Afternoon Tidbit (One of Three): Update on the Woolworth Mansion

A New York City townhouse–owned by the estate of late lady-gym mogul Lucille Roberts (and shown above)–landed on the open market in mid-March 2011 to much real estate shock and awe with a titanic $90,000,000 asking price. The sick-palatial and approximately 18,000 square foot Neo-French Renaissance style pile–designed in 1911 (or so) by high-society architect C.P.H. Gilbert for dime store tycoon Frank Woolworth for one of his three daughters–was concurrently listed for lease at an astronomical $210,000 per month.



The fine folks at Curbed as well as many of the New York City real estate gossips reported today that the rental asking price for the 7-floor townhouse was recently slashed to a still spine tingling $165,000 per month.



A few quick flicks of the well-worn beads on Your Mama's bejeweled abacus shows that at it's current price a rental tenant must bring in $1,980,000 per year just to pay the damn landlord their agreed upon due. We have no experience managing of residence of this magnitude but we imagine the deep pocketed tenant will have to cough up an additional couple or few hundred grand each year to heat, cool, clean and otherwise staff and maintain the high-maintenance mansion.



Nothing like a little real estate reminder that you're poor as a church mouse, right?



listing photo: Brown Harris Stevens

Susan Sarandon Snags Penthouse Bachelorette Pad

BUYER: Susan Sarandon

LOCATION: New York City, NY

PRICE: $1,750,000

SIZE: 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom



YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Listen chickens, there are a number of juicy(ish) celebrity real estate tidbits in the works but, right now, at this very moment, the pickins are slim. Rather than leave y'all high and dry–or drowning in discussions of properties owned by "celebrities" most people have never heard of before–we're going to dig down into the archives and pull up a few old things that we never got around to dissin' or discussin' when all the other real estate gossips were yammering about them.



Let's start with soo-blime actor Susan Sarandon, a gutsy gal with one Oscar in her pocket (Dead Man Walking) and another four nominations under her belt (The Client, Lorenzo's Oil, Thelma & Louise, Atlantic City). Miz Sarandon has dated (Louis Malle) and procreated (Franco Amurri) with a few high-profile gentleman but her longest romantic entanglement has been with fellow Oscar winning actor Tim Robbins (Mystic River, Dead Man Walking, The Player, The Shawshank Redemption). The lefty-left-left activist couple never hitched their wagons in the eyes of God and government but they did bring two children into their unmarried union, something that no doubt reinforced the seething hatred right wingers to have for these two famous limousine liberals from Tinseltown.



Anyhoo, sometime during the summer of 2009, after about 23 years of bleeding heart coupledom, Miz Sarandon and Mister Robbins called the whole thing off. Until that point the Sarandon-Amurri-Robbins clan split their time between New York City and the bucolic and upscale community of Pound Ridge, about 50 miles north of Midtown Manhattan.



In 1991 Mister Robbins and Miz Sarandon acquired a lofty-style cooperative apartment in the Chelsea neighborhood. They eventually bought up one entire floor and half of the one above to give them about 7,000 square feet of interior space on the 7th and 8th floors. The massive apartment is just a few blocks from SPiN, a ping-pong bar/eatery in which Miz Sarandon is an investor.



In June of 1995 the then happy now kaput couple coughed up $1,675,000 for a secluded 7.74 acre spread that backs up to the Cross River Reservoir. The New York State Tax Man shows the estate includes a 5,068 square foot main house with 4 bedorooms and 3 bathrooms. Several out buildings dot the property and a large terrace off the back of the house has a swimming pool.



Your Mama has no idea what plans Miz Sarandon and Mister Robbins might have in regards to keeping or selling their Pound Ridge property but we do know it sits within a couple miles of the posh mansions, sprawling estates and colossal compounds of loads of other rich and famous folks with a yen and the bucks for a pastoral getaway just an hour from the hustle and bustle of New York City. Ralph Lauren maintains a vast estate in the area where other property owners include Richard Gere, George Soros, Martha Stewart, Abigail Disney, Matthew Bronfman, and Clive Davis.



In June 2011, not long after it became publicly known that Miz Sarandon and Mister Robbins' relationship had reached its sunset, property records (and previous reports) reveal Miz Sarandon paid Mister Robbins $3,200,000 to take full ownership over their leviathan loft in New York City. At the same time she was buying Mister Robbins out she also snatched up a wee but pricey bachelorette pad in an elegant pre-war apartment building in a particularly charming (and swank) section of Greenwich Village known as the Gold Coast.



