No surprise here. Apartments in new developments on the Upper West Side are selling fast, but they don’t look like they’re selling to teachers and firefighters.
The median price for an apartment in a new Upper West Side development was $2 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, according to a report by MNS, a real estate firm (definition of “new development” below). The UWS actually recorded the most new development sales in the quarter of any neighborhood in the city, with 65. SoHo had the highest median price, at $3.8 million. Harlem had the lowest, at $600,000.
“The Upper West Side had another strong quarter,” said MNS. “Median price per square foot was up 5% from prior quarter. In Lincoln Square, 235 West 71st street produced over $15M worth of sales. About a mile away, 15 Central Park West had two noteworthy sales totaling over $19M.”
(In fact, 235 West 71st is a turn of the century building (1912) that has been completely renovated inside. Some apartments there now have as many as 7 bedrooms.)
New developments have been focusing on the ultra-rich, with more than half of the apartments that were sold having more than 1500 square feet.
At 535 West End Avenue, the new development on 86th Street pictured above that has its own swimming pool, an apartment sold on Dec,. 31 for $8.9 million, according to Streeteasy.
Via MNS: New Development Sales data, defined as such “Arms-Length” first offering transactions where the seller is considered a “Sponsor”, was compiled from the Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS) for sponsor sales that traded during the Fourth Quarter of 2012 (10/01/12 – 12/31/12). All data summarized is on a median basis.
What will it take to get developers to focus on other demographics for purchases? We don’t all need 7 bedrooms. Maybe just 1 or 2. Or even studios. Wish developers on the UWS would take a nod from the latest from the Mayor and approve some new small dwellings. Perhaps in the future, if it catches on.
Re: “The median price for an apartment in a new Upper West Side development was $2 million in the fourth quarter of 2012….”
Ahh, cannot one imagine a resident, say, of the very handsome Laureate, looking down from the windows of his combined 9D/9E apartments at the rest of us little ants scurrying about Broadway in the 70s.
And imagine that person wondering, as do Arthur and Guenevere in Camelot’s wonderful “What Do the Simple Folk Do?”:
“…What else do the simple folk do
To pluck up the heart and get through?
The wee folk and the grown folk
Who wander to and fro
Have ways known to their own folk
We throne folk don\’t know
Oh, what do simple folk do?
Do you know?….”
Now just try to get that wonderful melody out of your head!
😉
The emergency war-related rent control that opportunistic upper west siders twisted into a permanent attack on landlords ties up vast numbers of apartments and takes them off the market since they aristocratically stay in control of families and this artificially inflates rent prices in new buildings which themselves are legislated to contain about half the number of stories that the market would happily bare. Landlords who cannot profit lack the funds to develop new housing, obviously.
Funny, that’s not what I see all around me. I see bankers and other ultra rich buying up whole brownstones and multiple apartments to combine into lavish urban palaces. Each fatcat purchase takes several homes off the market that might otherwise have continued to house the middle class.
Further, rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments are vacated with increasing regularity, as their long-time tenants move on (“to Florida”, as brokers often say with a wink). What happens to those apartments? Do the landlords you adore turn them back to the middle class? No, of course not — they up the price to Banker levels (and, if possible, sell them with neighboring apartments to combine into … well, if you skipped it, go back to the first paragraph).
For the same reason the commercial landlords want banks, not mom-and-pop stores, the residential landlords want Bankers, not middle class moms and pops. What’s the reason? Spell it out with me now: M….O….N…..E….(come on, you can do it!)
Rent control and rent stabilization aren’t the enemy. Greed and its lust for Bankers are the enemy.
Every night, as I walk my dog, I look at 535 WEA. Not a bad looking building, certainly way above the Laureate…but…night after night – nobody’s home. 2 to 4 lit apartments and that’s it. I asked a realtor about this apparent anomoly – and he said, “They’re LLCs – bought to be resold.” The strength of the UWS is (was) that ours is a diverse neighborhood. People moved here (as I did) to experience our city for all it offers – from the little shoemaker to restaurants, perhaps exemplified today by B Cafe, and nice, homey, not so dollar driven places to buy your stuff. Case in point: Harry’s Shoes – it was great but has now morphed into an upscale UES/Tribeca shoe salon (hello Brooks Brothers). This move may not serve them well. Because, at the end of the day, the whole city is being super gentrified, and our UWS – when the party’s over – may return to what is once was. A reasonable, comfortable neighborhood for those who are neither ultra rich nor begging poor – for those who enjoy the richness, scope and depth of a true urban neighborhood. As I write this, I wish I were as optimistic as it sounds.
If you are unhappy about what has happened to the upper west side you can thank Mayor Bloomberg friend of billionaires and destroyer of neighborhoods. Titis mayor gives tax breaks to encourage building of apartment houses in which units cost multiple millions some $100 million. He allows them to be built with no city oversights and clears the way for their construction by destroying our landmark buildings, our small businesses our moderately prices housing and even our Vermont free streets and freely running drains.
I meant to say: vermin free streets and freely running storm drains.
Re the above: “I meant to say: vermin free streets ….”
HEY! WHO YA CALLIN’ VERMIN !!!
US RATS BELONG HERE TOO. WE’RE PART OF THAT ‘DIVERSITY’ THAT YOUSE GUYS ALWAYS TALKS ABOUT!
IF YA DON’ LIKE US, MOVE TO THE UPPER EAST SIDE … IF THEY’LL LET YA!
Rat A. Tooey
🙂