NYT Mint Condition, Low Miles Condo at 15 Broad St Sold for Way Too Much

Teri wrote a great, insightful article this week about what really matters to buyers - space and low maintenance duh, and not hotel amenity features like libraries and pet spas (sorry Fluffy).

The one thing that really surprised us in this article however, was that Mathieu and Monica Schepard and their adorable little girl actually purchased an 856 sq ft studio loft at 15 Broad for $692,000 and plan on converting the thing to a 2BR (ugh!). Although we have not seen the unit that they purchased, we believe that we saw an identical unit, in this case #928, which (although mildly camouflaged in Streeteasy) has the same square footage as the unit that the Schepard's purchased and is priced similarly to the original asking price for the Schepard's unit of $799,000. #928, which we saw just a couple of weeks ago, has all of the well-documented problems of many new construction lofts in FiDi (one long room with one set of windows, making partitioning particularly challenging, views of a neighboring office building etc.). It is because of problems such as these that we believe that #928 sold for a fairly reasonable $595,000 in May of 2007. Assuming the Schepard's bought a similar unit for $692,000, that cute family is about to pay a 16% premium to the 2007 sales price. What the heck?

#7E is actually in contract at 295 Greenwich!

As you may be aware from our diligent visits to this set of non-descript but well located buildings on Chambers and Greenwich, we think the apartments are remarkably over-priced but we're always happy to gawk at anything under $1MM in Tribeca, a price range where listings are...limited.

We are therefore curious about listing #7E at 295 Greenwich, a tiny apartment that we visited back in April and forgot to write about (yes, the space IS that boring). Apparently, this listing, which was last priced at a kind of reasonable $675,000 (until you look at the 652 sq ft size of the unit), just went into contract. We saw quite a few people at the open house (any 1BR, apparently no matter what size it is under $700k is going to attract eyeballs in Tribeca), but we never actually thought someone would buy this place anywhere near the still outrageous ask.

Overall the apartment is cute and bright, with attractive floors......................sorry, we fell asleep for a second.

I Don't Know...We Kind of Like Mary Ann's...Kind Of.

We weren't aware that the budget TriBeCa Cosmopolitan Hotel is planning a takeover of vaguely gross, yet actually affordable chain mex hangout Mary Ann's, located next door on Duane and West Broadway.

Even though Mary Ann's is described as "nasty" and "do you actually eat here?" by friends from California, we are happy to have even one affordable Chili'sMexican restaurant in TriBeCa. If Mary Ann's closes, looks like we'll have to trudge all the way to over-priced Centrico (how, how does it stay in business?), where the food is only slightly better yet the prices are about twice as high.

What Happens if a Condo Can't Sell All of it's Units?

With all of the new construction info on this blog, we are periodically asked about the risks to buyers if a condo can't sell all of it's units (we can already see your little ears perking up 20 Pine and William Beaver House).

Although we wish we wrote this article, we have to hand it to the New York Times for writing a great piece on the repercussions of buying in a development that later becomes troubled. This article is about 1-2 months old and for some reason infuriatingly difficult to find online via a search engine, so we thought we'd post it here.

For a real life example of a building going through almost all of the hassles described in that article, check out our coverage of BPC disaster 225 Rector.

Sell, Sell, Sell! It's Raining Contracts at 111 Fourth Avenue!

Although we've blogged repeatedly about how much we can't stand the awkward, cramped layouts and barely usable ladders staircases in the "1" BRs in the Franken-loft building at 111 4th Avenue, someone out there sure likes them!

Over the past two weeks, an additional two apartments have gone into contract in this building (we've seen, and hated, both), joining #2F, an attractive true 1 BR (without the awful loft) which went into contract back in April. The two new contracts are for the following units:

#5C, our absolute least favorite, with a tiny spiral staircase, a cramped kitchen and a weird pseudo-closet in the corner of the living room, was most recently listed at an eye-popping $740,000 for 700 sq ft (that includes the shoddy loft, people) and is now in contract (huh?).

