CHELSEA

236 W. 16th St.
5-story walkup apartment building
Asking price: $3.5 million
Selling price: $3.25 million
Time on the market: X month

WEST SIDE BUZZ Real estate prices have been climbing recently in relatively undervalued west Chelsea, said Brendan Gotch, an associate to James Nelson, a partner at Massey Knakal who was the sole broker in the sale of this residential building on the south side of a residential stretch of 16th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. The five-story property, at 27 feet by 93 feet, has 20 residential units with an average rent of $1,137 a month – only 65% of market value. “It’s almost entirely rent-stabilized, with some rent control,” said Mr. Gotch. To get the full value of the rental units, the new owner, a Manhattan investor with several properties, could buy out the occupants and install new tenants at market-rate rents, Mr. Gotch said. The apartments need quite a bit of renovating, the broker said. “Rent regulation doesn’t really give the owner any incentive to do any upgrades.”

The seller, also a real estate investor with other properties, “benefited from the upswing Chelsea has seen,” Mr. Gotch said, adding that the area is still a better value than nearby Greenwich Village.

“The reality of the situation now in Chelsea is we’re seeing that on the far West Side, things are getting more valuable as a result of the High Line project; it’s that kind of thing and a lot of the development along Seventh Avenue that is buoying the rest of Chelsea. Five or 10 years ago, nobody wanted to live there,” he said.

TUDOR CITY

324 E. 41st St.
2-bedroom, 2-bath cooperative
Asking price: $725,000
Selling price: $750,000
Monthly cost: $2,038
Time on the market: 1 week

RARE FIND This ninth-floor corner coop was sold for $25,000 above the asking price in its first day on the market amid a flurry of offers, said Dwelling Quest’s Cindy Gise, who represented both the buyer and the seller.

The apartment is in Haddon Hall in Tudor City, a sought-after neighborhood between 41st and 43rd streets in a cul-de-sac near the United Nations. “It’s in one of the Three H’s,” Ms. Gise said, referring to Tudor City’s brick English-style Haddon and Hardwicke Halls and Hatfield House, built in the late 1920s. “Haddon and Hardwicke have the two-bedrooms,” she said.

Haddon House has a full-time doorman and an elevator, as well as storage and laundry; nearby is Tudor City Park and the upscale restaurant L’Impero.

At 1,200 square feet, the apartment has north west and south exposures, ample closets, and has been totally renovated. “It’s in very good condition,” Ms. Gise said. “It has two full bathrooms and the floors have been redone, but it still has the prewar molding.”

The buyer, a high-profile newsman who is single and moving from a rental in the city, “is going to do a bit of renovation,” the broker said. “He has his own taste.”

The seller “was bursting out of the place” with a wife, a toddler, and twins, Ms. Gise said. “They left the city for the ‘burbs.”

It took a week to complete the paperwork.