More Real Estate Porn « naked capitalism

Saturday, January 3, 2009

More Real Estate Porn

In a departure from our usual programming (we are still in a slow news period), I thought I would introduce a real estate opportunity (yes this is an ad of sorts), an unusually large and well outfitted Manhattan furnished rental.

The apartment in question is a glamorous, large furnished one bedroom (over 900 square feet, 10.5 foot ceilings) in Manhattan on Park in the 70s, available for a one-year rental. Special features include:

Superb location. Near museums, galleries, movies, restaurants, boutiques, food markets, and major bus and subway routes. Well served by taxis, even at rush hour

Beautifully decorated and very well appointed. Important French Art Deco furniture and Japanese artwork, Baccarat crystal, Ginori and Quimper china, copper cookware, fine barware and serving pieces.

Large, gracious living room (19’X23’) with herringbone wood floors, well suited for entertaining or meetings and an impressive rotunda outside the apartment

Bright and sunny. Unlike most Park Avenue apartments, the apartment gets ample light from both east and west. The bedroom looks over a garden towards a church spire; the living room faces Park

Marble entryway and kitchen, and marble sills throughout

Renovated marble bath

Fully equipped for work (three phone lines, DSL or cable modem available) and leisure (stereo with large CD library, HDTV with DVD and VCR players, extensive kitchenware for the serious cook. Fine bed and bath linens also included

Pets considered

Attractive price. Smaller unfurnished one-bedroom apartments in this building rent for more. In addition, the rent includes utilities

No brokerage fees

24 hour doorman, live in superintendent. Washer and driers on premises

Please contact 845 750 6164

More on this topic (What's this?)

Humorous Economic Punditry (The Curious Investor, 1/11/09)

Porn Industry Bailout? (HedgeFundBlogger.com by Richard ..., 1/19/09)

Harvard’s Benjamin Edelman Is A Hatemonger (Tick Talk, 3/4/09)

Read more on Sex and Porn, Real estate at Wikinvest

22 Comments:

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 4:44 am

How much does 900 sq ft go for, in Manhattan?

I bet it’s quoted at a lot less than it was a year ago… and I bet the seller is willing to come down a bit.

Yves Smith says:

January 3, 2009 at 5:09 am

This is not a sale, it is a rental, and it is NOT being rented as an alternative to sale. This apartment has been rented before when the tenant was out of town for extended periods.

I am not current on the rental market, but in past downturns, apartment owners have faced significant obstacles in renting their units as an alternative to sale (hence in Manhattan, you tend not to see an upsurge in rental supply as you would in other markets). Most buildings are co-ops, and co-ops generally are very restrictive on rentals. For instance, a board interview is a given, and the delay from that alone is a significant deterrent.

Furnished rentals are a very specialized market, and generally compete with hotels as much, if not more than rentals. Given how steep the better Manhattan hotels are, that provides a rather significant ceiling under which to operate.

And if you read the listing, the rate for this apartment is less than for an unfurnished, smaller apartment in the same building.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 5:32 am

Who would want to buy an apartment in Manhattan now? They will clearly be cheaper in a year. That ought to help rentals, at least for a while.

Glen says:

January 3, 2009 at 7:48 am

Orrr, nice joint but abit far from work. Heck of a long way to travel to Australia every week. Mind you, could be a good excuse for arriving late on Mondays and leaving early on Fridays!!!

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 8:43 am

Please kill the decorator.

I love many styles, but this is art deco gone horribly wrong. Bad mirror over fireplace with poorly presented Banzai on Mattel piece, need larger planter. Get rid of candle holders too.

The masculine book case is very our of place, reminds me of new homes in upper NY/out of place. Crushed red settee is nice, but with out the throw cushion. Black vases on top of Oriental cases should be replaced with female statues of French origin preferably.

Wall colour in entryway clashes with the Chinese case and floor tiles, try Oriental green and lose the vase. Is the Chinese case certified, there was a big run on them a few years ago. Buyers must of ransacked most of china for them, $2,000 a pop and up. Love the light fixture though.

Last but not least the bathroom, the one place in a Apt/house where people sit and look at all the flaws. The vanity top needs to be replaced with a Grey marble top and modern fixtures. My work here is now done.

Yves is now going to kill me.

Skippy

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 10:13 am

How come listings with an “attractive price” never include the price? (But if anybody has to ask, then….)

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 10:25 am

Altogether a fairly irritating post. NOT listing the price is a waste of time. Further, characterizing 900 sq. ft. as “large” is ridiculous; 900 sq. ft is what it is — a small living space. I know, I’ve lived in NYC.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 10:57 am

Nice apartment Yves. Are you moving to Austria for a year?

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 11:17 am

I’ve seen that apartment before. It was the set where the filmed the movie “The Shining”. Why no picture of the axe chopped hole in the door? Redrum

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 1:20 pm

Poor Yves. Sometimes you just can’t catch a break from your commenters.

