Open House Reports 8/17/08

490 West End Avenue #3B
$2,350,000; Maint. $2061
Coop, 3 beds 1 full hall bath + maid's suite w/three-quarter bath + shower/toilet between BR1 & BR2. No square footage given; it's probably around 1700.
http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/335966-coop-490-west-end-avenue-upper-west-side-manhattan
Traffic: Pretty good for an appointment-only open house. Three other families were there during my visit.

Mickey Cohen lists this estate-condition sponsor unit as a "Victorian Classic 7 Prewar". To my eye, the layout is more classic than Victorian: you enter the apartment into a generous foyer, with the living and dining rooms directly ahead of you. The bedrooms are at the other end of the apartment, past the kitchen. There are lots of late-Victorian details, however, including rich paneling and pocket doors in the dining room. Most of the important details seem to have survived; the only major losses I noticed were one set of cabinet doors from the kitchen and the sink from the shaving closet in the master bedroom. The decorative fireplace in the living room may not be original. The kitchen is a wreck, but lots of original cabinetry is still there if you have the stomach to strip the ones that have been painted.

Another, more problematic Victorian attribute is the relatively tight quarters in the bedrooms and bathrooms. The ceilings are high, but the rooms are narrow and closet space ie minimal (hence the sacrifice of the former shaving closet). The listing includes an alternative floorplan that would combine the kitchen and maid's suite into a generous eat-in kitchen while mostly leaving the other rooms as they are. The flexibility of the layout seems to be rather limited, especially if you want to preserve the details.

490 has one of the grandest entries on West End Avenue, so your friends will be impressed. The public rooms of #3B will add to their positive impression. The question is whether your family will be as happy when the guests go home, with nowhere to hang their clothes and limited elbow room for toothbrushing. Considering that the all-in cost for this one might be $2.7-3MM by the time the renovations are done, it's a question most buyers would rather not have to think about. On the bright side, there's a possibility of price competition with Corcoran's listing for #9B; so maybe the economics will become more favorable.

Love your descriptions! Thanks again for seeing more than I ever could.

wonderful reviews as always
your 755 WEA review reinforces my observation that between 1 and 1.5 million there is nothing (not much) acceptable in the UWS for a 3br
amazing situation -- that argues against a drop below such a price level

incredible that what is high end in may markets in the country is merely entry level young family habitat in Manhattan

251 West 95th Street #2N
↑ $2,225,000 at ELliman or ↑$2,175,000 at Stribling; Maint. $2044
Coop (I think), 3 beds 2 baths. 2028 sq.ft.
URLs (seems to be listed with both Elliman and Stribling):
http://www.prudentialelliman.com/908424
http://www.stribling.com/propinfo.asp?webid=1042034&type=SALE
Traffic: Moderate; probably would have been better if the buzzer had been working.

The upward black arrow on this listing requires explanation. The owner seems to have listed it with both Elliman and Stribling last fall at around $1.8MM, shortly after purchasing it from the sponsor, as a wreck, for $1.3MM. (It's possible that there are two different apartments in the "N" line with identical renovations and the same maintenance; that seems unlikely.) Now the gut reno is nearly done and the price is up to $2.2MM.

At first glance, the renovation looks like classy work. The appliances and fixtures are high-end, the rooms are generous, and the apartment has the opulent feel of... well, of what exactly? That's it: A McMANSION! The owner has created a half-size city version of the faux-luxe suburban homes every New Yorker ridicules, from the handles on the paneled doors to the marbled-to-the-roof master bath to the mammoth kitchen that Stribling even calls "suburban sized".

Clearly, the architect had to deal with some challenges here. For example, the bedroom nearest the entry is cut off from all the plumbing in the apartment, so the occupant will have to walk down two hallways and through the kitchen to brush her teeth. It was hard to find a home for the washer and dryer, so they are currently in the master bedroom. Hmmm... The plan is to move them to an under-counter space in the kitchen, next to the oven. Double hmmmm.....

So there was no obvious solution to the problems, and the choices made in the renovation suggest a lack of vision and conviction. The Stribling listing calls this apartment a "loft", but I think there's more to a loft than merging the dining and living rooms. Whether it's a loft, a reconceived seven or a mini-mansion, though, the big question here is: who's supposed to buy it? I'm sure there are people on the Upper West Side who crave the bland conformity of Toll Brothers mass production. But I doubt very many of them want to live on the second floor overlooking one of the busiest, noisiest, ugliest stretches of Broadway. Even when the endless digging around 96th Street is over and the City plants a few trees in the B'way median, the location will be problematic. Whoever the buyer is, I think this apartment will be a compromise of one sort or another.

Great post.

Blows my mind that this is what they call a "loft". And, I would never have called it on my own, but now that you've seen McMansion, I can't think of anything else.

West 81st: you are an open house machine and again my question reverts back to the comparison between 15 West 84th and 251 W 95th and 490 WEA from a price point and all else perspective for value, family home, location, etc.

i heard that soon another classic seven at 490 west end will hit the market. i think on second floor and probably 100K cheaper and also in bad condition.

west 81st....i forgot to type....please provide your opinion on my above comment. thanks

Curiously: My throughts, for what they're worth...

