[Source: WSJ [1]]
A little over a week ago the WSJ’s Candace Taylor broke the story about 3 contiguous listings to be marketed together [2]at the top of a 15-year old ground lease condo in Battery Park City for $118,500,000. At 15,434 square feet, that works out to $7,678 per square foot. CNBC’s Robert Frank provides more details in a video tour [3] that was broadcast shortly after the story broke.
Normally I don’t bother to do the math on this sort of thing but after the Cityspire listing [4] a while back, I thought I’d tweak my thinking a bit as the luxury market gets more than its fair share of confusing “milestones.”
Doing the Math
Here’s my listing price logic using content in the near viral [5] news coverage [6] of the record Battery Park City listing – I break down the 3 units:
$56,500,000 ($7,406/sqft) listing – 7,628 sqft 5-bed listed last year for 5 days and removed.
$11,700,000 ($3,330/sqft) purchase – 3,513 3-bed in April 2014.
$19,000,000 ($4,425/sqft) listing – 4,293 sqft 4-bed $23M January listing dropped to $19M, then removed.
$87,200,000 is the aggregate total for the 3 units that total 15,434 square feet ($5,640/sqft). The current list price of $118,500,000 represents a $31,300,000 premium for the combination of all 3 units before we might assume the millions in renovations to combine if you believe that the $87,200,000 total is what aggregate of the individual properties are worth.
Given the $3,330 ppsf recent sales price of the 3-bed and the unable to be sold for $4,293 ppsf after 6 months on market 4-bed and the not-market tested 5 day listing period 5-bed at $7,406, I can’t figure out how the listing agent [7] gets to $7,678 ppsf as an asking price for all 3 together before the cost of renovation to combine? Perhaps the seller set the price.
The listing broker tells us that the pricing “is justified by the square footage [5]“, as well as the views and building’s amenities.”
Got it.