Residential Deals

Brooklyn Heights

$495,000

111 Hicks Street

1-bedroom, 1-bathroom, 800 sf co-op in a prewar elevator building; 24-hour doorman; concierge; renovated unit has entry foyer and views of the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor; building has roof deck and health club; maintenance $1,405 per month; 50 percent tax-deductible; asking price $525,000; three weeks on the market. (Brokers: Zelda Josephs, LREB; Jennifer Chen Palumbo, Ivy Paterni, City Connections Realty)

“My client is actually a close friend of mine who had been renting on the Upper East Side for eight years — we used to work together at a law firm. She fell in love with Brooklyn Heights, but by the time we saw this unit, we had looked at almost every one-bedroom in her price range in the neighborhood and were just about to start expanding the search to other areas if that weekend didn’t go well. We actually went to the building to see a different unit — we were there for an open house on a lower floor that she didn’t really like. We were about to leave when we ran into Zelda in the lobby, and she convinced us to take a look at a unit she was about to list on a higher floor, even though it was a little out of our price range. This one had a much better view — from a certain place in the living room, you can see the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge at the same time — and it turns out that the sellers were open to negotiating a little bit.” Jennifer Chen Palumbo, City Connections Realty

Chelsea

$1.035 million

166 West 18th Street

1-bedroom, 1.5-bathroom, 747 sf condo in a new elevator building (Yves Condominium); 24-hour doorman; concierge; unit has renovated kitchen and baths, hardwood floors, dining area and balcony; building has gym and roof deck; common charges $746 per month; taxes $202 per month (abated); asking price $1.045 million; 14 weeks on the market. (Brokers: Edward Rosner, Georgia Asher, Stribling & Associates; Dimitrios Skretas, Prudential Douglas Elliman)

“After the property had been on the market for two months, fully advertised, including with our international branch, Savills, we had only gotten really lowball offers, at 18 to 20 percent off the asking price. So we convinced the seller that a lower asking price would actually bring higher offers, and we dropped the price by $50,000. Within a week and a half we had two extremely strong offers. But after the contract was signed we discovered that the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy on the building had expired, and the buyer’s attorney would of course not allow a closing without a valid TCO. This is a newly built luxury condo, and the apartment we were selling was one of the first resales. We, and the selling broker, all did a lot of scrambling to work with both the managing agent and the sponsor to get the TCO renewed. At times it looked as if it would take months to get this resolved, which could have totally derailed the sale. But we were fortunate because we were able to get it in place before closing.” Georgia Asher, Stribling & Associates

Gramercy

$495,000

200 East 24th Street

600 sf alcove studio co-op in a postwar elevator building (the Crystal House); 24-hour doorman; concierge; unit has renovated kitchen and hardwood floors; building has roof deck and live-in super; maintenance $1,225 per month; 65 percent tax-deductible; asking price $525,000; two weeks on the market. (Brokers: Shelley Saxton, Kurt Weyrauch, Brown Harris Stevens; Luke Porto, the Real Estate Group NY)

“My buyers were a Long Island couple who bought it for their daughter to live in for a couple of years, after which they plan to use it as a pied-à-terre. The deal itself started off smoothly — we were the first offer they received, and although at first the sellers didn’t want to take a dollar less than $500,000, ours was a cash offer and ultimately the strongest. After negotiating back and forth for about two weeks, we got them to $495,000. However, processing for the co-op board application took so long that at one point the buyers were threatening to walk away from their deposit. It took much longer than anticipated to close.” Luke Porto, the Real Estate Group NY

Interviews conducted and condensed by Sarabeth Sanders