Three units in the same line at the Osborne

One little piggy failed to declutter. Another little pigy forgot to stage. And the last little piggy was very very greedy.

Great bones, location not ideal. All seem priced a bit high, 8C is the worst offender at $5.7M. 4C, on the other hand, seems within striking distance of $2.5-3.0M sale price, renovate to a tee and end up at $3.5-4.0M total.

Or if you want to play it inonada-style, skip the BS and go around the corner. Same sq ft, fancy modern renovation, on a high floor with 80 ft of Central Park frontage:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/rental/1030207-condop-230-central-park-south-central-park-south-new-york

For a difference of $10K monthly and getting to keep $4M, plus transaction costs, in my pocket, I'll take that any day. It's the obviously better apt for less money.

Sure you might lack the ability to come online and blather on about the achievement of ownership and your exquisite renovation of prewar detail in a historic building. But let's get real. In one case, you have to come home to an apt whose only outward-facing windows are all in one room, facing 57th St. In the other, you have 80 ft of frontage onto Central Park from the 14th floor.

Happy renter, two questions:

- What got you interested in this building?

- Where the hell have you been?

>- Where the hell have you been?

We should ask formerrenter.

inonada: Is there a dance to "inonada-style"? Does it involve skipping?

Flash mob at 2pm this afternoon: starts at 205 w57th street, skips inonada-style over to 230 CPS.
Maybe there's an open house there.
Agree with inonada it's a better deal.

The dance goes like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2S7auiJFJs

1. I like the idea of living across the street from Carnegie Hall, where I find myself approximately once a week, and a few blocks from Lincoln Center, where I find myself approximately twice a week. And walking distance from Moma, two blocks from the park, etc. And the interiors are very unusual and interesting, really unique and compelling.

2. Where I have been is in my 3 bedroom coop in Greenwich Village, so yes, I guess that makes me formerly happy renter. We love the village, where we have lived for ten years (though only in this apartment, which we also love, for less than four) but our oldest is going to Ethical in September and I am not excited about the idea of schlepping up there twice a week. Plus, we currently have 1800 square feet and these are well over 3000, and given how much our apartment has appreciated in 3.5 years we could trade it for over four.

3. We just aren't interested in renting again at this point, economics aside.

inonada: Totally rad!

I've never been lost only to "find myself" at Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center unless I had tickets for an event there.

1. The interiors are indeed nice & unique.
2. Proximity to park & culture is great.
3. Neighborhood feel is lacking compared to UWS or GV.
4. On a major intersection, albeit 7th Ave traffic is very light around there.
5. Light & views are not great.
6. Not interested in renting, economics aside => inonada thanks you for doing your part to keep trophy apt rents cheap.

The building has some obvious trade-offs compared to the best one can find within a half-mile of Ethical. Is it more that you have a finite budget, or that the downsides of neighborhood / location / light / views are less important to you?

BTW, why would you only be schlepping to Ethical twice a week?

3. neighborhood feel is definitely lacking compared to greenwich village. not sure i agree that it's lacking compared to the upper west side, which has been pretty much desecrated unless you get up above 86th street--and then it's inconvenient.

6. i have two young kids. i'm not interested in renting because it's too stressful to deal with the uncertainty of renewing a lease every year. but i agree, trophy apartment rents are attractive.

not sure what you mean about "obvious tradeoffs compared to what you can find within a half-mile of ethical." show me an actual apartment and we can have that conversation. i assume everyone has a "finite" budget, the question isn't whether it is finite but what the budget is. my more or less arbitrary budget is $5 million--i could afford to spend more but i don't want to.

i'd be schlepping there twice a day, typo--or one of us would be.

3. Agreed that low-60s UWS is less neighborhoody than rest of UWS, but it is still superior to CPS IMO.
6. Let me rephrase. Inonada thanks your kids ;).

By finite budget is one where a specific number exists, regardless of reason.

Here's an alternative that gains you light & views, no better a location, at the cost of space & niceness of interior:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/734747-condo-301-west-57th-street-clinton-new-york

Not suggesting it's a good trade-off for you, just that it's a trade-off. Question is what's more important to you.

If you are willing to cede on the interiors & push your budget, you can gain on light / view / location with about the same sq ft for what I'd guess would be go for $6.5M:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/730694-condo-106-central-park-south-midtown-new-york

inonda, you kind of just made my point for me. those apartments are both much smaller. the CPS apartment is a completely different price point and has a much higher maintenance. and the 57th street apartment is just not at all something i'd be interested in.

if there were +/- 3000 square foot apartments in prewar buildings in the west 70s with light, view, charm, and reasonable maintenance asking less than $5 million then that would be fantastic.

The CPS apt is of comparable size, FWIW. Definitely not of as grand a scale given the ceiling height.

It sounds like you're after ~3000 sq ft hitting some axes of "redeeming features". From your reactions, it sounds like "grand" is more important than light/views. On neighborhood, it seems like you care less about low 60s vs 57th & 7th than the market does. No sense paying for that which you do not care for.