490 WEA is seductive, with all that dark wood, a beautiful building and a top location. I'm just not sure it works all that well for day-to-day living, and to fix it you might have to destroy a lot of the stuff that makes the apartment so interesting. In any case, a faithful renovation certainly won't be cheap. If I had that kind of money and liked the building (one out of two for me, maybe it's two out of two for you), I'd look into the possibility of combining apartments. For example, I think the two units on the second floor that are currently in contract would make a great combination. I have no idea whether the sponsor sold #2G as an add-on to the buyer of #2F; I just think it would have worked really well, and if additional units are coming on the market as Bela says, there might be other opportunities.

As we've discussed elsewhere, 15 West 84th is a dull no-brainer, rather like marrying your accountant and driving a minivan after imagining Brad Pitt and an M6 convertible (substitute Anna Kournikova and a 'Vette if you prefer).

251 West 95th is lipstick on a pig - and even the lipstick is messy. Plus, the pig doesn't have a doorman, which is unthinkable for a second-floor apartment in this price range on a rather dodgy block.

thanks, pricing is so key in this market so i am being very picky but sounds like from your opinion the 2.55 ask at 15 west 84th seems justified to 221 w 95th but against 490 still might be given the work you might have to do there.....what do you think?

Curiously: Stribling's exclusive on 15 West 84th will probably expire soon. I don't know how motivated the seller is, but the broker may be REALLY motivated. I'd bid low on that one. The owners are probably sitting on a big paper gain, so they have lots of room to negotiate if they really want to sell. As for 490 WEA, think "Mr. Blandings" or "The Money Pit".

176 West 87th Street #5F
$1,850,000; Maint. $1768
Coop, 6 rooms 2 baths plus maid's. The listing says 1650 sq.ft. Might be closer to 1500.
URL: http://www.andrewemmet.com/brokerwebsite3/code/sales_detail.asp?index=0
Traffic: Very light, possibly because of confusion; the listing doesn't mention the apartment number, and the doorman was sending visitors to a Corcoran open house in 6J, which is a studio.

StreetEasy doesn't crawl AndrewEmmet.com; I picked this one up from the Times. The first thing I noticed here was the lobby, which could be a grand Georgian space with a little sprucing up. Instead, it looks like a blockhouse. Maybe the residents who are interested in selling their apartments should take up a collection for a few gallons of Banjamin Moore Monticello Peach or Bedford Blue. Or maybe too many open houses make West81st b|tchy.

#5F is a fairly successful adaptation of a classic six for use as a three bedroom. The formal dining room has been sacrificed. The dining foyer is of reasonable size and flows pretty well. To define that space, the owners have added a raised-tile floor, going for a kind of Tuscan-patio effect, I think. It looks OK, but it hasn't aged especially well and it might limit the flexibility of the space: you can't open an extension dining table across a floor with two levels, and the positioning of chairs could get awkward too. I tripped over the edge; YMMV - I'm a klutz. The kitchen is old, but does not need immediate replacement.

The maid's room has been preserved, and opens not to the kitchen but to the bedroom wing. So the apartment could function as a tight 4BR. The maid's room is quite raw and currently has some primitive built-ins that include an old Murphy bed. If you ripped all that out, there might be room for a loft bed; but space in there is tight, and the dilapidated maid's bath might have to go. The three family bedrooms are decent-sized. The smallest has an en-suite bath. The others share a hall bath. Considering the the smallish footprint, the bedroom wing flows well, and there's reasonable privacy.

The views are mixed. The main outlook is to the West, toward the Belnord. Unfortunately, it's not the Belnord's best side, but it's perfectly inoffensive. The Belnord is big, so natural light is probably fleeting, even in the afternoon. Some of the secondary windows look south, toward the roof of the Church on 86th, which is a nicer view than you expect from the rear of a fifth-floor apartment on Amsterdam.

Overall, this apartment is a competitive entry in the classic six segment, and offers more flexibility than most.

One additional note on 490 WEA, related to Curiously's question above: If obsessive restoration of old woodwork isn't your thing, #9B is likely to be a better buy than #3B - especially if light is important to you.

Postscript to Curiously: Stribling's exclusive on 15 West 84th #2A did in fact expire. The apartment is now re-listed with BHS at $2.299MM:
http://www.bhsusa.com/detail.aspx?id=958318

thanks....that price is now quite competitive.....let's see what happens, but we may see this one sell now....maybe to me ;)

Epilogue: 251 West 95th Street #2N finally sold on 08/16/2012 for $1,625,000.

So 4 years and $550k + carry layer it sells . Nice way to price to market waste your time and $.

A moment of silence for the old SE....

That co-op at http://streeteasy.com/nyc/building/251-west-95-street-new_york is quite an anomoly. It must've been one of very few co-op, rather than condo, conversions in 2005.

It's like 1982 in that the sponsor has a 75-year lease on the commercial space. The underlying mortgage taken over by the co-op is only $1,500,000, usual then but peanuts now. Less than $100,000 per apartment.