#6J, which has better floors and a slightly better layout than #5C, features an actual ladder (we're not making this up folks) leading to the upstairs loft and an eggshell blue "bedroom" with 6 foot ceilings . We don't know the square footage here, but it still felt cramped and small, although the most recent asking price of $695,000 before the unit also went into contract (huh?) seems slightly more reasonable than #5C.

On the 1BR availability front, we are thus left only with our ol' standby #10C, which has been sitting on the market for about 2 months and is similar in layout to #5C except that #10C splits the tiny space further through the addition of a wall in the living area. Sometimes, we even get a chuckle imagining the tiny workers that must have been required to build anything in an apartment this size. Additionally, at an asking price of $839,000, we've always thought this unit was unbelievably overpriced.

Is there something in the water at this weird co-op building? Are they giving away free Amtrak trips to Client No. 9 with the purchase of every apartment? Let's wait and see how those contracts work out in sales...

We're shocked that 225 Rector falsified documents. Shocked.

Although it's a mere footnote to the longer rant about court-appointed receiver Michael Miller (probably his real name) potentially suing the 50 exhausted owners of individual units in 225 Rector Square, we were totally not surprised to learn interested to read that developer Yair Levy may have falsified documents from a contractor indicating that payment had been made.

Anglo-Irish should really just step in here, buy the darn units, and convert the whole thing to rentals already.

[225 Rector]

TriBeCa Price Chop at 303 Greenwich Has Us All in a Tizzy

When we first visited this tiny one bedroom at 303 Greenwich, one of the non-descript but well-located buildings on Chambers and Greenwich, we ran screaming from the $850,000 price tag for the 700 sq ft unit.

Although the unit appears to have gained a couple of square feet, we are really excited to report that this apartment has been chopped down to the still too expensive almost 2006 price of $699,000. That basically puts this prime Tribeca apartment, which is well-renovated (yes, there's still too much wood in there) at < $1000 per square foot, which is a step in the right down direction.

Although we don't know how much #3A sold for prior to its most recent sale at the height of the market for a whopping $850,000, we do know that #9A (which appears to be the same line) sold in January 2006 for $650,000. We don't think that January 2006 (which is almost 2005 peeps) is even close to low enough for this apartment, but boy does it feel good.

evnyc is Willing to Overlook "Pigeon Splatter" for "lovely" 2BR loft at 157 Duane

evnyc writes "It's hard not to fall for the lovely two-bedroom Tribeca loft apartment at 157 Duane. The broker isn't exaggerating when he touts the “terrific chef's kitchen” and “storage galore.” Closets conceal a pantry, full-size side-by-side washer and dryer, and air conditioning units, with plenty of space left over for clothes and whatever else one might want to hide from general view. The apartment has great flow and separation between private spaces and spacious public areas. The kitchen is thoughtfully renovated with an emphasis on functionality, and the painted white brick in the living room adds considerable visual interest.
The low ish maintenance offsets the fact that there is neither an elevator nor a doorman, but while it is a decided plus to have only one flight of stairs to walk up, being on the second floor means that the apartment doesn't get great light. The bedrooms face directly into the building next door and onto an alleyway reminiscent of New York's good-old-bad-old days. Rusty iron shutters and pigeon splatter complete the “true loft” experience. While many New Yorkers would shrug this off as a part of living in the big city, the ugly back alleyway may not be what buyers in the $1-2 million market want to wake up to each morning.
According to Streeteasy.com, #2 was originally listed with Brown Harris Stevens in April 2008 for $1,995,000. It went into contract a month later and was delisted for the summer, only to be relisted in July 2008, right before the meltdown last fall. After a year with BHS, the seller recently switched to Halstead but kept it at the last listing price of $1,650,000. Given the state of the market and some stiff competition from 1 Worth, #5F (3br/2 ba, $1,250,000), 88 Chambers #2 (2br/2ba, $1,695,000), and a ton of inventory at 80 Leonard, even this charmer might need another haircut to get the deal done.

