CARNEGIE HALL
115 E. 86th St.

One-bedroom co-op
Asking price: $699,000
Selling price: $685,000
Time on market: 2 1/2 months

SMART VIEW Perhaps the only drawback to this third-floor apartment, located in a pre-war East Side building, is what a Halstead broker, Ann Bialek, conceded is its “natural-light challenged” view. But the space and the neighborhood more than compensated, Ms. Bialek, who represented the seller, said. “A smart person came in and knew the value of the apartment,” the broker said.The buyer is a lawyer. At more than 850 square feet, the apartment has a lovely renovated kitchen and wood floors. The seller, a lawyer in her 30s, moved to Europe with her husband and had worked with Ms. Bialek when she bought the property back in 2000.

NORTHWEST CHELSEA
36 W. 35th St.

Two-bedroom co-op
Asking price: $795,000
Selling price: $710,000
Time on market: 3 months

NO MAN’S LAND When a broker at Halstead, Alan Pfeifer, began to prepare this 800-square-foot duplex for sale, he faced an immediate challenge. “It’s actually no man’s land. There’s no name for the location,” Mr. Pfeifer, who represented the seller, said.

So the broker coined a name for the neighborhood: Northwest Chelsea. Still, Mr. Pfeifer said, the location — with its almost finished terrace, “somewhat renovated” kitchen, and proximity to Macy’s and several subway lines — was teeming with potential for a creative buyer.

“I think she has some ideas,” Mr. Pfeifer said of the buyer, a middle-aged independent investor.

With a spiral staircase and charming red brick wall, the duplex, between Fifth and Sixth avenues, was the seller’s first apartment. He moved into another apartment he owns uptown.

CHELSEA
365 W. 20th St.

One-bedroom co-op
Asking price: $439,000
Selling price: $441,000
Time on market: 6 months

CHOOSY BUYER The woman who eventually bought this property is “extremely meticulous,” her broker, Isaac Halpern of Halstead, said. She wasn’t going to settle for just any place. A 20-something who works in finance in New Jersey, the buyer had backed out of two previous deals, Mr. Halpern said, after she began to worry she was paying too much for them. After a previous bid fell through, the broker advised his client to bid just slightly more than the asking price, and she was able to purchase this apartment.

The 528-square-foot co-op, with its rooftop terrace, part-time doorman, view of Ninth Avenue, and elegant hardwood floors, helped sweeten the deal.

“It had a lot of character,” Mr. Halpern said. A converted long-term, pre-war hotel, the building has beam ceilings and many of the original door handles from its art deco construction.

The seller, a recent graduate of New York University Law School, planned to move to California after the sale, his broker, Andy Pellot of J.C. DeNiro, said.