For a few noteworthy Upper East Side properties, years on the market are turning into signed contracts.
A pet entrepreneur’s Fifth Avenue condo finally found a buyer last week after seven years of on-and-off shopping. The sixth-floor apartment topped Manhattan’s luxury market, per Olshan Realty’s weekly report, with an asking price of around $25 million.
Why now? Appraiser Jonathan Miller said buyers are making moves this year despite some uncertainty in the market.
Also, a $17 million price cut from its initial ask doesn’t hurt.
“We’re seeing better pricing coming into the market as a general rule,” said appraiser Jonathan Miller. “I’ll bet you most of those properties that have started to sell have had price reductions.”
Allen Simon, the inventor of the Wee Wee pad, and his wife, Cynthia Simon, bought the apartment at 838 Fifth Avenue for $11 million about 25 years ago. The couple has tried to sell their three-bedroom unit since 2018, first for $42 million, then $40 million, then $27 million before settling on $24.5 million.
The condo traded about a month after a Gilded Age mansion roughly 10 blocks up landed an inked deal after four years on and off the market. The sprawling home at 973 Fifth Avenue, which last traded for $42 million in 2012, once asked an eye-popping $80 million.
But it only snagged a buyer after dropping the price to just under $50 million.
“Buyers are much more sort of handcuffed,” Miller said. “They don’t have the flexibility, so there’s less tolerance for pie-in-the-sky valuation.”
Weeks after the townhouse entered contract, another historic Upper East Side home, known as the Woolworth Mansion, lowered its price from $60 million to $50 million. The listing broker, Adam Modlin, brought the buyer to the 973 Fifth Avenue purchase.
If sellers’ latest moves are any indication, the neighborhood could start seeing more of its long-listed trophy properties in the hands of new owners.
“[Sellers] are just getting back in line with what market conditions actually are,” Miller said. “And when they’re in line with market conditions, they’re actually selling.”
Not so fast…
The residential market is still moving though brokers say uncertainty and volatility are likely on the horizon.
Across the country, home sales rose 4 percent from January to February, though transactions were down slightly from the same period last year, according to the National Association of Realtors’ monthly report.
In New York, new signed contracts rose again last month across Manhattan and Brooklyn, along with new listings hitting the market, according to Miller Samuel’s monthly report. In Brooklyn, pending deals increased particularly in the luxury segment, defined as $2 million, compared to the overall market.
If listings continue to grow in each of the boroughs, deals are expected to continue to trend upward and restore a healthy pace of home sales to a market that was sluggish through 2023 and the beginning of 2024.
“The way I’ve described 2025 is getting back to zero,” Miller said.
While agents have warned about hesitancy in the market with an ever-changing policy landscape, the spring season is likely to boost activity.
“April is really where things really take off,” Miller said. “The uncertainty that we’ve seen with tariff policy is not really causing the market to hold back yet. The volatility in the stock market doesn’t seem to be holding things back.”
NYC Deal of the Week
An apartment at Witkoff Group’s 150 Charles Street set a new record for Downtown Manhattan when it closed for $60 million earlier this week. The deal — the priciest to land in the city register — was double what the sellers, financier Harsh Padia and his wife, interior designer Purvi Padi, paid for it in 2016. The duplex has five bedrooms, five bathrooms and a sprawling terrace overlooking the Hudson River.
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