Open House Report 9/21/08

I took a quick look at three open houses in the Financial District on Sunday. 1) 3 Hanover Square, #9H : 1 BR, 1 Bath, 950 sqft, $799K, $1256 maintenance (52% tax deductible) The 950 sqft may be slightly overblown, but not by too much. Both the living room and the bedroom are of a good size, and by virtue of some frosted glass French doors between the living area and the bedroom/bath area there's... [more]

I took a quick look at three open houses in the Financial District on Sunday. 1) 3 Hanover Square, #9H : 1 BR, 1 Bath, 950 sqft, $799K, $1256 maintenance (52% tax deductible) The 950 sqft may be slightly overblown, but not by too much. Both the living room and the bedroom are of a good size, and by virtue of some frosted glass French doors between the living area and the bedroom/bath area there's even something resembling a dressing area. This would be a lot more useful if there was even another half bath, but as it is the separation between the public and private space will be lost the first time one of your guests has to go to the bathroom. At least they don't have to go through the bedroom proper, though. There's decent light through south-facing windows, but no real view--from the bedroom you look down on Stone Street, which may create a noise problem at night which the windows didn't seem up to blocking out. The bathroom looks to have been redone fairly recently and is in fine shape (no tub, only a large steam shower). The kitchen is in decent shape as well, although after seeing a lot of shiny new condos one might be tempted to at least replace the appliances. Overall, this is a good sized apartment for a couple, but with a considerable amount of space "wasted" in the foyer, there's really nothing to carve into a second bedroom unless you're willing to make something quite narrow indeed or cut the living space off from the windows entirely. Either of these would really compromise the space, so I think this is a large one bedroom as opposed to something you might try to call a Junior 4. There's not a lot of co-ops in the Financial District, so it's a bit hard to know what to say about the pricing. However, 23E, a similar size but with presumably better views and what looks to be a nicer kitchen at a minimum, sold back in July for $749K and a month before that 17A (a 1100 sqft 2BR) did as well, so the price seems fairly aspirational. 23E was listed with the same broker, who seems to do most of the business in the building, for over six months and slowly worked its way down from $895K, so I might expect a similar pattern here. Traffic: I have no idea. I was the last person there, but there was no sign-in sheet. The broker was seeing one other couple out as I arrived. 2) 71 Nassau, #6A : 2 BR, 2 Bath, 1088 sqft, $1.2M, $1197 CC, $198 RET (abated) I really like the conversion at 71 Nassau, which was done a couple of years ago. I've seen several apartments in this building and they all still look great. The kitchens and bathrooms are both functional and attractive, and the aesthetics are likely to age well. I can see why others would disagree, but I also really like this layout. The second bedroom is separated from the living room by French doors, and it's easy to see using it as an extension of the living space until it was required as a guest room or for a couple that might eventually have a child. The one real oddity is that only the second bedroom is en suite. You could put up a door to enclose the master bathroom (which features a steam shower instead of a soaking tub), but this only really makes sense if the second bedroom wasn't used as a bedroom. Alas, I fear the owners are likely to take a loss on this unit. They bought it in May, 2006 for $1.075M. Prices on most of the comparable new listings I'm seeing in the neighborhood are right around $1000 psf, and they're competing with 2A, which is listed at $1.3M but has a large (but somewhat strange and dark) terrace. I think they'll be lucky to get what they paid, and hope (for me, not for them) that this unit or something like it falls into my more modest price range. Traffic: Light. We were the last people there and were fourth on the sign-in sheet. 3) 71 Nassau, #15B : 1 BR, 1 Bath, 813 sqft, $785K, $894 CC, $444 RET* (*RET seem to high, given 6A--I need to check on that) If this apartment had been listed before the start of the summer, it would probably have sparked a bidding war. Instead, three-quarters of the way into the open house, we were the third to sign in. If you're looking for a basic 1 BR apartment, there's a lot to like here. As I mentioned above, I really like the renovation, and the developers didn't give this 1BR short-shrift. It has a lovely kitchen and the bathroom features a separate tub and shower. Storage is a bit tight since one of the three closets is mostly devoted to the washer-dryer (the people in 6A have made what looks like a smart decision given limited space and gotten a combined washer/dryer unit), although there's a good-sized walk in closet in the bedroom. At this price point, you might even still be able to get 10% financing, since the mortgage would be under the $729K "conforming" limit. The comparison to 3 Hanover Square is interesting here, and probably proves why the co-op unit is priced too high. Although notionally this unit is giving up over 100 sqft, both the living and dining rooms feel reasonably spacious, the view is more open, and the quality of the finishes is considerably higher. 71 Nassau is also considerably more convenient to subway lines, grocery stores, and the restaurants and nightlife of TriBeCa. For me, this is the superior apartment in almost every way, and it's priced $15K less with no coop board fuss. I'm going to keep an eye on this unit to get a feel for what's happening to pricing in the Financial District. It's obviously priced to sell, listed at the same price as the original sale in 2006 and $130K cheaper than the already-reduced-$70K 11B a few floors down. The folks in 11B obviously need to reset their expectations, but 15B may be a bellweather for how much other sellers in the neighborhood need to do so as well. [less]