, and it gets more pronounced as you approach 96th. Values tumble at 96th/97th, where the tracks come above ground on Park. The PS6 catchment is a different world. It's where the Jeffersons moved to when they LEFT the projects and moved on up. In fact, joepa's unit is basically George and Weezie's "dee-luxe apartment in the sky-high-high".

Yes steve, drama queen you are.

So based on your (fuzzy) logic, I say that in 7 years interest rates will be 0.5%. You can't argue that, because you have admitted you don't know. So my statement is (based on your logic) that ARM's are really smart, because at the end of it, interest rates could go down to 0.5%, and you would hate to lock into a long term loan at a high interest rate when you could lock into a short term one and enjoy a much lower one when it resets.

You can't argue one side of a market steve. You try all the time, but I just won't let you.

Correction: George and Weezie left the outer boroughs. I was thinking of "Good Times".

You "say that in 7 years interest rates will be 0.5%." Then you say that I "can't argue that, because you have admitted you don't know."

That's completely, utterly, and entirely illogical. I can - and will - argue only that you have no way of knowing what interest rates will be in 7 years, and therefore you can't make a statement as to what interest rates will be in 7 years. Therefore, you assume all the interest-rate risk, which can be considerable.

So what you're saying is nonsense.

Moreover: "you would hate to lock into a long term loan at a high interest rate."

We in a period of historically low interest rates. Therefore, since we're so far below the mean right now, it would make sense to lock in a long-term low rate even if it's higher than what you would presently pay for a short-term rate, to hedge against the risk that interest rates will rise. If rates go down further you can refinance (assuming you have the equity to do it).

The only way an ARM makes sense is if you can afford it at its maximum reset (soon to be written into the law) or pay it off if you plan to hold the property longer than the initial interest period, or if you plan on holding the apartment for no more than the initial interest period. ARM's make no sense to buy something that you couldn't otherwise afford, or that you might not be able to afford at the highest reset because no one - not even the mighty JuiceMan - can predict with accuracy what interest rates will be in 5 or 7 years.

stevejhx you are rapidly becoming as irritating as spunky. Do you have to turn every message board topic into a debate about the direction of real estate and mortgage rates?

buster2056, I didn't. JuiceMan did. Read the thread.

buster2056 I read several of your posting and 100% of them are either obnoxious or sarcastic and had absolutely no content. Buster don't take this the wrong way but you are by far the biggest assh*le on this board.

100% true, but I usually reserve it for the right boards, and besides, I'm pretty funny and usually dead accurate! I suppose I'm just tired of the same old debate of the extremes, i.e. "sky is falling" vs "manhattan only goes up, up, up" We already have several boards devoted to these topics, and I find new topics to be refreshing.

So... to that point, I'll name a price of between $1.8-$2.2mm based on pretty limited information.

Who ever said prices in Manhattan will keep rising year after year? In fact that would be a pretty scary scenario if that were true.

Conversations about real topics seem to fall apart when Steve, Juice, West, Mafia, Buster have more than 2 posts.

Jeez, I was TRYING to stick to the topic. I guess bringing George and Weezie into it wasn't very illuminating. My point was just that joepa's neighborhood is a coveted destination, not some fringe area in the shadow of the projects.

Yes, but it is a 70s building with 8 foot ceilings.

Yes it is, and the price probably reflects those attributes. Not everyone can afford a pre-war west of Madison in the 80s. If you want that neighborhood for $1.5MM, you make compromises.

I would say between $1200 - $1250 psf. This assumes it is a solid building, nice looking lobby and other common areas. Neighborhood is great, place would be worth much more (imho) if it were pre-war.

You are in the two bedroom category which I think is static if not softening right now. Slightly a buyer's market.

$1,560,000 - $1,625,000.

Joepa mind sharing with the group what it is priced at?

1.95

Thanks everyone. West81st - your deductive reasoning amazes me. If there were a prize, West81st would have won it (there's not - don't ask).

Joepa: I could only think of one building that fit your description. Good luck - I hope it works out great for you.

"mighty JuiceMan" - I like that!