Feed

Stratospheric Sales

By Kim Velsey 8/10/12 8:30am

Stratospheric Sales

Another $95 million listing.

Another $95 M. Apartment in Manhattan? Yawn.

It’s a little embarrassing, really. A day after 15 Central Park West announced its $95 million listing, 50 Central Park South had to go and announce that it also had a $95 million listing. And they’re even on the same floor (the 35th). But we’re sure that the owner at the Ritz-Carlton had been totally planning to list the apartment for, like, months now, so like, whatever 15 Central Park West.

Anyway, the big takeaway  is that there are now two $95 million apartments on the market, in addition to a $100 million apartment at CitySpire, not to mention the One57 penthouse that sold for somewhere north of $90 million—maybe $95 million!

Because this is the new reality of the trophy property market in Manhattan, as The New York Times, who first reported the listing, claims. Or at least, it is the old reality of really rich people who want to be even richer people and are hoping that slapping a $95 million price tag on their apartment will make it a $95 million apartment. Read More

By Kim Velsey 8/08/12 12:56pm

Stratospheric Sales

More, more, more!

Steel Magnate Wants $95 M., Five Times What He Paid in 2008, for Tearing Down a Wall at 15 CPW

So many of 15 Central Park West’s residents have flipped their apartments for such massive sums that it sometimes seems like the whole building is cheating at tiddlywinks with the New York real estate market. Especially after the $88 million sale of Sandy Weill’s apartment, residents might be forgiven when they list their apartments for prices that seem somewhat deluded. Still, Leroy Schecter’s bid to make $40 million for tearing down a wall seems straight-up delusional. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/27/12 7:16pm

Stratospheric Sales

15 Photos

The highest, high-end condo on the market (literally).

Live Like Zeus: CitySpire Penthouse Would Like Record $100 M., Please

Evidently emboldened by the $88 million sale of the Sandy Weill penthouse at 15 Central Park West and the $90 million penthouse that’s in contract at One57, Long Island real estate developer Steven Klar is angling to get $100 million for his 8,000-square-foot triplex penthouse at CitySpire.

The octagonal condo on the 73rd, 74th and 75th floors of the mixed-use midtown tower at 150 West 56th Street is certainly “one-of-a-kind,” as the Prudential Douglas Elliman listing boasts, but the question remains whether it can best the prices claimed by the premiere units in newer, lovelier buildings. The listing was first reported by The New York Times. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/20/12 5:18pm

Stratospheric Sales

950 Fifth would like $27.5 million.

Manhattan Sellers Hop On the Money Train: Three Listings Over $20 M. in One Day

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. Read More

By Matt Chaban 7/13/12 6:46pm

Stratospheric Sales

Play it again, Jack. (StreetEasy)

A Record Deal! David Geffen Reportedly Buying Fifth Avenue Penthouse for $54 M., Most Ever for Co-op

Here’s one for the record books—or rather, a couple of them, given the people involved.

According to Page Six, David Geffen has just purchased Denise Rich‘s sprawling 12,000-square-foot penthouse at 785 Fifth Avenue for $54 million. That would, by $1.5 million, beat out Courtney Sale Ross’ long-suffering duplex at 740 Park for the new record for a co-op sale in the city were it to be true, a record that was set only two months ago. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/10/12 7:20pm

Stratospheric Sales

Howard Marks $50 M. apartment and the Ritz's big hope.

Putting On the Ritz-Carlton: Has Its Moment In the Sun Finally Come?

Let’s face it: prices at the Ritz-Carlton, while resplendent, pale in comparison to the blindingly spectacular sales at buildings like 15 Central Park West and the Plaza. But with the $70 million Steve Wynn buy behind it and a new $50 million listing, The Wall Street Journal asks: is the Ritz ready to rise again?

It’s not as if the building has been doing shabbily or anything, but it hasn’t been the brightest star in the sky, The Journal notes. Built in 1930 as the Hotel St. Moritz, it’s lost some of the luster it once had and its debut on the luxury market was less than stellar. The condo conversion finished shortly after Sept. 11, and then the building got kind of eclipsed by the Time Warner Center and 15 Central Park West. Read More

By Kim Velsey 7/02/12 10:49am

Stratospheric Sales

The Rebound.

Is the Qatari Prime Minister the Buyer of $90 M. Penthouse At One57?

You can’t always get what you want, but it seems that Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani finally got what he needed (and if anyone can be said to need a massive apartment, it’s a man with two wives and 15 children). After courting co-op board after co-op board, Mr. Hamad has finally found a home, according to the New York Post. And not just any home, but the $90 penthouse at One57, which is poised to set the record for most expensive condo ever sold. Read More

By Kim Velsey 6/01/12 2:09pm

Stratospheric Sales

9 Photos

Full-Floor on Fifth

Just As We Were Running Out, Another $50 M. Listing Hits the Market

Rejoice all ye house hunters looking in the $50 million and above range!

For a while, it seemed that all hope was lost, what with the disappearance of the Courtney Sale Ross mammoth at 740 Park, the Teddy Forstmann whopper at 2 East 70th Street and the $77.5 million Ritz-Carlton throne. But praise be, there’s a new $50 million co-op apartment on the market.

The owners of a floor-through apartment at the hoity-toity 944 Fifth Avenue (the staff members actually wear white gloves, reports The New York Times, who first wrote about the listing), have listed their six-bedroom apartment. The apartment is located on a high floor above the tree line. The listing doesn’t actually mention which high floor—how discreet!—but a little sleuthing reveals that the apartment is almost certainly on the eleventh floor. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/23/12 10:04am

Stratospheric Sales

Imagine having it all?

Yours For Just $72 Million: Another Man’s Broken Dream

The late Howard Ronson and his family had a dream—a dream of making the mansion at 828 Fifth Avenue whole again, as it was in the glorious days when coal magnates commissioned Fifth Avenue manses and robber barons ruled the land. But sometimes dreams die.

After a buying spree that netted four of the nine luxurious co-op units in the building, the family is giving up, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The family has decided to give one lucky buyer—a “person with vision”—the chance to purchase their failed dream for $72 million. Read More

By Matt Chaban 5/22/12 3:55pm

Stratospheric Sales

Jagged! (Atelier Jean Nouvel)

You Can Soon Buy a Piece of MoMA! Or At Least a Piece of Its 1,050-Foot Condo Tower

Last year, The Observer discovered that Jean Nouvel’s soaring MoMA Tower—called “the most exhilarating addition to the skyline in a generation” by The Times‘ architecture critic—would not be a jagged victim of boom time hubris but in fact a real part of the skyline after all. Hines, the project’s developer, filed amended plans for the tower last July, showing that even at its Burden’d height of 1,050 feet, the Pritzker prize would still rise.

Now, more encouraging news that this project will actually become a reality: Hines has tapped Corcoran Sunshine to market the MoMA Tower, officially known as the Torre Verre, according to Crain’s, which means sales can’t be too far away Read More