1) Turns out not a lot of doctors want to buy offices on Park Avenue these days, which means it's time for their owners to try putting them on the market as luxury residential maisonettes instead. Like the 4,500-square-foot office at 927 Fifth Avenue that's now on the market for $9.9 million (original price: $15M), these places are often cheaper than the already-converted co-ops upstairs. And hey, at 927 Fifth, residential renderings are included! ['Park Avenue Appeal Dims for Doctors'/WSJ]
2) There are sales updates on 650 Sixth Avenue The Cammeyer and 141 Fifth Avenue in this column on the residential transformation of Ladies' Mile. At the Cammeyer, 10 contracts have been signed, with another handful pending, for $845,000-$3.25 million. At 141 Fifth, only the penthouse and a few other apartments have yet to sell. [Posting/'New Housing Comes to Ladies' Mile']
3) After 20 years in a Kips Bay railroad rental, this week's hunters started looking for a Brooklyn prewar for $500K-$700K, with two bedrooms and space for one hunter's drum set. After backing out of a few deals and ensuring that their 11-year-old son will never go into real estate, they paid $525,000 for a 3BR with a 600-square-foot backyard in Greenwood Heights. [The Hunt/'A Particularly Suitable Apartment in Brooklyn']
4) In a story on estate sales, the Times tracks down the 1992 buyer of Freddie Mercury's Sutton Place apartment. Says the buyer, "What was creepy...was not that he had died, but how he had decorated the place": with silver metallic curtains, an all-black kitchen, and a chandelier from the '50s. Terrifying stuff! Explains the total de-Mercuryzation. ['Why Estate Sales in New York Aren't for Everyone']