Yves Smith says:

January 3, 2009 at 2:50 pm

Sorry to tell you folks, 900+ square feet for Manhattan is large for a one bedroom. I have been here over 20 years and seen a ton of a apartments. 650-750 is the norm for apartments in the new glam buildings with lots of amenities, for instance.

It is also not at all uncommon for brokers to exaggerate square footage, so you may have seen a lot of 750-800 square foot apartments that were described as bigger. I have seen that very often, both in sales and rentals. It is particularly common in new buildings. One buddy in residential real estate development (one of the very biggest players in Manhattan) explained (I forgot the details) how it is legal to include some of the common space in an apartment’s published square footage.

Re the decor, Skippy, I recall you were in the military. Don’t think the visual arts are an area of expertise of yours. Movie directors and commercial makers have asked to use the living room that you chose to critique as a set, as is.

Yves Smith says:

January 3, 2009 at 3:02 pm

And again, 10:25, empirically you are wrong. There is already plenty of info for those with mere prurient interest, and unfortunately that crowd will get its jollies.

Very very few people are in the market for furnished rentals, and (having rented furnished apartments here and overseas) there are very few good apartments on the market at any point in time (as in not the sterile corporate type that are small, cheaply furnished and have four plates, two saucepans, two glasses).

Anyone who wants something better will know there aren’t a lot of choices and will call. As they have already, BTW.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 3:19 pm

Most men in the money business (and the stats say the readership here skews very male) have no taste but nevertheless think they are experts in everything. Usually they have wives and/or decorators to take care of making their homes presentable. I am not surprised that you are getting uninformed comments.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 3:46 pm

O.K, I’m titillated.

Can someone give me monthly price per month for such a unit? I realize the location is a big factor.

What is the % of yearly salary requirement? I’ve seen some ghastly figures, so this may be a way to move the unit if you a lower multiplier. I’ve seen as high as 90 times 1 months rent.

Possibly moving to Manhattan . Looking for an upper range bound.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 6:44 pm

Yves, just having a little go at you, knew that would get your goat.

All tho you might be surprised at my acumen in regards to design. I have worked in the custom home industry off and on since the 80s in Calif. Big fan of Green & Green architecture in LA (proctor & Gamble house) Built and furnished houses with Buff & Hiensman from Malibu canyon,Pacific Palisades, Bel Air, Bentwood, stayed out of Beverly hills too gaudy in there.

Most of my gear is teak/mahogany Empire style, half antique and half new. With lamps and vases of off white crazy crackle earthen ware, dark brown leather chaises and a 10 seater dinning table that took 6 friends to move into the house, solid teak top.

Yet again I suffer the military tag and its stigma, with no idea to the finer things in life. Try being at the largest military base in America, drag a friend to see a Woody Allen movie in the 70s, 500+ seat theater and be only one of 5 people there and said friend has not a word to say about the context of the movie after En Fin Lil.

Again just having some fun with you, Apologies.

Cheeky Skippy.

Anonymous says:

January 3, 2009 at 7:36 pm

typo? “Important French Art Deco” – should that be “Imported?”

john bougearel says:

January 4, 2009 at 12:57 am

Now you’ve gone and done it Yves, you through the word porn into your post and now the porn spammers will be hounding you forever!

Yves Smith says:

January 4, 2009 at 1:17 am

John,

Thanks for your concern, but I did have a post featuring a private lake a buddy has been trying to sell and that was titled “Real Estate Porn” and it didn’t lead to those awful ads. I think the “nekkid” name would have done that already.

john bougearel says:

January 4, 2009 at 7:57 am

Yves,

Well they found me out on my blog without using the word porn. Two posts they specifically honed in on was one about the “three little bears” and another about “bubble-blowing”

I must get about 10 spams a day from those two posts alone. It’s not the end of the world but…

lalaland says:

January 4, 2009 at 4:05 pm

Oh for crying out loud if the market was still booming it would be $4500-5000 a month, nowadays, with lots of vacant apartments available (but probably not a huge increase in furnished apartments available) it would be a decent deal at around $4200 I would say. Bit of a niche market I don’t mess around with, but that’s what I figure.

Whoever took the pics needs to take them again and this time do it in the daytime and show us some windows. Open the curtains. Picture serve to help us understand the space of course, and this looks like a closet the way it’s been shot.

Yves Smith says:

January 4, 2009 at 4:40 pm

lalaland,

With all due respect, you do not know the market for furnished rentals. The person taking the calls for the apartment has gotten considerable interest at a price higher than you suggest, with one person offering $6500 (markedly above the listed price) to get a slightly different term than the one on offer. That with the photos you dissed.

There are just not very many good furnished rentals, particularly in prime locations.

lalaland says:

January 4, 2009 at 6:55 pm

Ok, so I was off 10-15% my high mark – had no idea if that market is affected the way vacant apartments has been – I admitted not knowing that market that well (assuming the $6500 offer was a decent amount higher than normal since someone is clearly offering a premium for a different term than offered). Plus, it got a dollar figure out there for the folks who don’t know the market out here, and that was the other 1/2 of the reason for posting the way I did And I stand by my critique of the photos, even if price and location did the trick without their help.

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