Property records (and previous reports) show the newly single sixty-something year old Miz Sarandon paid high-end wallpaper designer Anya Larkin $1,750,000 for a well-scaled but far from humongous 1 bedrooom and 1 bathroom penthouse pad with million dollar city views and a wrap around terrace almost as large as the apartment itself.



Now, children, have some common sense here. The only way to look at a one bedroom apartment that costs one and three-quarter million clams is to see it through the very specific real estate goggles of New York City. Like it or not, Big Apple Haters, the petite penthouse's pit falls–the stingy closet space, the crapper accessible to guests only by walking through the bedroom, for example–are far outweighed by the prime location in the hoity-toity heart Greenwich Village, the white glove services of the pre-war building, and the giant but manageable wrap around terrace with sparkly city views to the east, north and west. The wood-burning fireplace and unusually spacious contemporary Craftsman-style kitchen are icing on the nearly two million dollar one bedroom cake.



Much to our chagrin the front door opens directly into the main living space, which means that all the Chinese food delivery men in in neighborhood are going to know exactly what Miz Sarandon's living room looks like.



In the nearly 400 square foot main living space, divided into living and dining areas, built-in cabinets anchor one side of a Batchelder (or Batchelder-style) fireplace. French doors in the tile-floored dining area connect to the terrace that snakes around three sides of the apartment. Your Mama knows that some of you real estate beotchas are going to hiss, "Pshaw!" and deride a New York City terrace as dirty and loud spaces that, more often than not, lack any real privacy. And y'all would be right. Terraces in New York City are typically loud, dirty and in full view of at least a few neighbors. Howevuh, honey bees, this former New Yorker would have happily endured the indignity of a dirty and loud wrap around terrace where our neighbors could spend all day watching Your Mama lounge around in a ikat sarong on a nappy chaise lounge eating candy, drinking gin & tonics and picking at our toenails.



The dining area is open to the cook-accommodating kitchen outfitted with commercial-style stainless steel appliances and blessed with a window over the sink that provides a pretty city view while doing battle with the dried up sticky shit off the bottom of a frying pan.



A small vestibule off the living area leads back to the generous but far from ginormous bedroom that includes French doors that open to the east-side terrace area and a double-windowed pooper re-done in classic 1930s style with white subway tiles on the walls and black and white honeycomb tile on the floor. Floor plan information indicates that the bedroom's lone closet–a small walk-in–is inconveniently situated in the vestibule between the bedroom and the living/dining room. But again, these wonky real estate moments might seem like deal killers in suburbia but in New York City, as in many other densely urban areas, these annoyances become mere quirks.



Property records also show that in addition to the two apartments in New York City and the Pound Ridge spread she once shared (and as per public records still co-owns) with Mister Robbins, Miz Sarandon also owns a 1.5 acre waterfront property with a 3,270 square foot residence on Mount Desert Island in Maine, the same swanky neck of the dramatic Maine coast where media mogul/domestic goddess Martha Stewart maintains a 63-acre waterfront spread with a 35,000 square foot mansion she calls Skylands.



Politically progressive Miz Sarandon has not always had an easy-peasy relationship with her staunchly Republican mother Lenora Tomalin but property records do indicate that mother and daughter buried the hatchet when it came to real estate and co-own two condos at a Leisure World retirement complex in Leesburg, VA.



exterior photo: Property Shark

interior (listing) photos and floor plan: Sotheby's International Realty via StreetEasy

Girlfriends' Persia White Lists in Studio City

SELLER: Persia White

LOCATION: Studio City, CA

PRICE: $1,529,000

SIZE: 4,200 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms



YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Over the weekend between racing around to family parties and building a chicken wire contraption to keep the damn raccoons from snatching the fruit off my tomato plants in the middle of the night Your Mama took some time to peruse the Los Angeles area real estate listings. In truth, we didn't come up with much but we did turn up a property in the hills above Studio City listed for $1,549,000 and owned by actress/musician/artist Persia White.



