15 Central Park West Remains Manhattan’s Most Expensive Condo

The building’s eight sales in the last 12 months averaged $7,227 per square foot, CityRealty finds.

 

The Zeckendorf family-developed 15 Central Park West remains the most expensive condo in New York, claiming the top three sales by price per square footage within the 12 months up to June 30,  according to a CityRealty report released Tuesday.

During that period, there were eight sales in the Robert A.M. Stern-designed building—home to celebrities like Sting, fashion designer Elie Tahari, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev—with an average sales price of $7,227 per square foot, up 10.1% from the $6,735 a year ago.

Despite the newer luxury condos being built on Billionaires’ Row, 15 Central Park West has been consistently ranked No. 1 since 2014 in The CityRealty 100, a bi-annual index tracking the performances of top 100 condominium buildings in Manhattan.

The second and third most expensive condos in New York are 432 Park Avenue (45 sales with an average price of $5,930 per square foot) and Residences at the Mandarin Oriental at 80 Columbus Circle (four sales with an average price of $5,215 per square foot), according to CityRealty, a New York-based real estate web site.

Overall, the 100 buildings had an average price per square foot of $2,788 from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, increasing 9% year-over-year.  

“Prices rose in part because of closings recorded in very expensive newer developments such as 432 Park Ave. and One57, as well as continued high prices in properties such as 15 Central Park West,” said Gabby Warshawer, director of research and communications at CityRealty.  

“There has been some softness in luxury condos, but these buildings in the Index have retained their value,” Ms. Warshawer said.

Other findings in the report include:

• The number of condo sales was largely unchanged, with 1,098 apartments changing hands in The CityRealty 100 condos, a 3% decrease from the same period a year ago
• The most expensive sale by unit price was a penthouse in 15 Central Park West, averaging $9,581 per square foot and totaling $50.55 million
• 432 Park Ave. had the most expensive single sale. An anonymous buyer dropped $65.6 million on a full-floor unit in January 2017
• Midtown East is the most expensive neighborhood, with an average price per square foot of $4,185, followed by Central Park West ($3,758) and Greenwich Village ($3,570)

Among the CityRealty 100 condos, 30 East 85th St. had the best 10-year compound annual growth rate at 5.61%, followed by Trump Park Avenue (4.8%), The Park Belvedere (4.4%), 3 Lincoln Center (4.3%) and Time Warner Center (4.2%).

Source: Mansion Global

Please visit us at: www.RubenPerezNYC.com

NYC New Development: Soft in the Middle, Splashy Up Top

Three years ago, Soo K. Chan, an architect well known in Singapore but new to the Manhattan luxury condo scene, posed a question to jaded New Yorkers: How about a pool in the living room?
Well, why not? It was a hit overseas, where Mr. Chan had designed pools for luxury apartments in Southeast Asia, and at the time the New York City condo market was on fire.

So Soori High Line, the new 31-unit luxury mid-rise in West Chelsea that Mr. Chan designed and developed, will have four-foot-deep saltwater pools in more than half of its apartments. The 24-foot-long pools, surrounded by a glass enclosure, are heated and partially open to the outdoors, enticing residents to swim even during a snowstorm.

The apartments — which range in price from about $3 million for a two-bedroom to $22.5 million for the five-bedroom, triplex penthouse — have ceilings as high as 18 feet, heated limestone floors, gas fireplaces and doorknobs wrapped in hand-stitched leather.

 “Our approach is not to cut back,” Mr. Chan, also known as Chan Soo Khian, said of the shifting market. “In fact, what I’ve done is up the ante. A well-crafted building will speak for itself in a difficult market.”

In Manhattan’s new development scene, there are bold bets aplenty, but 2014 it is not. The ultraluxury market, with prices north of $10 million, has softened since the rise of billionaire’s row along 57th Street, and developers are taking note: Some are doubling down on ultraluxury and seeking new ways to stand out, while others pursue an underserved group – buyers willing to shell out between $1 million and $3 million for an “entry-level” home.

Builders who aim somewhere in the middle — in the $5 million to $10 million range — are feeling the tightest squeeze, because of oversupply and a dearth of buyers. And those with buildings under way are facing a tough choice: stay firm on pricing set when the market was stronger, with the risk of getting lost in the mix, or offer concessions to move what hasn’t sold?

Recent data tell a tale of two markets. The median sales price for new development in Manhattan rose to $3.3 million in the second quarter, up a staggering 22.8 percent from the same period a year earlier.  At the same time, the average listing discount, or price drop, for new development was 7.5 percent — far more generous than it was the first quarter, when brokers discounted an average 2.8 percent. A year ago, agents were seeking an average of 1 percent above asking price.

“The expectation was that there are so many billionaires in the world, they’re a dime a dozen – and that’s not what happened,” said Jonathan J. Miller, a New York real estate appraiser.
The record prices of the last few years were driven in large part by contracts for exceptionally expensive units signed as far back as 2013, often before construction began, and because they have taken years to close, “they’ve been padding the market,” Mr. Miller said.

