How much is this apartment worth today?

Reno not as nice as 9a. What do you put for reno difference? You will get your answer.

https://streeteasy.com/building/251-east-32-street-new_york/12a?utm_campaign=sale_listing&utm_medium=share&utm_source=web&lstt=19mNjhlVUNnCwa_Fo33jnRF1VDtQGwCpnN4gN5gjSChztWCt6bo8J0FRD_FPjigEzwfA4563FOmDBGUN

So your offer was with financing and you lost out on a cash offer? I’m curious how much more a cash offer is worth. It seems currently, more than in the past with higher interest rates. I also read a record number of contingent offers are falling out of contract presumably due to financing issues. I’ve been looking closely at the single family home market in Southern California in the $800k-$1.1 million range. It seems there are many properties languishing at pretty reasonable prices since buyers in the price range typically finance and the higher interest rates is having an effect. So she said it’s a great time to buy if you are a cash buyer. Curious if similar dynamics are in play in NYC

Just to add clarity to my original post, I'm referring to the unit's last sale in 2019. At the time the apartment listed at $825k. Went to the open house and really liked it. It was a very nice apartment. Seller was an architect and had done a really good renovation. I offered full price with financing and the agent said that there was a full price cash offer. I countered $850k without hesitation, again with financing, and agent came back to me after a few days and said I was 99% done. Agent said seller was discussing last minute details with attorney. I thought I had I won but the next call from the agent was an apology. Agent said seller changed mind last minute after further discussion with attorney. Seller didn't want to take the risk of my financing falling through during appraisal since my offer was above the price. I was very disappointed and upset at the seller's agent at the time but now I'm thinking it was a blessing in disguise. I've been following this building's sales and surprised by the prices.

@300_mercer so maybe 9A is worth at least $850-900k now?

Perhaps. 12A renovated too but not as nicely as 9A. So probably put $100k premium from 12A sale. Beyond that it is too hard to say as individual tastes can vary significantly.

The cash offer ended up being above ask and $15k less than your financed proposal, so it is not hard to see no contingencies being worth 1.7% of the sale price. I doubt there is any appreciation in these units. Look at 12F, taken off the market under $1MM in June despite being a real 2 bdrm/2 bth.

Why does it appear that units at the Kips Bay condos are not appreciating? Is it the overall Manhattan market being sluggish or the property itself? I’d think there’d be a benefit to being a condo rather than a coop.

I was curious about prices across this area, as I toy with moving... Based on a fair amount of online browsing of a variety of units in several buildings in the Murray Hill / Kips Bay area, there's not a lot of appreciation across the board. Many of the units are what I would call 'ordinary' - very predictable econobox floorplans, 8 foot + a few inches ceiling heights, windows rather than window walls, not many amenities in the buildings, though some do have central AC -- all in all, typical middle-class stuff for the period. As the buildings may lag in terms of updates and added amenities, they've been surpassed, and are now overlooked by many.

Re Kips Bay Towers, perhaps people don't want to live in Robert Moses slum clearance project? (sorta kidding) Outside of any financial concerns at K.B.T., my impression from browsing listings is that they don't show well -- window treatments are tricky, and the current taste for pulling them down for listing photos isn't doing sellers any favors. Also, until they power wash the building, the exterior cast concrete looks grubby from the unit, and the proportions of fixed window, openable window, and AC/heating unit is sort of odd from the inside. Too bad, because from the outside it's a pretty striking I.M.Pei brutalist design, but may not be aging well (Wikipedia page gives some interesting history of design compromises throughout the buildings' lifespan, which explains several elements of why it now looks like it does).

$575k

$575k...are you serious???!

@Aaron2 Great points about Kips Bay Towers. Just looking at the spalling of the concrete over the entryway makes me think there could be some huge deferred maintenance at some point. A few years back I was looking at the Watergate condos in DC and the same deterioration was happening there. These are not buildings meant to last a century.

George, Local Law 11 facade maintenance is rather strict. So most of the issues do get addressed every 5 years. That doesn't mean, there aren't new issues every 5 years. I don't think concrete buildings fall apart in NYC weather when maintained every five years.

Is it really believable that modern, steel and concrete buildings are going to have MAJOR facade issues every 5 years??? Have the engineering and design standards at our schools deteriorated that much that engineers can’t design a building that supposedly has major structural issues every 5 years. This whole Local Law11 façade maintenance is a shakedown to benefit government, contractors, engineers and inspection companies. We’re just getting ripped off

@911: It's generally not the structural designs that are of concern (well... remember the Citicorp Building concerns?). It's the 'value engineering' changes that are made during final design and construction (e.g., Hyatt Regency, Kansas City 1981), and the ongoing little stuff that's mostly managed by high attention to maintenance -- water infiltration to mortars, rusting of brick course supports, stability of railings. Given a pretty strong history of NY landlord inattention to facade work, and fancy stonework that is very expensive to maintain (there's a reason all those Beaux Arts cornices were pulled off, or wrapped in metal after a certain point), it's surprising there haven't been more disasters. Perhaps what's needed is a change in the curious lack of prosecutorial zeal to put harm-causing landlords and, yes, the occasional engineer and contractor, out of business and behind bars. 432 Park Ave is just 10 years old, yet seems to be rapidly heading toward facade problems that could result in some pedestrian getting beaned by a chunk of concrete. Clearly, some of the billionaires there don't want to be on the hook for *that* lawsuit, ergo the current legal kerfuffle. Absent a building owner's sense of "oh, I'm likely to be sued and will go to jail", LL11 is about the only thing we've got.

