375 West End Ave #3cd

Haven't seen it yet. Two red flags on the price:

1) It would be far and away the priciest public-record sale in the building (never a good thing);
2) If you look at the sum of the parts, it doesn't look great. The back third of this apartment is #3C, a 1BR that probably comps out under $700K in the current environment. I think that means the current ask on #3CD reflects $2MM for #3D and the work to combine the apartments. That seems like a lot for six rooms(I think - might be five) on the third floor facing West End.

Not a terrible price, but I very much doubt they will get it.

Saw it on Sunday.

It is a tremendous amount of space that will suit a large family well. For the size the kitchen is quite small and can't be easily fixed. I think if the seller were motivated, this could move in the 2-2.25 range.

Not another join. I think it is time to start the New York Chapter of the Society Against Joined Apartments. SAJA. These things rarely make sense for anybody in the market for an apartment. I have probably rejected ten of the ones I have looked at, and now, I don't even bother to set foot in them. Maybe some day, the sellers will get a clue.

By the way, don't people in one bedrooms or studios deserve a place to live? Must everything get gobbled up into white elephant super-joins? Ridiculous.

west81st; i agree you your logic on the price. I happen to like the layout.

I think C&D were originally one apartment - so I don't the combo stinks. However, the current owners did not combine it in a very intelligent way. Would have worked much better with eat-in-kitchen at the back, living & dining at the front. 4 bedrooms in between. BTW, zoned for PS87 - which is worth something to us breeders. Despite forecast, the private school admissions season is not working out well for a lot of parents. Nice to be zoned for a good public and keep re-applying in off-years.

What do you mean when you said "private school admission season is not working out well for a lot of parents"?

A lot of people were hoping that the recession/depression would mean easier private school admissions than in the past. Didn't happen this year.

I heard from RE agents that people are flocking from private to public schools. I don't know if that is true or not.. is it?

They are, but there's not enough flocking to make that much of a dent in applications to private schools. What is fueling the public school crowding is NOT parents choosing to go public rather than private, it's the baby boom. There are simply more kids entering K than ever before in Manhattan. School overcrowding has long been the norm in other boroughs but Manhattan parents squeal louder.

What we're seeing (there's a good article in latest issue of NYMag about this) is the clash between parents who want an excellent (ala Westchester/LI burb) public school education in the city. That hasn't been the mandate of NYC's DOE for a few generations, if ever. To some extent, this has happened before when neighborhoods gentrified (witness creation of G&T programs, citywides) but never to this degree. This baby boom has been 5+ years in the making. I'd say half of the kids who went to preschool with my daughter will move, but that still leaves the other half.

I am repeating myself but the fact is people are holding out in their 3k+ 2br rentals in the city because they're not going to cut monthly costs by moving to the burbs. So there's an impasse. If it becomes absolutely impossible for their children to get any kind of education in the city, they will move. But not until the sh*t actually hits the fan.

10023, you forgot the i.

and your commentary is spot on. we have one family leaving, and five entering for next year, and it's not a big entry year for our school. i think they want some robustness in case things get worse and more people need to leave. but there is still a huge amount of demand. 10023, do you have handy the number of private school ISAGNY (or whatever it is) k spots available yearly in the city? I think it's something around 1000 spots. just like the real estate world, it's a small market and not much distress can roil it around but good.

Heh, I can turn any thread into a thread about kids and schools. No clue about the K numbers - I saw 2500 in print at some point.

Catholic schools are looking mighty tempting for this atheist family. Sotomayor is a product of an all-Catholic education.

#3CD closed on 9/1/-0 for $2.2MM, which was also the final ask. Bravo to Mpaltrow for pegging the price.

"on 9/1/09", that is.

W81..."#3CD closed on 9/1/-0 for $2.2MM, which was also the final ask. Bravo to Mpaltrow for pegging the price."

I think you tried to clarify the point with the second post but if not.....

The 'final ask' was modified just days before the closing to make it appear as if the buyer paid full ask. In reality, they lowered the ask price to match the sales.

The 'discount' to true last asking price was 12%. Gotta love the broker pricing gymnastics.

I think it was just a glitch or typo at Halstead's end. The $2.2M ask wasn't fed to SE until the 6th, while the ACRIS docs are dated the 1st. Just somebody clicking the wrong checkbox, putting the 2.2 in the wrong field, or something. If Dean was going to fudge things like this he would've started before now and not been obvious about it.