The strongest performing sector of the real estate market recently has been for super-premium properties, and continued demand is forcing the super-rich to resort to buying nondescript Fifth Avenue mansions, even when they're fixer uppers and have to pay above asking. See 815 Fifth Avenue, a former Italianate mansion on Fifth Avenue at 63rd Street—former Italianate because it has been stripped of most of its ornamentation in the 1920s; and former mansion because it has more recently been converted to a dozen offices and apartments. The facade of 815 is rather boring looking, but the interior contains a lot of original features that prospective buyers hope to restore and elaborate on while turning it back into an opulent single family home. The asking price is $25 million, but a sealed bid auction with interested parties from Brazil, China, Russia, and the U.S. is expected to garner a selling price above $40 million, according to the WSJ. The bid deadline for the auction is Tuesday at noon. Single occupancy mansions are fairly rare along Fifth Avenue, where many have been converted to museums or other cultural institutions. It's nothing like the good old days, when you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a mega-mansion along the park.
· Ultra-Luxury Market Shows Strong Gains [WSJ]
· Looking Back at Manhattan's Lost Gilded Age Mansions [CurbedNY]
Filed under:
Loading comments...