So I don't think I'm making your case for you. I'm just acting as a mirror.

These apts are not 3000 sq ft. Max 2500 sq ft including the walls.

I mean Osborne apts.

how about this one.. checks the boxes on location, high ceilings, pre-war detail, size (more or less), probably could be had for well under $5... condition could be an issue though

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/659834-coop-41-central-park-west-lincoln-square-new-york

That seems way overpriced. Putting aside the year-plus it's spent on the market, it's small -- only a touch above 2000 sq ft. $2500 ppsf non-park-facing, I don't think so. Compare to 3A in the same building, 2800 sq ft & park-facing, that recently sold for $6.2M.

I get to 2,200 on this one, and agree with 300_mercer that the Osborne apartments are closer to 2,500 than 3,000. 2,600-2,700 area is more like it IMO.

2 of the bedrooms here are park-facing, right? LR/DR are south-facing -- they should get pretty good light if not views.

41 CPW is A+ location, far better than the others. Considering it could probably be had $4.5 range, it doesn't seem that overpriced relative to those. Agree it doesn't look cheap relative to 3A.

FWIW, the stated square footage 106 CPS looks inflated.

Your readings seem off.

- The east-facing bedrooms of 41 CPW face an interior courtyard. Several things indicate that. Apt line is "C", rarely a designation for a prime view. Living room is given prime frontage almost universally, so if it had a park view, the living room would be facing east. Pictures that pretty clearly show the park through a maze of structures rather than a clear shot. Google maps. Etc.

- I get 2100 sq ft on 41 CPW. Horizontal interior dimensions along the top add up to 46 feet, bump it up to 49 feet for walls. Vertical interior dimensions from foyer up add up to 38 feet, bump it up to 40 feet for walls, plus another 2.5 feet to average out the bottom area's crookedness. 49x42.5 = 2100 sq ft.

- The 106 CPS apt is 2821 sq ft according to the 1987 offering plan. I think the scale of the rooms is throwing you off: the living room alone is 900 sq ft. The horizontal interior dimensions along the top add up to 50 feet, times 40 feet vertical, gets you to 2000 sq ft. The bottom block is 30x26 (double the bedroom in each dimension), so another 780 sq ft. Throw in walls, at 2821 sq ft seems like the architect knew how to add.

- While I agree that CPW is a better location than CPS, I think "far better" takes it a bit too far. Steve Wynn did pay $70M and $6500 ppsf last year for 50 CPS, some nutjobs have purportedly signed up to pay big money for One57, and TWC commands a pretty penny despite its lack of UWS charm. The UWS is very attractive to the stroller-patrol crowd, but the attraction just isn't that strong for those without kids. Heck, we have an actual buyer w/ kids here saying that he's indifferent between 57th & 7th Ave vs. UWS below 86th.

- I stand corrected on the east bedrooms not facing CPW. It does look like the corner bedroom gets a direct central park view. Not the case for the other one.

- So we're within 100 sq ft.

- Fair enough. Those are big rooms. I shoudn't have made the comment without measuring it first. Needless to say, big rooms seems priced in (and then some) for a 3BR asking $7.45M and $7,355 monthlies. You could have a field day with rent vs buy on this one! Worth noting that 41 CPW is 3 or 4BR with much lower monthlies in addition to lower price.

- I don't know whether it's merely better or "far better". My view on 64/CPW is the locational appeal isn't either-or. It has easy access to both the Columbus Circle restaurants/amenties, AND the high 60's/low 70's and its neighborhoody feel. Best of both worlds in a sense. CPS has easy access to the former but not the latter.

True, the buyer in question doesn't have much of a preference, so maybe a moot point for purposes of this thread.

inonda: no it is not the case that "light and views" are not important to me. light is required, and views are a nice plus. when i said you had made my point what i meant was this: the best apartments you could come up with as comparisons are either much smaller, in worse locations, or much more expensive.

41 central park west is not a great apartment at all, i've seen it.

I don't think I said light/views are not important to you, just that they are less important than other things. Something's gotta give. That's why you have a preference for 2500-3000 sq ft with lesser light/views over 1850 sq ft with superior light/views.

Not everyone feels the same way. That's why someone paid $4.5M for 301 57th #49A (two floors down from #51A on the market currently) while passing up on the Osborne apts.

I, on the other hand, have a preference for having it all on the cheap because owning is of little importance to me. You find lease renewals stressful, I could care less. I get multi-year leases and am ambivalent about changing things up anyways. Hell, I might even outlast your 3.5 years in my current apt.

The obvious choice given my preferences is renting 2500 sq ft with 80 ft of jaw-dropping high-floor frontage onto CP. If I had a budget in your ballpark, I'd feel like a schmuck passing that up for the other options. Not even close. That said, the obvious choice given your preference may be the Osborne, I dunno. But it isn't everyone's best choice.

How can you compare 1850 sf with 3000 sf?

And why did this now become a commercial for you?

How about this one? A little overpriced, and perhaps you'd like the different-style-in-every-room thing:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/789322-coop-61-w-62nd-st-lincoln-square-new-york