On a side note, we're seeing more apartments in Tribeca falling into the $900 per square foot range, compared to the recorded median of $1,246. Are these places bargains? Or simply an example of the velocity of decline in the Tribeca market in particular?"

Welcome to Guest Poster evnyc!

We love evnyc on Streeteasy and think that their (yes, we know it's not grammatically correct...just imagine why we are saying it) posts on downtown real estate have been fantastically helpful to many readers. It is thus with great enthusiasm that we welcome ev as a new contributor to Downtowny.

If we had any money, we'd give them (ditto) a statue of a Beaver, but alas, we will simply have to give our many thanks. Enjoy those posts!!! If you have the cajones of evnyc, we'd love to
hear from you too!

225 Rector is Why We Are All Afraid to Buy in <50% Sold Developments

Have you watched this video? This is quite a sad story of a cute couple that are still living in Rector Square despite "dangerous" conditions in hopes of getting back their $50k+ deposit on a studio. We're still not exactly sure why they continue to live there (it seems as though they are renting a unit) but whatever the reason is, the nightmare conditions of that building (think exposed wires) are clearly documented.

And to add serious insult to injury, we note with at least some level of amazement that today, Michael Miller the oxymoronic "trust" attorney is being "forced" to sue more than 40 unit owners for non-payment of common charges. This is AFTER the developer allegedly ran off with prior paid common charges plus contributions to the PILOT tax. What an f'ing nightmare!

This whole situation just makes us think twice about buying in any undersold development.

Tribeca Price Chop Makes Us Wish We Had $6.5M Too

We were fascinated by this recent sale at 140 Franklin of a 6 bed, 6 bath stunning condo for a mere $6.5M. We say "mere" because this apartment was listed back in July of 2007 for a whopping $13.7M (which did not result in a sale) and was most recently listed at $7.75M.

We sure dig these new owners who bought this place for 16% off of it's most recent ask and an eye-popping 53% off of the July 2007 listing price. In the words of Juno, ku-DOS.

The Skinny on All of Those Rentals at The Beave

In our furry quest to determine exactly why it is that the beautiful William Beaver House, a former CILF of the week, is perpetually empty, we decided to poke around Craigslist and see if all of those "everything is for rent" rumors are actually true.

After some interesting research, including feedback from potential renters at our favorite martini drinking flat tailed friend, it turns out that we believe that most buyers at the Beave are in fact "investors", who are sometimes European, sometimes not, but ALL trying to rent out their units in this curious building that should really be a Related property but has somehow managed to sell small chunks of units to excited international men of mystery.

From what we understand, the Beave is pimping out the sponsor's marketing agents as a "rental concierge" helping those international investors of mystery by using sales agents to show individually owned units for rent as part of the "service that the building provides" to owners. In addition, evidence abounds that investors who purchased several units are hiring individual brokers to shop around their "lot" of units for rent. Just check out all of this activity on craigslist for reference:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1169277726.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1169442438.html
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/abo/1169188503.html

As for us, we can't believe that the rental asking prices on 1BRs at the Beave of around $3000-$3300 are actually going to hold (yes, we've seen the tubs, yes the amenities are starting to shape up) in a market already flooded with new construction "investor" properties for rent (are you reading 20 Pine?).

248 East 7th Street, #17-18 - $575,000 - 800 sq ft

The ultimate fixer-upper, this quite charming 2BR with a low $600 per month maintenance located in the ghetto fringe on 7th between Avenue C & D, is described by Corcoran as having "good bones". Creepiness aside, we enjoyed contemplating the possibilities in this crumbling apartment, which features beautiful exposed brick walls and has a rare 4 exposures with windows on all sides of the apartment.