From 2000 to 2008 Miz White starred on the boob-toob series Girlfriends with Golden Brooks and Tracee Ellis Ross, the daughter of Miss Diana Ross, thank you very much. Although she hasn't worked much since her gal pal program was canceled, she does, as per her resume on the Internet Movie Data Base, have a few movie projects underway and in the hopper. In addition to her ack-ting Miz White, a staunch and vocal advocate for environmental, human and animal rights, also makes music–she released a solo album in 2010 called Mecca–and paints emotionally charged images that often depict women curled up in the fetal position, bent over backward, or in otherwise taut state of heartbreak and/or longing.



Property records show girlfriend for Girlfriends–married a time or two and the mommy of one–acquired her two-story hillside house in June 2004 for $1,135,000. Built in 1990, the contemporary cottage encompasses 4,200 square feet with 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and nearly unobstructed views of the surrounding mountains during the day and glittery lights of San Fernando Valley at night.



At first glance the tile-roofed residence looks a little (too much) like Grandma's house for Your Mama's particular and persnickety taste in real estate. It ain't easy for us to get past the unnecessarily horrific white wrought iron fence of uneven heights that runs along the front of the property. When we do mange to squeeze our eyes past the ugly fencing, a closer inspection reveals an attempt to present a more modern edge on the front facade that's dominated by the odd coupling of a red Spanish tile roof and a smoked glass and aluminum garage doors.



An entry deck connects the driveway to the commercial-style smoked glass and aluminum front door, shaded by the overhang of a deep eave and roof projection with very post-modern circular detail that may or may not be a window (we're not sure). In order to get that sentence right, puppies, y'all must roll your eyes with self-righteous architectural disdain when you read the words "post-modern circular detail."



Anyhoo, the interior spaces of Miz White's domicile have been stripped down to an Armani Casa-like simplicity with prominently grained ebonized wood floors, large planes of gallery white walls and divisions between some rooms obliterated by opening up doorways to the full height of the ceiling. A chunky double-sided fireplace with veined black marble surrounds and hearths divides the living and dining rooms. Both room have extra-side wood-framed glass doors that slide open to a narrow wrap around deck with oblique view to the distant mountains at the northern end of the San Fernando Valley. A built-in wet-bar in the dining room should elate all the booze hounds like Your Mama who, rather than join the congregation of party guests in the kitchen looking for a snippet of sausage or hummus, gravitate towards to liquor cabinet for three fingers of gin.



The galley style kitchen has taupe-gray tile floors, traditional black raised panel cabinets somewhat successfully zhushed up with black paint, black and brown flecked granite counter tops and medium-grade stainless steel appliances. This is not what Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter with fifty grand to spend on a kitchen re-d0 but it ain't awful. It's certainly better than a faux-Tuscan extravaganza with a gigantic pot rack that drips with fake grapes, Chianti bottles and coppeer pots. For what it's worth–and it's not worth a goddam thing–we the kitchen day-core might be vastly improved by simply swapping the snooze of a rug shown in listing photo with some sort of antique Turkish kilim rug.



The master suite includes a good-sized bedroom with fireplace with granite surround, wood floors, two sets of French doors that lead to a private view deck, and two custom-fitted walk in closets, one with glass fronted shoe cabinets for displaying the Brian Atwoods and Jimmy Choos. The large but lackluster attached crapper has a lot of beige tile work, two sinks, separate shower and jetted tub and a wide-window with tree-top view.



A short stair connects a small lower level deck along the back of the house to an entertainment and lounging deck built around a narrow tree trunk. Additional features that a potential buyer might find enticing include a non-toxic paint on the walls, a finished 3-car attached garage with additional storage space, video surveillance security system, two-zone heating and cooling systems, water purification system, and an unfinished storage area that listing information suggests would make an ideal studio, gym or media room.



listing photos: Re/Max Execs

An Idea to Move the Market

Much thought and discussion went into the enactment and extension of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, and it clearly impacted the market, both while it was in effect, and after it expired. It moved sales for last year into the first half, and the immediate drop in activity and sales beginning last July proved that it motivated people to buy before it ran out.

Although I have my issues with that credit, both in terms of policy and in practice, there is no question that it made a difference while it was in effect, and that the market responded. It is also clear that the jump start that the government must have hoped that it would give to real estate did not occur, as sales fell off as soon as it was over. In retrospect, I think that the government was right in thinking that we needed that kind of stimulus, and I think we need to try again. After all, cash for clunkers helped the auto industry, the TARP money helped the financial industry, and real estate is still lagging. It is hard to imagine any real recovery taking place without our industry improving.