Aaron,
How is one to say 5 year inspection is the right frequency not 6 or 7 or 10 years? And what is the dis-incentive for special inspector / engineer inspecting the facade to identify as many things he possibly can?

@300: I'm definitely not advocating that LL11 is perfect. It was NYC's hasty response to be 'seen to be doing something' after a few grisly accidents. Once all facades have been inspected (maybe we're almost there?), there's probably room for cycle variations depending on type of construction, history of problems, etc. One of the other cities with facade inspection laws (Chicago?) has a variable inspection frequency.

On disincentives, it's tough. LL11 says that 'safe' is "...not requiring repair or maintenance to sustain the structural integrity of the exterior of the building and that will not become unsafe during the next five years". That 5 year requirement is a pretty high standard. Inspectors must be licensed engineers or architects, and there's an assumption of professional skills and knowledge in that requirement. The law (1 RCNY 103-4) requires the inspector to "...apply a professional standard of care...", and it's the dynamic between that term of art and personal liability that has to be navigated. There's a reason that the job isn't left to just any yobbo who can get onto a scaffold. Since a building could be certified 'safe' with a required maintenance/repair program, there's significant room for professional judgement.

There's been discussion on this board about the possibility of using drones to inspect which could bring down costs. I guess then you'd need drone inspections firms to make sure they were safe for use in densely populated Manhattan. The rise of safetyism is a thing.

Why aren't people in Boston and Toronto being clobbered by masonry?

MTH,
It is not the cost of doing inspections. It is the cost of the need to fix what the special inspector identifies and they are clearly incentivized by the law to identify as much as possible. Who is to say what happens in the next 5 years to a decorative element of the facade?

I am reminded of George’s comment that the useful life of a building is 40 years or something. His point was that past that point, it starts becoming more economical to plan on tearing it down than try to maintain it indefinitely.

I don’t know where he got his info, and whether 40 is right or if it’s 50 or whatever. But the concept seems reasonable, and 40 years seems plausible. Whatever the number is, there seems to be a class of people who fail to account for it in the budgeting / analysis / calculations. If you’ve paid $1.5M for $1M of property and $0.5M of air rights, you should probably plan on $1M of structural and reno costs over 40 years. But because it doesn’t appear as a line-item every month, some people fool themselves into thinking it doesn’t exist and then cry foul when faced with reality.

Nada, For typical multifamily - steel/concrete/brick construction - expected life of the structure is 100 year or more. Facades do require maintainance and metal plumbing pipes probably have less life of 40-70 years. Then there are life style and taste changes requiring interior renovations.

On facades, I see huges disparity in costs between buildings driven by how active the board and managing agent. Cost is driven by the choice of special inspector and initial pool of contractors who bid. Board hangs their hat on "they got multiple bids" but pool of 3-4 contractors the managing agent chose to bid decides variation in cost which can cost from 100 to 250 in low vs high with the same specs. Union labor even higher.

Some estimates here. It is generally conservative as it is for the purpose of cap-ex reserves by the lenders.

https://www.reservedataanalyst.com/mt-content/uploads/2018/09/nachi-life-expectancy-chart.pdf

300, I agree that the expected life of the structure *with* maintenance is 100+ years. I just get the feeling that people seem to ignore their portion of the *with* during their ~10 years of ownership and seem surprised and/or complain when it comes up.

Many people indeed do ignore periodic capital assessments which are required for mostly facade, roof and elevators. Decorative portion of pre-war facades indeed cost far more.

What I am questioning is the cost of these in Manhattan due to excessive regulation, agency issue, and just facade mafia. It is the same DOB regulation in Queens but facade costs after adjusting for lower density and traffic vs Manhattan are way lower there as they know people will not pay.

I will share my experience off line in a condo buildings which paid roughly double what it should cost in Manhattan. I did detailed analysis including talking to qualified insured contractors. The coop I live in will never do that.

A majority of the comments here are irrelevant to the opening question! Lol!

I'm sticking with my $575, but could go to $600 if maybe it's quiet or not near the elevator or garbage chute or on one of the streets where the ambulances are just going nonstop, and if they don't put your deliveries on the elevator floor.
It looks pretty average, and the CB2 furniture doesn't mask anything, neither does that fancy architectural floorplan.