Almost needless to say, the kitchen is a disaster (we're sure there were appliances in there, but it's hard to remember them when looking at cabinets from 1958) and the bathroom similarly needs a full overhaul. We also don't like the idea of renovating a 4th floor walk-up (is Corcoran throwing in a chiropractor?) although we do think the apartment has tons of potential. You also get what you pay for in maintenance with this super old building that reminds us of a Columbia dorm, but I guess you can't have it all.

Overall this apartment is cute and we're not really surprised that it went into contract today, although we will of course keep an eye on that final sales price.

Is 20 Pine Selling Units to Itself?

At great risk of having to change our blog name from "Downtowny" to "20Piney", we present yet another post on some curious recent sales activity happening at the ol' troubled conversion. As reported in Streeteasy and ACRIS, 20 Pine recently sold PH50 to itself for $2.86M. This unit is still listed as available for sale at around $4M. Does anyone know why the sponsor at 20 Pine would do this?

[20 Pine]

63 East 9th St #3S Goes Into Contract

Dun, dun, dun, another one bites the dust, dun, dun, dun. We can't help but hum a little as we report tonight that 63 East 9th Street #3S, another apartment that we've visited recently, has gone into contract. Since we saw that unit, which was badly in need of renovation, the price has dropped from $715,000 down to a more reasonable $690,000.

[In Contract Listings]
[East Village Coverage]

Is the Sale at 20 Pine #1505 finally going to start moving this market?

We were more excited that Jack Bauer with an antidote to learn yesterday about this sale at 20 Pine. Since this unit was never actually listed by spookily named "The Collection" (the sponsor at 20 Pine), it is tough to determine square footage/layout etc.

However rumors abound that this apartment is an 1100 sq ft studio with HO, which would bring the purchase price to finally, duh $600/sq ft! AND, the buyer has a mortgage from ING of all places, so not only are lenders apparently lending in 20 Pine, but you can get a deep discount even if you are not a cash buyer.

Why is 15 Broad so darn expensive?

After putting a visit off for months, we finally made it out to 15 Broad, the 382-unit Philippe Starck designed conversion in tourist-infested prime FiDi (across from the NY Stock Exchange). This tax-abated building which housed the JP Morgan headquarters before becoming a Wall Street dorm 2006 condo conversion might very well have been 20 Pine were it not for its timely entrance into a hot market.

We were therefore quite excited to see a slightly older conversion than what we have been seeing lately in FiDi, and we were hoping for similar amenities as the newer buildings with the additional benefit of a lower price. It is therefore with great surprise that we report that the unit that we saw today is somehow already in contract, even though the asking price at $799,000 is about $200k more than what the owner paid for the same unit back in May, 2007. We can only hope that the new buyer got a phenomenal deal on this place as the ridiculous ask (are you listening William Beaver?) should have been more than enough to keep serious buyers away from even visiting this unit.

Other than the truly strange in contract situation, we thought the building was bank-tastic, with cute features including the vault-like swimming pool, a bowling alley, and a completely empty gym and b-ball court. Is this building anything special? Nope. The Beave and District certainly have more amenities (and we hope, better prices) although we do like the Stock Exchange location and the sizeable (although overpriced units) that are available here.

CILF of the Week - 15 William St (The William Beaver House)

The Beave as a CILF? Oh, the irony...

We sure had quite a hard time deciding to name this comically undersold development in FiDi as this week's CILF. In addition to all of the press that this Andre Balazs pet project (no pun intended) gets for not being able to sell any darn units, we love reading the oh so snarky coverage of it's black and yellow exterior (we're pretty sure that you can see the Beave from space) as well as the uber sexualized marketing campaign targeted at wealthy wish they were oversexed Wall Streeters.