The market peaked in 2014, he said, when cranes seemed to dominate the city skyline. “It completely removed that sense of urgency” to buy, though builders have been slow to respond to the drop in demand, he said, adding that high land prices pushed them to build bigger, more expensive units to hit their margins, leaving less room for flexibility in price.

Now that is catching up with them. About 2,800 new units are expected to come onto the market in 2017, said Kelly Kennedy Mack, president of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group, which is about half the original projection.

Recent sales also suggest a shifting focus in the city: The Upper East Side is the top-selling neighborhood for new development this year, she said, with 12 percent of total sales, thanks in part to the new Second Avenue subway line. Midtown West and the Financial District rounded out the top three areas, and half of all new construction in the pipeline will be downtown.

The slowdown hasn’t deterred some very ambitious projects that developers hope will break records with nine-figure price tags. Central Park Tower, a new addition to billionaire’s row on West 57th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, anticipates total sales in excess of $4 billion, according to documents filed with the State Attorney General. That would make it New York’s most expensive residential tower ever. The mixed-use tower, which will have a Nordstrom department store at its base, will have 179 condos, according to paperwork filed by Extell, the developer.

In Lenox Hill, the developer Zeckendorf filed to list a $130 million triplex apartment at the under-construction 520 Park Avenue. Not to be outdone, Vornado Realty Trust, the developer at 220 Central Park South, has filed to list a $250 million, 23,000-square-foot quadruplex apartment in the limestone-clad tower. The current sales record, set in 2015, is a $100.5 million sale at Extell’s One57 tower.

Others are raising the stakes in different ways. Robert Gladstone, chief executive of Madison Equities, is betting that buyers in his Beaux-Arts conversion at 212 Fifth Avenue, in NoMad, will want bragging rights. He decided to scrap plans for two penthouses and create one ultraluxury triplex apartment with 10,000 square feet of living space and a 5,700-square-foot terrace. The asking price: $68.5 million.

“There are fewer people in the world who can buy it. But it’s the penthouse, not a penthouse,” he said. “If someone can spend $50 million, most of them could spend $70 million on an apartment.”
The space will have chevron-patterned flooring, a grand staircase and, as in all the units, a special air-filtration system. “People really dig that kind of detail,” Mr. Gladstone said.

Source: The New York Times

Please visit us at http://www.rubenpereznyc.com/

Manhattan Super-Luxury Rental Market Remained Robust in August

The number of new leases valued at $10,000 per month or more surged 29%

Unlike its sales market, the Manhattan luxury rental market saw a sizzling hot August, as both the number of new leases and median rents rose sharply.  

The number of luxury rentals, defined as the top 10% most expensive leases with a threshold of $6,250 per month, rose to 708 in August, representing a 12.6% increase year-over-year. Median luxury rent edged up to $8,000 per month, up 1.8%.

The luxury rental market in Manhattan also gained more ground compared to July. The number of luxury leases jumped 15.1% month-over-month in August while median rent rose 1.6%.

The average apartment size for luxury rentals was 1,704 square feet, increasing 6.7% year-over-year and almost double the size of apartments in the remaining 90% of the market, which averaged 805 square feet, according to Jonathan Miller, chief executive of real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel and author of the reports.

“Last month, there were more closings in the new rental developments, which tend to be larger and more expensive than the average stock,” Mr. Miller said.

Super-luxury rentals, those with a monthly rent of  $10,000 and up, saw a sharper increase in leasing activity. The number of new leases signed during August increased 29.4% year-over-year to 211.

This segment accounted for 3% of all the new leases in August, with a median rent of $13,500, according to Mr. Miller.

In the overall Manhattan rental market, 7,061 new leases were transacted in August, rising 12.3% from a year ago and marking the largest number in over nine years. Median rent for all Manhattan was $3,442 per month, up 1.3% from August 2016.

Source: Mansion Global 

Please visit us at: www.RubenPerezNYC.com

Open Houses Fizzle for Manhattan Condos and Co-Ops

New listings, and listings with significant price cuts, brought out fewer buyers this spring than in the past and attendance at open houses for Manhattan co-ops and condominiums slowed this spring despite strong recent sales and record high prices, brokers said.

Showings declined, as did bidding wars with multiple bidders making offers on the same property.  “Buyers have been both scarcer and slower this spring than in past years,” noted in a market commentary on second-quarter activity. “Buyer velocity has slowed considerably.”  New listings, and listings with significant price cuts, brought out fewer buyers than in the past, especially among the priciest apartments.

In one case, agents put out a listing for an apartment identical to one that had sold quickly six months earlier, but it garnered little interest. “Week after week they have few showing requests and no offers”.  Buyers show less urgency than in the recent past, as contract negotiations stretch out many weeks and potential buyers delay making offers.

At the same time, the number of deals hasn’t declined dramatically because the buyers still in the game were serious about buying. Price cuts by sellers also spurred deals.

“In today’s world, with both political anxiety and global safety concerns at high levels, our market cannot support aspirational pricing by sellers waiting for that ‘one buyer’ who will overpay for their home “Buyers are as price conscious as I have ever seen them.”

The market has cooled, even in apartments priced below $1 million, though in that price range properties still attract multiple bids, especially among lower-price apartments in Brooklyn.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Please visit us at: www.RubenPerezNYC.com