Tag: West Village

This morning I awoke to this spectacular dawn. The opportunity to experience nature as art in our city of steel and concrete is unique and why a New York view costs more.

Ten years ago, buying my first apartment in New York I looked for three months. When I first started looking, the dream apartment I hoped for was bigger and less expensive than the reality turned out to be. Maintenance would be lower. Then I started looking. Read more…

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International and local buyers keep falling in love with Manhattan real estate. Downtown, buyers are snapping up luxury new developments in Tribeca (56 Leonard), Chelsea (Walker Tower), West Chelsea and the West Village (150 Charles) and its expected that several new Hudson Yards projects including 520 West 28th to be designed by famed starchitect Zaha Hadid for Related will sell out quickly.

Manhattan real estate prices on average double every ten years drawing investors, however, I believe part of the magic of New York is that moment when one sees the lights of the city or a view one never had seen before. The city continues to grow and improve adding to its live-able quality and attracting buyers from all demographics and nationalities. Of course many old-timers lament the city’s change, but change is a constant in New York.

Cameron Michael has captured the essence of Manhattan in this Manhattan Project time-lapse video, which I wanted to share with you. Fall in love again…

The Manhattan Project HD from Cameron Michael on Vimeo.

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Here’s a view from the West Village, of the new Freedom Tower (center right) with Frank Gehry’s luxury residential rental building, Gehry New York, glistening in sunset last Sunday (left of image). The new World Trade Center building surpassed the Empire State Building two weeks ago Monday to become Manhattan’s tallest building. Wishing you and yours a peaceful and Happy Memorial Day from New York. – Tony Sargent

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What is real estate? As I leave my office late tonight, I look at the list on my desk-wall of clients who want to buy or sell. They aren’t numbers to me. They are people: fathers, mothers, children, partners. All with a dream of owning a home or having more space. A place to create memories, to celebrate anniversaries, to laugh, to cry, to perhaps disagree and then come back together. To watch teeth fall and then the 1st sideburns grow.

This is why I do what I do. To help people make their dreams come true, as smoothly as I can. Nothing feels better than to seem them smile on closing day…and five years later. – By Tony Sargent

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Downtown 3-bedroom properties that have gone to contract since December 20th, 2011, have done so in approximately 45 days after coming on the market, according to a quick (and unscientific) study I did today.

It validates what I and other brokers are feeling in the Downtown 3-bedroom market right now. Buyer interest, appointments and open house visits are up. The best inventory is moving quickly and even some properties which are not considered ‘the best’ are selling if their price is reflective of condition.

Areas like Nolita, Bowery, Tribeca and Soho continue to see growing interest from buyers who need space and wish to live in vibrant neighborhoods. Thirty years ago there was a reason to leave the city – safety, school, neighbhorhood. Today Manhattan offers all of that and more. Ask anyone who’s got two or three children under seven in Manhattan. If they can figure out how to make it work numbers and space wise, they’d rather stay here. Perhaps because it provides a more dynamic lifestyle for both parents and children than the suburbs? Your call. But I see demand for 3 and 4 bedrooms remaining solid right now.

Even the larger two bedroom market is seeing a bump. A new loft I listed at 195 Bowery in Nolita/Lower East Side had twenty people at its first open house.

If you have any questions on the Manhattan market or are looking to make a move, feel free to contact me.

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Founded by New York sculptor Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, The Whitney originally opened its doors in 1931 in Greenwich Village. The first museum to focus exclusively on American art and artists, it has moved several times in its lifetime. For several years now we’ve known that it will be constructing a new home at the beginning of The High Line at Gansevoort and Washington Streets. Foundation work started last summer, but until now it’s been hard to find images that provide a true sense of what it will look and feel like. This video gives you the history and the future of the New Whitney in realistic three dimensional video-renderings. Excited to know it will anchor the Meat-Packing District’s south western corner. Only a block away from another style of exhibitions at the glass enclosed Standard Hotel, I expect the Whitney to become a key attraction downtown. Welcome back home, Whitney.

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The Observer just reported that Alec Baldwin secured the 4,137 square foot penthouse at the Devonshire House late last summer for $11.7 Million. The last asking price was $12.5 Million. Alec Baldwin recently left his Central Park West apartment at the famed El Dorado on the Upper West Side to make the move downtown to New York’s Greenwich Village.

Located on East 10th Street in the heart of Greenwich Village and just east of Fifth Avenue, Devonshire House is a recently converted pre-war building which had previously been a rental building. To its credit Devonshire House has ‘good bones’ meaning big windows, high ceilings and great apartment layouts. The developer added modern Manhattan amenities and re-furbished the common spaces creating one of the most desired and graciously re-designed pre-war condominiums near New York University, Union Square and a short distance from the West Village and Soho.

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