In reality, when we popped by the Beave today, we saw a truly empty building (yes, all of the rumors are true, as far as we can tell absolutely nobody lives here) even though the sales agent claims that they are 55% sold (whatevs). The common areas were like some kind of weird and empty ghost relics - sort of like discovering a fully intact Titanic underwater. The gym is beautiful, the pool looks good (and full), the roof deck however is not complete (will be done by end of May they tell us - we report, you decide), and the theater is just an under construction room. The outdoor basketball/handball court is huge but also not looking like it's going to be finished anytime soon. We were additionally sad to learn that Balazs has abandoned plans to give the over-the-lobby jacuzzi a glass floor, although we are happy to report that there is a jacuzzi and it does appear to be functional. Plans for the first floor library and restaurant (although depicted in the cool 3-D renderings in the sales office) appear to be on permanent vacation, but that's fine with us, as this building needs to really focus on completing the amenities that have at least been started.

So given the emptiness and the unfinished common areas, why make this a CILF you might ask? It turns out that much to our surprise, the Beaver House actually has really great units. The layouts of the 1BRs that we saw were good, we liked the hardwood floors, and even the oft-panned kitchens were perfectly fine. We like the little built-in murphy offices and thought that many of the features in the apartments made good use of space. In addition, we lust, lust, lust after the enormous tubs (yes, it's sexy to have them open into the bedrooms), a feature that we have not seen in any other development. We also love the in-unit washers and dryers (are you listening 90 William?).

Overall, we think this is a great building. The asking prices however at over $1MM for a 700 sq ft 1 BR are unreasonable bordering on insane way too high for even a nice building in this quiet area of FiDi. We love you though Beave and are curious whether you are going to go the hotel route or the full on rental extravaganza.

A Much Needed Price Drop at 324 Pearl St., #2J

When we first crowned this dark 1BR in one of the worst locations in FiDi as our "As If" apartment of the week, we said it was shockingly over-priced at $800,000 for 800 sq ft.

Fast-forward just one month, and this apartment has now been reduced to a more reasonable $695,000, although we still think the price has more to give.

Another Unit Sells at the Franken-Lofts!

We note with great curiosity that yet another apartment has closed at 111 Fourth Avenue, which we affectionately call the "Franken-Lofts" due to the ubiquitous addition of totally unliveable lofts in most of the high-ceilinged units.

The latest sale in this building was #8N, a 1BR (the loft in this one is a 2nd BR or den) for $690,000. We note that this apartment was most recently listed at $739,000, netting the buyer a pretty decent 7% off of the ask as a closing price.

Although we never visited #8N, we are keeping an eye on #2F, which we visited back in March and is currently in contract.

One "Exposer" per bedroom?

Thanks to a guy named "meat" (probably not his real name) posting on this Streeteasy thread, we were thrilled to discover this ad from our favorite Corcoran slickster broker, Ronnie Diamonde.

The ad advertises a 3BR "nose" unit (is that a term now?) in the Cocoa Exchange building featuring not one, not two but three whole "exposers" that apparently come right with the apartment. Thanks for the image, Ronnie. We'd still rather hear you dish about how bad things have really gotten in FiDi.

Riverhouse Corner Units Still Look Vacant To Us

We snapped this photo earlier today of one of our most coveted CILFs, the Riverhouse, the only condo building in North Battery Park. As the idea of condo units being sold mostly in the "middle" was reported oh so eloquently on UrbanDigs, the Riverhouse sure looks fat in the middle to us, with the most coveted upper floor 2BR (we think) corner units with a water view appearing to be completely vacant. Although the Riverhouse overall is ripe with activity (the building most recently reported that it was about 75% sold and more than 50% occupied), those units that we love are still empty.

115 East 9th Street, Apt 18D - $675,000 - 715 sq ft

"Is it 2006 again?" we wondered as we walked into a full brunch open house, complete with fruit (not ghetto fruit either, we're talking blackberries, blueberries etc.), bagels, coffee and even mimosas! Quite an odd juxtaposition of glamorous brunch food in a decidedly unglamorous 1BR in need of a serious renovation.

