Openhouses today on UWS (01/18)

went to see 600 w 111th apt 7d. A year ago this may have been a worthy contendor at $1.3 million, but today it is hard to see it going for this price. It is clean with a newish kitchen (very tight space though -- fridge door won't even open all the way w/o hitting the counter on the other side) with average stainless steel appliances. Bathrooms are updated but still dated. Rooms are average but have closets. Reasonable daylight on the front, and tunnel view /wall view on the inner windows.
6-D which just sold recently showed a lot better.
4c in the same building and 14c are at the same price (1.25) and both need a fair amount of work.
4c will likely be hard to sell for more than $850-900k. 14c may go for under a million. nshipley in another post raved about the renovation on the 2c or 1c apartment, and these could like nice after such a renovation, but if you discount these apartments by the potential renovation cost (across the board -- floors, paint, airconditioning, kitchen and baths) I don't think they can sell at these kind of prices in the current market.

On the other hand the last two weekends have had very high attendance at the Morningside Heights Open houses (price range 1.2 to 1.8) -- interesting that the buyers are out looking in force. Not sure if this is translating into contracts so far.
We saw no one at the Lincoln Towers one we went to though -- same price range.

I got back in the field today, and saw six apartments that span the middle range of family apartments in 10024 and 10025:

$3,795,000 2628 Broadway #29THFL Condo, Upper West Side 4 beds 3 baths
$3,500,000 522 West End Avenue #3AB Co-op, Upper West Side 4 beds 2 baths
↓ $3,495,000 333 Central Park West #56 Co-op, Upper West Side 4 beds 3 baths
$2,400,000 545 West End Avenue #4A Co-op, Upper West Side 3 beds 3 baths
↓ $2,000,000 420 Riverside Drive #3G Co-op, Morningside Heights 3 beds 2 baths
$1,250,000 334 West 86th Street #5C Co-op, Upper West Side 2-3 beds 2 baths

Turnout was strongest by far at the two newest listings, 522 WEA and 334 West 86th. 522 WEA is big and beautiful, but in this market I think $3.5MM should get you higher above street noise (not to mention the 535 WEA construction across the avenue). 334 W86 is small, dark and dreary. The only remarkable thing about the listing is that the owners paid $1.4MM a few years ago. I hope staying put is an option for them (although their family has already outgrown the place), or that they can afford a huge loss.

The full-floor unit at Ariel East has drop-dead, protected views in every direction; the apartment itself, although perfectly nice, is almost an afterthought.

420 RSD is a hoot - a huge, two-wing combo with more pre-war detail than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, it faces walls on all sides, including the very unattractive rear of St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's. The kitchen reno has some awkward details, and the old floors that remain, although refinished, appear to have suffered from a lot of neglect over the years.

333 CPW is my nominee for apartment most likely to demonstrate the total collapse of the low-luxe market. It's already 20% below the price paid a year ago for the same apartment two floors down, and shows no sign of hitting bottom. The comparison is a little unfair, because #56 is a Home Depot reno, whereas #36 was more faithfully restored. Still, when the history of the bubble is written, the sale of a viewless eight in a decent building for $4.65MM may get a few pages.

545 WEA is a horrid wreck. Decent space, but vastly overpriced and probably not worth the trouble.

Sorry I don't have time for fuller write-ups. If anyone wants my off-the-record view on any of these listings, feel free to e-mail me (west81st@gmail.com). There's nothing in it for me, other than the vicarious thrills of being a neighborhood real estate yenta.

i thot 522 wea felt small. as fancy as their coffered ceiling was in the living/dining room i thot it also made the room feel smaller than it otherwise would have. nice finishes but i didn't have a sense of expanse there at all, and in fact i thot it was somehow claustrophobic.

liquidpaper: Fair point. The piano doesn't help the flow either.

Maybe it would have worked better if the office/fourth bedroom (or at least part of it) had been integrated into the living/dining room. Since there's already a den in the kitchen wing, it does seem a bit of a waste to use a front-facing room as flex space. Giving, say, half of that room to the entertaining area and the other half to the master suite would have provided some of the grand scale that's currently missing.

agree - even before i went there from the floor plan i knew that wall would have to come down b/w living dining and the office. that was why i was so conscious of the coffered ceiling lowering it, because i think it would feel even lower if the room were enlarged (think of the dimensions of a rectangle if you extend one way but not the other)

so is it fair to say that the only one you liked at all is the ariel?

i saw 522 as well and i am not a fan. the space just seems all wrong and doesn't flow properly--the classic trouble with combinations. i don't like the mcmansion feel of having to go through the 'great room' to get anywhere in the apartment. kinda dark, kinda noisy, just nothing great about it. i think a lot of combinations are really going to suffer in this downturn.

Ironically, I'm afraid of heights.

I liked 522 WEA most among the six, and 535 WEA should help stabilize values olong that stretch of West End. 333 CPW offers excellent space, and the reno is good enough. Unfortunately, it needs to be a floor or two higher to really clear the school next door. The playground on that roof is basically in the apartment.

Happyrenter: Agreed - 522 has issues, and the price needs to come down to compensate. From a value perspective, I think 420 RSD isn't too bad. But as you noted on another thread, it's a combo that's still well above its breakup value. And the views are truly awful.

interesting--why is 535 going to help stabilize values?

Just a hunch... influx of really rich families, with a negligible increase in inventory. That's assuming, of course, that pre-construction sales have been as strong as claimed, and the apartments don't ultimately have to be chopped up into smaller units.

Out of all the Ariel E & W floorplans, my favorite is the full-floor apts available at Ariel E. The views are fantastic, the layout is good (though the rooms get shrunk above a certain level, forget which)... I didn't buy there, end of '05/beg of '06 because I thought 3.5m+ was very high for that location, even if you did get 4 bedrooms in a condo.

Yes - the views are extraordinary. I suspect the price is extremely negotiable, but would rather not get into the reasons here.

Sure enough, the asking price just dropped $300K, to $3.495MM.
http://www.bhsusa.com/detail.aspx?id=981292

Personally, I couldn't live in a glass box 28 floors above Broadway. But the right person is going to get a nice deal.

Those bedrooms seem awfully challenged for this price point. Small, awkward, posts, etc.