Williamsburg pad hits market for almost $9M

A nearly 4,000-square-foot Williamsburg apartment has returned to the market, asking a whopping $8.75 million.

Mark Altman, who works in the transportation industry, put the 10-room home on the market last Friday, the same day Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered that real estate agents are “non-essential” workers, requiring them to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think it’s a temporary thing,” Altman said. “I’m very optimistic.”

The deal, should a buyer pay the unit’s asking price, works out to about $2,200 per square foot. That’s more than what actress and writer Lena Dunham earned for her three-bedroom pad on the eighth floor of the Gretsch at 60 Broadway last year — about $1,300 per square foot.

Altman said he still remembers when he first decided to buy the apartment, and how he was taken back by the vast views of Brooklyn he could see from the unit.

“It took me about 22 seconds to say this is me,” he said. “And it will be the same for somebody else.”

Altman first put the corner home on the market in 2013, at a lower price of $6.5 million. Altman said at the time he was single and considering moving into a smaller place, but even after securing a buyer, he opted to stay in the apartment, taking the listing down after a few months and undertaking another major renovation of the unit. The New York Daily News noted in 2013 that the sale would be one of the highest home sales not just in Williamsburg, but in Brooklyn.

Altman, who has three young children, said the latest listing has been in the works since about November, and he has already bought a new home in Westchester for his family.

Altman bought two 10th-floor units in 2007 and 2010 for a total of $2.9 million, property records show. He said he spent around $1.5 million renovating the units.

Douglas Elliman’s Monica Luque and Arina Yakobi are the listing agents.

“There’s so much room. There’s nothing like this in the market,” said Luque. “For this seller, he feels that he has something very unique.”

Luque was the agent who represented the buyer of the $15 million penthouse at Dumbo’s clocktower in 2017, a deal that closed at about $2,140 per square feet — below what Altman is seeking on a per-square-foot basis.

Even though government orders have mandated that New Yorkers stay home, to prevent the spread of Covid-19, Luque said she believes deals will still get done. And with more people at home, she added, it provides a unique opportunity for people to reflect if their home is truly the right place for them.

“This is going to pass also and we’ll be uniquely positioned,” she said.

Write to Mary Diduch at md@therealdeal.com