This apartment has a pretty typical 1BR layout, with a small (but renovated) galley kitchen and a decent-sized bedroom next to a fairly large living room. The balcony is quite nice in this unit (and much larger than it looks in the Corcoran ad) and the east-facing view is truly spectacular. Unfortunately, the hype ends here, as this parquet-wonderland pretty much requires brand-new everything (floors, doors etc.) including the removal of the huge mirrors in the living room (what, do they shoot So You Think You Can Dance here on the weekends?).

In addition to the free brunch (which was really lost on all two of the skeptical buyers that we saw attend this open house), we were quite surprised at the entourage that the Corcoran agent had with her. In addition to the ubiquitous "I'm just here to learn" sidekick (let's call her "Johnny Drama") who spent the entire time arranging fruit, we were also surprised to meet "Turtle", a Wells Fargo mortgage banker who was happy to discuss our financing needs. After having about enough of this apartment (which by the way, is not priced badly given it's location, size and outdoor space), we were escorted out by Johnny Drama (the co-op rules require an escort which we think is a sign of a pscyho board).

78-80 Leonard Comment Candy

Apparently, we are not the only people that have had problems with a leaky ceiling at uber-expensive Tribeca conversion 78 Leonard. A reader today writes that they "lived on the top floor (duplex) of this building 6 years ago and the roof leaked so severely then that there was water all the way down to the floor below -
my guess/fear they'll just patch the roof and leave the new owners with a special assessment surprise!"

Downtowny Wants You!

Do you love downtown real estate as much as us? Are you visiting open houses with an eye for detail? Do you have a burning desire to share your point of view with other buyers? If so, Downtowny wants you!

Have you seen a great (or not so great) downtown apartment? Tell us about it!

We are a grassroots no low budget blog dedicated to providing useful information to other buyers in downtown Manhattan. If you submit a write-up to us and we like it, we will credit you and post it to Downtowny, helping us to get more information out there about specific listings. We have no guidelines (you've probably guessed that already based on our snarky posts), but please provide at least the following:

- price, address, square footage
- a photo (one taken from the broker's site is fine)

We need your help to cover more ground!

If Tom Colicchio lives in a parquet floor rental with a tiny kitchen and a spiral staircase, how are we ever going to afford to buy in Manhattan?

We were really surprised today by this article in the New York Times magazine which profiles (among other things) the rental apartment of our favorite underseasoned chef extraordinaire Tom Colicchio.

It turns out that the Top Chef host and overpriced Craft founder lives in some sort of spiral staircase, parquet floor duplex because he "can't afford to buy the space and the view" that he can rent. Are you kidding us? In addition to wishing that he would run off with Padma Lakshmi already, we kind of hoped that at least this guy could afford a gourmet kitchen.

78-80 Leonard - The Tribeca Lofts

We have always been curious about this set of loft buildings located in a cute part of Tribeca near our favorite speakeasy hangout. When we walked in to the completely under construction entrance (45 John anyone?), we thought that we would be whisked right up to some goofy showroom where we would sit through yet another "conversation" about:

- what our needs are (just show us an apartment)
- the lending situation (we know you're flexible on price)
- how it's a great time to buy (we know you're flexible on price)

Instead, much to our amazement, we were told by the doorman to sign a construction waiver and then proceed to the elevator. We were handed a sheet of paper with a bunch of unit #s and prices and...that's it folks. For the next hour, we roamed completely unattended through floor after floor of fascinating old loft units. It was like poking through an old haunted mansion - you never quite knew what you would find behind each door.

