New York’s 1,000-foot-tall cryptogram of luxury is becoming a monument to the condo slowdown.
Last week, Entity 79 of the condo tower called One57 became the biggest foreclosure purchase ever in New York. It went at auction for $36 million — marking a 30 percent subside from its purchase price of $51 million in 2014.
The owner was Kola Aluko, a Nigerian billionaire who’s been assault with money laundering and was in default on a mortgage on the property.
Real trading estate boosters in New York called it a one-off, and said sales at One57 and the rest of the new beaker condo towers popping up in New York remain strong.
Yet an analysis of fresh resales at One57 shows that every apartment that has traded since it predisposed in 2014 or 2015 has declined in value — all by double digits.
Unit One 62A was realized for $31.6 million in April 2014. In October 2016 it sold for $23.5 million, a 26 percent weakness. Unit 65A originally sold for $29.3 million in 2014, but was sold in April 2017 for $22.5 million.
And some of the taper offs were even faster. Unit 51C sold for $20.4 million in April 2015. It carried eight months later for $17.7 million.
Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel articulate the money-losing resales aren’t a sign of a condo bust. Rather, he said, sellers are definitely coming to grips with the fact that the prices of 2014 were an aberration and aren’t end up back anytime soon. One57, he said, was at the right place at the pronto time to capture those top prices.
“It’s clear that 2014 was the top,” he said. “It was a perfect storm. You had capital pouring into the real estate of the realm development market from overseas. And we had just come off the financial catastrophe and you had this new product coming on, with the feeling that everything was skewing toward the well-to-do. Everyone thought this was some sort of new world that want go on forever. But it was not sustainable.”
Miller said there are currently 16 elements at One57 for sale, ranging from $3.85 million for a one-bedroom to $70 million for a part on the 85th floor. That unit originally sold for $55.5 million.
Yet the discomfits aren’t confined to One57.
Prices for new condo developments across Manhattan demolish 27 percent in the third quarter compared with a year ago, according to Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel. But they’re undisturbed no bargain: the average sale price was still $4.3 million.