My problem with the first-time homebuyer credit was that it aimed at exactly the people who would buy in any type of market: those forming households; and renters with no homes to sell. One of the main problems with the current market is that it is stopped up, because sellers who can sell refuse to do so, because they feel that they are losing equity, even though that perceived equity may have been phantom gains.

In order to give an incentive for those who can to sell now, and to buy something else, I propose that the government offer a one-time tax credit for sellers who will lose equity when they sell, on the same terms and up to the same amount as the first-time credit. So, for example, someone who paid $200,000 for her house and now is selling for $180,000 could deduct up to $8000 on her tax bill this year. I believe that the market may now be ready for the jump start that such a program could provide, and that it would help even more than the last incentive, since it would both produce a supply of homes for others to buy, and sales for developers and other sellers when those people buy a new place to live. It's time for bold action, and helping the housing industry would be good for everyone.

What's a Compelling Price?

I have often been asked lately about pricing properties to sell quickly. Since things aren't selling quickly, and not much is selling at all, it's hard to know whether price is really the issue, and whether lowering it will change the outcome. We worry sometimes that, in advising people to lower their prices and get out and move on, we are helping to reduce prices across the whole market.

That's a hard question to answer. While we clearly have an influence on prices, ultimately we don't make sellers sell or, more importantly, buyers buy. So what we've come up with to explain the phenomenon is the "compelling" price. That may not be the highest price (most likely not), and isn't arrived at by figuring out what the property is worth. It's determined by figuring out the number needed to get other people to move, and move urgently.

Think about that in your own life. If you see a sale notice, you may glance at the prices in a flyer. Sometimes you look at one and decide to wait until the price goes lower, or the season ends, or something along those lines. Every once in a while, however, you look at an offer and just know that, if you don't act soon, you won't get whatever it is. That company has discovered the compelling price. Not necessarily the lowest price--that might raise doubts about quality or value--but a great incentive to buy.

So think about the real estate you know. Is it priced compellingly?

Not the Typical July

The weather surely signals that it's midsummer, but the slow start to the real estate year means that the dog days of summer have a little more life to them. We are still seeing new listings, new offers, and new sales. Our web hits doubled from May to June. There was a downward blip for the Fourth of July, and then they went up again. People are clearly thinking about buying and selling, even if every contract seems a long and tortuous process.

On that note, I was spending the weekend in Vermont last weekend with a friend from North Carolina. She was trying to close the sale of a commercial building, which she had sold already once and it had fallen through. She was in negotiations with the new buyer on the day before what was supposed to be the closing. Her husband was bemoaning her travails. I told him that MOST commercial contracts seem to fall apart at least once, and that it is, unfortunately, very common for the buyer to come back at the last minute and ask for concessions, often due to financing conditions. Even in residential, we have a number of contracts now that seem to have taken on a life of their own. They go on and on, with delays, threats, changes, grandstanding, and probably tears. I'm telling you this so you won't take it personally if it happens to you! Forewarned is forearmed.

Be Patriotic--Buy Some Real Estate

Happy Fourth of July! The front page of last Thursday's New York Times showed the results of a poll of Americans regarding their feelings about real estate. Not surprisingly, it indicated that a big majority of those polled believe that owning real estate is still the American dream, and that it would be their choice, even though those same people were more divided as to the safety of such an investment.

It used to be that almost everyone believed that buying a house was the best and safest thing to do with their money. Their faith in the second half of that statement has been shaken by the recent financial crisis, but the first half is undeniably still true. Even those who do not own homes believe in the mortgage deduction's importance, and hope that the primacy of real estate will remain steady.

That's good news for the future of the economy. While we realize that there is still work to be done in convincing people to put down their deposits and buy, it's clear that they wish to be convinced to act. It also seems true that they would be happy to find reasons to do so. When that's the case, it's important to find ways to get people off the fence. Once those who are not absolutely required to sell begin to do so, others will follow. The consumer confidence necessary for that isn't there right now. It's up to government, unfortunately, to find a way to make that so. Jobs have to be created, and the future needs to look a little brighter. But the underpinnings are there. The beliefs remain.

So this Fourth of July, while you are watching the fireworks and soaking up the sun, make plans to get out there soon and buy some real estate. It's the patriotic thing to do!