Fortunately, in one unit, we actually ran into a Brown Harris Stevens agent, who informed us that The Tribeca Lofts are a "conversion" from rental units to sales (even though the building basically just looks abandoned) and that we can choose to buy units "As Is" (abandoned) or "Finished" (around $300k more). As you can see from the photo of the leaky ceiling (yes that's a garbage can collecting rain water) above, the units are in various states of repair. Despite some leaks, we loved the location here and the units are large and laid out quite well (particularly the enormous lofts on the 5th and 6th floors that really feel like houses). Although we don't think there are any "view" units in these buildings (view choices are a dark ugly building very close to your windows or a dark ugly building further away), the ceilings are magnificent and the windows in some units are truly spectacular.

Unfortunately however, we cannot find a single recorded sale in this building (even though BHS tells us that there were two sales and that occupancy will happen "very soon") and the 9 apartments that are supposedly in contract are also nowhere to be found.

We'll keep our eye on these lofts, which we hope will start selling...otherwise, back to rentals they go (we think).

90 William St (Be@William)

Although we are instinctively turned off by any development that has special characters in the name ("Be@William", are you a .com?), we were certainly attracted to the low price per sq ft of this well-timed conversion in one of our favorite areas of the Financial District. Because sales started here in 2007, this building managed to avoid the fate of our favorite zombie condo 20 Pine and has actually managed to sell most of it's units.

What's left over however, is tough to be @, as we wandered through dark unit after dark unit wishing that some sun would also be @ William. Five of the listed units (and we think actually more than that) are the ominous "H" line, long, dark units in the back of the building with two tiny windows that each face directly on to a soulless neighboring office building. Although they are priced attractively at under $700 per sq ft, we found it hard to imagine ourselves living in what looks like an Ikea showroom, with the same cheap fixtures and warehouse feel.

The white on white kitchen located inconveniently along a wall in the middle of the unit along with the inability to install a W/D (huh?) annoyed us even further. In fact, when we asked the icy cold Corcoran agent about installing a W/D (a standard question for us, particularly in a new conversion), she responded by saying that the 90% of people who already bought units were "happy without one" (whatever).

On the bright side (literally), it looks like there might be some price movement in the few units that actually are liveable here, namely the gorgeous West-facing 2BR, 2BA "A" line. These units face William St. (the only direction in this building where the sun is @) and we note with some level of excitement that one recently sold for just $875,000. While not a bargain, it's a step in the right direction.

The In Contract/Sold Update

Apartments that we've seen that are currently in contract (umm...3) or sold (a big fat zero - let's see where this goes).

1. 30 East 9th Street, #3J (The East Village Snoozer) Contract Date: 04/04/09. Last Listing Price: $699,000.

2. 111 Fourth Ave, #2F Contract Date: 04/25/09. Last Listing Price: $650,000.

3. 120 Greenwich St, #12F Our Very First Viewing Contract Date: 05/01/09. Last Listing Price: $679,900.

4. 63 East 9th Street, #3S Renovation Needed Contract Date: 05/12/09. Last Listing Price: $690,000.

5. 248 East 7th Street, #17-18 The Avenue C fixer-upper Contract Date: 05/13/09. Last Listing Price: $575,000.

120 Greenwich #12F - $679,900 - 700 sq ft. - our very first viewing is in contract.

Nostalgia abounds for us at this smallish 1BR, 1BA condo. Although we never wrote about this listing in one of our least favorite locations in FiDi, it is the first open house that we ever attended here in New York. Back when we saw it, this apartment was listed at the brazen price of $719,000, and the seller's agent at the time told us that there were "multiple offers" on the unit (ha ha).

So it is with some degree of irony that we note that today, this listing has actually entered into contract, somewhere in the neighborhood (we imagine) of it's most recent ask of $679,900.

So what did we think of the unit? Well...it's kind of small and the detached outdoor space is a turn-off. The location is kind of that West St/FiDi netherworld...not quite the heart of FiDi, not quite Battery Park, on an oddly industrial street surrounded by delivery trucks and highway entrances. We liked the pretty arch windows though and the building was converted very recently (2007).

Good luck to the buyers! We will check back and find out how much this place actually sold for.