building at 525 East 12th Street - Time On Market

I live around the corner. This building sits across from very noisy and active "children's park" (as designated by NYC Parks Dept.). It's not pretty like a real park, it's just a paved playground and it's filled with children from the very-nearby housing projects screaming at the tops of their lungs during all daylight hours. Nonstop.

The building now sports a giant yellow vinyl banner shrieking "CONDOS FOR SALE." Weichert Mazzeo has color-xeroxed some listing details and taped them to the entrance doors. No one lives there; the 3rd floor has one sad, lonely lamp that's visible from the street. This is the "staged" apartment shown in the photos.

They've been trying to sell these places for what seems like forever, although I guess it's only been a little over a year. I've checked out the asking prices and I'll avoid editorializing. But. Seriously. I can see why the buyers aren't exactly lining up.

I noted "episode 3 million whatever" of lying broker scum in a thread moments ago and here is yet another installment.

That yellow banner makes it look like a condo in Jersey City or The Rockaways. There's a serious amount of new development inventory piling up in the East Village: this building, 643 E. 11th, the Copper Building, Village Green, the 42-unit LES Girls Club building on Ave D & 7th just revealed in Curbed, even unsold units in the Flowerbox and A Buildings.

hit the report a problem with this listing button and tell the streeteasy guys
they will link the units together

I just took another look at 525's listings. The one unit closed, #3A, was purchased by "S.A. Bire (International Bk Real Estate)" and relisted as #3. Nothing is listed in contract. The entire building appears to be for sale again, with the one closing setting a benchmark of $927/sf, well below previous asking prices for identical units one floor above and below.

Sorry, no can do anything near $1000/sf in Alphabet City.

Hell, $1k for Manhattan is now overpriced.

Actually went to the open house here over the weekend. There were a lot of people there and the Unit 3 and the Garden unit were pretty nice actually. The southern light is great and the finishes were respectable. The Park across the street is good for light and theoretically bad for noise, but I noticed that it was pretty quiet in the unit with the windows closed. The units are simply overpriced today and undoubtedly will sell for much lower. Common charges are fine with the tax abatement but will become unreasonable as the abatement wears off. The double-height living room facing the backyard in the garden unit is rare and pretty fantastic.

How do you explain this not being marked further down after so much time on the market?..Carrying costs ought to be a real problem. The market has just gotten worse (lesson: it might get even worse still). Is it tha if they mark much further down that the whole project is bankrupt (ie cant pay back construction financing), so no profit for developer, some nerd at a bank has to move another project to the non-performing unit, etc...so for a while they all keep trying to pretend things are ok. I don't get it.

Now they've resorted to what we've named Occupation Theater in this building at night. Either ceiling lights or far-off bathroom-looking lights are left on, unchanging for hours on end, on the second and/or fourth floors. They might be on a timer.

They've also assembled some strange visible-from-the-street decorations on the 2nd floor. Looks like a bookcase, a picture on the wall and a giant birdlike thing on the windowsill right in the center of the window. Never seen a shadow move like you might expect from a room with a person in it; no flickering of a TV or anything like that. Most telling, no curtains or shades of any kind.

If they read this I suppose they'll hang up some Ikea shades or something.

And right on cue... a couple window shades appear on the 4th floor.

You know what would be cool? Mannequins. No wait, robots. That's what will sell these places. Robots. Rolling around and waving their robot arms at all hours of the night. Backlit by a single stark bathroom ceiling fixture. Sort of an existential commentary on... something or other.

Visited 4th floor open house today (5/3/09)... building is creepily emtpy for sure. But space is large with nice views... What do folks think a unit asking $1,200,000 will really go for in the end in this market? $950? And (since I am new to this) are there a lot of risks in buying in a phanton condo like this? What's the worst that could happen?

that the developer defaults on his underlying loan, leaving (eventually) the owners of the half of the units filled on the hook for all of the common charges.

or in such a small building (where it's true the chance of a developer default is smaller), a couple of condo owner defaults are enough to put the building behind on common charges, leaving the rest of the owners on the hook.

see zombie condos article on urbandigs.com (currently top one)

Does anyone know who the developer or sponsor is?

My brother went with a broker about a month ago and has been raving about it ever since. Based on what I've read I too want to know A) what happens if sponsor goes bust, and B) who is this mystery sponsor?
I'm all about hanging at his pad but don't want him to get sc@#wd!

I heard the sponsor is a Russian developer from BK. I am very concerned about only two of the five units sold or in contract. I would wait until either the PH or Garden units are tied up.

They need to get to $1k/sf or below before there will be any movement.

jonnyrocca, it's actually worse than that. The one sale they had was unit 3A to:

S.A. Bire (International Bk Real Estate)
C/O Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
1177 Avenue of the Americas
New York NY 10036

That doesn't seem like an individual purchasing a home. It went back on the market almost immediately (actually, it was relisted before closing) as unit 3 and pulled two months later:

03/04/2009 Listed in StreetEasy by Weichert Mazzeo at $1,295,000.
04/24/2009 Price decreased by 7% to $1,200,000.
05/06/2009 Listing is no longer available.

In other words, I don't think it's really off the market.

Unit 5 is nearing its 4th month since going into contract with no closing. I can't imagine they're having any luck finding financing in an otherwise unsold building.

The developer, Maan, Inc., is also responsible for 107 Avenue A. The owner's name is Natan Vinbaytel. I think he's also the developer behind this building at 115 Norfolk Street (his first name was misspelled Nathan):

http://www.cityrealty.com/new_developments/insider_news/marketing-starts-livmor-condos/22363

"A 27,000-square-foot site at 115 Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets has been bought for $10 million by 115 Norfolk Realty LLC of which Nathan Vinbaytel is a principal from Yabba LLC of which Zeyad Aly is a principal."

This is odd. 115 Norfolk has 24 previous listings, all for $999,999 (one for $9,999,999 - a typo?). All with maint of $9,999. All ended either 4/1/09 or 4/3/09. No closings, none in contract. What's that all about? This developer is looking more and more distressed.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/building/115-norfolk-street-new_york

The Maan. Inc., address is 72 Ave A where the Avenue A Pharmacy is, and the cashiers there are all Russian women, so maybe it's a business of his. Here's another pharmacy, this one owned by "Nathan" Vinbaytel in Flatbush:

http://www.allbusiness.com/companyprofile/1101_Pharmacy_Inc/22934CDA53DC791D9C313DA3AB651A45-1.html

Also the owner of Happy Customers Moving Corp?

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_qz65g6

And check this out, A Natural Store Inc., a few doors down from Avenue A Pharmacy.

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_cdw1ht

Seems like development is one of many businesses.

saraj, they'll need to go much lower than $1k/sf to move these. They already failed at $926/sf:

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/389239-condo-525-east-12th-street-apt-3-east-village-new-york

I remember in the 70's and 80's all the old time East Villagers said "watch out for the man". I guess they were very prescient.

tenamental,
....excellent, great info.

Walked by 115 Norfolk yesterday, nothing but girders and cement floors. With listings on that building all pulled 4 months ago, this is one distressed developer.

Natan Vinbaytel is far from distressed. If anyone will comment that he is, then he will have no choice but take legal action against the person. He will file all necessary charges against that individual. Natan is a very successful developer in this area and has many repeat clients for his product. Thank you for you all that do not believe this person.

Why did I just visualize Ivan Drago saying "I must break you."

Maly believes tenemental. People who speak in the third person are funny, and their posts should be read like vintage robots.

truthskr10: I actually laughed out loud.