It’s only $29 million.
It seems that all the money flowing through Manhattan’s luxury market these days is encouraging owners of extravagant abodes to try and cash in. After all, buyers keep signing decadent deed after decadent deed, even with the dog days of summer approaching.
Today, three properties hit the market in the $20 million to $29 million range. Which, after the recent debut of a $50 million listing at the Ritz-Carlton and the impending debut of Walker Tower’s $50 million penthouse listing, seems almost modest. And, according to The New York Times, we should all brace ourselves for the arrival of some more listings in the $90 million range in the near future.
950 Fifth would like $27.5 million.
As Shaun Osher, the chief executive of CORE told The Times: “A lot of high-end buyers and sellers want to get on the gilded bandwagon.”
Well, hop on! The most expensive listing of the day is a six-bedroom duplex penthouse at 1125 Park Avenue that is asking $29 million. A combined unit made from apartments 15 and 16A, the co-op boasts some 6,000 square feet. Apparently, after an extensive renovation to combine the two units, the owners decided that they no longer wanted “the ultimate Park Avenue penthouse,” as the listing held by Prudential Douglas Elliman broker Sabrina Saltiel boasts.
So what does $29 million get you these days? A master bedroom that is “a private sanctuary” with wood burning fireplace, own sitting room, marble bath, mahogany-lined double dressing room, walk-in closet and our favorite amenity of all: “endless hidden storage.” It must be so hidden that no one can find it! Also, there’s a large paneled laundry room (drywall in the laundry room is so low-end).
Next up is duplex 5/6 at 950 Fifth Avenue, which is asking a staggering $27.5 million (5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths). Listed with Stribling brokers Cindy Kurtin and Jessica Vertullo-Maher, the co-op has a library with built-ins, a fireplace and a dry bar and a south-facing dining room with travertine floors.
If course, not everyone loves a co-op, and the third listing of the day—a former carriage house at 184 East 64th Street—offers more than just two floors. At $20 million, it’s something of a fixer-upper that’s currently divided into two condos. But not to worry, those units “can be combined seamlessly to create a magnificent home or embassy,” the listing gushes. The house is being co-brokered by held by Corcoran’s Robb Saar and Peter Ashe’s Asher Alcobi and Meiray Gavrielov.
Like the other places, the buyer will get antique paneling, wood-burning fireplaces, pre war splendor, etc. And, if someone does convert it to a single-family, the carriage house will no doubt be asking $40 or $50 million the next time it hits the market.
Will these properties get their lofty asks? Only the future can say for sure, it isn’t only fashionable to sell high-end apartments at the moment, but to ask unheard of highs for them
As Jonathan Miller, the president of Miller Samuel real estate appraisal firm told The Times , the term for listings based on loose associations to reality is P.F.A., a.k.a. pulled from the air: “Take the highest sale you can find and apply some methodology in a very subjective way to talk yourself up to this bigger number.”
