Goldman Sachs executive finds buyer for $5M Brooklyn Heights townhouse

After close to 18 months on the market and two price cuts, Goldman Sachs managing director Daniel Shefter’s 22-foot-wide Brooklyn townhouse has finally found a buyer. Despite a slow start, and a short time off the market last year, the Brooklyn Heights home sold for $50,000 over the final asking price of $4.95 million, according to listing broker Alain Azaria of Dalazar Private Real Estate.

As The Real Deal previously reported, Shefter and wife Lucyna put the home, at 26 Garden Place, on the market in December 2010 for $5.55 million after they moved to Scardale to have more space for their children. City records show they purchased it in 2007 for $4.9 million.

“At the time [we cut the price,] nothing was happening, but once we decided to put it on the market with a price reduction, it all started happening at once,” Azaria said. “We had five parties interested and three bids over ask.”

The 4,500-square-foot neoclassical townhouse, with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms, is on an “exclusive block” mostly occupied by people in the financial services industry, Azaria said at the time of the listing coming online. While it features original moldings, it has modern conveniences, such as a floor-heating system. It also has a 420-square-foot garden.

The buyer was represented by Kenneth Mandelbaum, an associate broker at Brown Harris Stevens. While Mandelbaum declined to provide the identity of the buyer, he said the Tribeca-based purchasers had been motivated by being closer to Saint Ann’s school, where their child is scheduled to attend classes in the fall.

Mandelbaum also noted that bidding wars have been common in Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill of late.

“I’ve been in three this year,” he said. “Single-family homes [in these neighborhoods] are few and far between, especially those in mint condition.”

Shefter was named managing director at Goldman in 2002. He is renowned for his skill in the design and architecture of complex securities, according to news reports.

While a $5 million sale is pricey from Brooklyn, it does not come near breaking any neighborhood records. The Brooklyn Heights home at 70 Willow Street where Truman Capote lived and wrote “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” sold for $12 million in March, breaking the previous record of $11 million set by a townhouse at 212 Columbia Heights in January.

Mandelbaum is currently making his attempt to enter the Brooklyn Heights record books. He is currently listing a townhouse down the street at 36 Garden Place for $10 million, which, if sold for ask, would be the third priciest listing to sell in the neighborhood.