Real Housewife Sonja Morgan’s UES townhouse sells for $4M at auction

Sonja Morgan’s decade-long saga on East 63rd Street has come to a close. 

The “Real Housewives of New York” star sold her Upper East Side townhouse for $4.5 million in a no-reserve online auction that closed on Wednesday, the New York Post first reported. 

The deal is less than half of the $9.1 million she and her ex-husband, banker John Adams Morgan, paid for the sprawling five-story home in 1998. 

“[Morgan] left money on the table,” said Leslie J. Garfield’s Thomas Wexler, who said he was marketing the listing for more than $7 million up until about two months ago. “That house has a ton of potential.”

Wexler contended that if Morgan had allowed him to lower the price during his tenure as the listing broker, he likely would have sold it for a higher price. 

Just last month, the Royal Danish Consulate General paid $8.5 million for a home just across the street from Morgan’s abode. The deal followed the sale of another neighboring property, 147 East 63rd Street, which traded for $7.6 million last summer. 

“There’s no reason it had to sell that low,” Wexler said. He added that with some updates, the home could have snagged a deal closer to that of 161 East 63rd Street. 

Morgan has struggled to offload the 4,650-square-foot property for roughly a decade in the midst of facing personal and financial turmoil. 

She first listed the home for just under $10 million in 2013, three years after she filed for bankruptcy and while she was in the process of divorcing her husband, the great grandson of J.P. Morgan and son of Morgan Stanley co-founder Henry Morgan. 

Morgan also filed for bankruptcy in 2010. The proceedings, which ended in 2015, allowed her to keep the home. 

That same year, the reality television persona listed the five-bedroom abode, this time with a $7.2 million price tag, though it once again failed to find a buyer. She began renting out the property three years later, asking $32,000 per month. 

She offered the pad for sale again last summer, asking $8.8 million. She later agreed to drop the price to $7.5 million. 

Adam Modlin of the Modlin Group took over the listing last month. He did not immediately respond for comment. 

Concierge Auctions managed the auction for the home, which features a solarium, garden, balcony and wood-burning fireplace. The winning bid came in just five minutes before the auction was set to close, besting the former top offer of $4.25 million. 

The final sale price works out to nearly $5 million including the 12 percent buyer’s premium. 

Some may have called the reality TV star “over the top” (see: Season 11), but the deal for her mansion is certainly closer to the bottom.

Read more

Residential

New York

Manhattan luxury contracts beat Memorial Day odds

Residential

New York

Mike Myers’ former 443 Greenwich condo trades for $21M

Commercial

New York

Even tech workers can’t afford NYC rentals