It was on a particularly bad week in August that the former home of “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker finally went into contract.
Activity in Manhattan’s luxury market had fallen to levels not seen since 2011. For Ruthie Assouline of Compass, whose clients were looking to buy the townhouse at 20 East 10th Street, those conditions were causing tensions.
“When you have no data to reference, post such a drastic event as the pandemic, it makes it very difficult to negotiate because the seller and the buyers obviously both have very different perceptions of what the market value is,” she said.
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After what she described as a “very, very intense negotiation” — a period during which the buyer almost walked away — the parties finally reached a deal.
The 7,000-square-foot Greenwich Village property recently closed for $15.85 million, according to Assouline, who worked on the deal with her business partner and husband, Ethan Assouline.
The sale price, which pencils out at $2,264 per square foot, is 13 percent below the final asking price of $18.25 million, and well below the 2017 listing price of $22.9 million.
Matthew Coleman of Coleman Real Estate, who represented the sellers, said they were happy with the deal.
“The home needs work and my sellers were not up for it,” he said. “Their lives had changed and they just felt that it wasn’t the right Manhattan fit for them at the moment.”
Measuring 25 feet wide, the manse has six bedrooms, seven bathrooms and a “deep lush garden,” according to a listing. The sellers, who Coleman declined to identify, bought it in 2015 from Sarah Jessica Parker and her husband, Matthew Broderick, for $18.25 million.
When they initially listed it for sale in 2017, Coleman said they were still exploring the idea of renovating the property, but later changed their minds.
As for the buyer, Assouline declined to disclose their identity but said they were not local New Yorkers and they had started their search before the pandemic.
In the months since the home went into contract, luxury deals have started to pick up in Manhattan, as wealthy New Yorkers renew their commitment to a city many abandoned.
At nearby 332 West 11th Street, a parking garage marketed as a megamansion opportunity went into contract last week asking $45 million, marking the priciest deal since early March.