Greenwich Village townhouse prices are now rivaling the Upper East Side's. In January, 23 Perry Street sold for $11,650,000 or about $3,350/SF. I have witnessed a trend where many uptown buyers are coming downtown to live and paying equivalent dollars to do so.
23 Perry is a 19' wide, 4-story, completely renovated townhouse with about 3,500 square feet. According to StreetEasy, the house, which was published in Town & Country, has 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4 fireplaces, an elevator, a pool, and a landscaped garden wired for sound. This sale, on a price per square foot basis, was on par with the top Upper East Side townhouse sales.
However, the Upper East Side top townhouse sales still far surpass the Village in total dollars. The New York townhouse record was set in 2006 when investment banker J. Christopher Flowers bought the Harkness Mansion at 4 East 75th Street, off Fifth Avenue, for $53 million. At over 16,000 square feet, this sale amounted to about $3,300/SF, which was equivalent to 23 Perry. But when looking at the total price paid, this sale occurred at more than $15 million above the 2007 Village record set at 11-13 West 10th Street, a 55' double-wide townhouse.
The obvious reason for this discrepancy is that townhouses on the Upper East Side tend to be much larger. Case in point is the 33'-wide Vanderbilt mansion at 16 East 69th Street. The Real Deal just reported that the 12,000 square foot mansion is in contract for over $47 million to Johnson & Johnson heiress Libet Johnson. According to Jonathan Miller, "This is the highest reported residential sale of any type this year, and it would be the highest Manhattan townhouse sale since 2008 pre-Lehman." This sale will raise the bar considerably at close to $4,000/SF.
This sale will look like a bargain if The Henry T. Sloane Mansion on 54 East 68th St. sells for anywhere close to its $64 million asking price. According to the Daily News, the 15-bedroom townhouse features a ballroom, marble staircase, rooftop garden, seven fireplaces, and an elevator. ACRIS calls the house 7,912 SF, so the asking price would be equivalent to $8,000/SF.
It's my belief that there is still considerably more upside in townhouses, as their prices per square foot are still well below the most elite condos. This is most clearly demonstrated at 15 CPW, which has set the watermark at $10,000/SF. Granted, condos of this quality offer all of the amenities one could imagine and an entirely different type of lifestyle, but many prefer the privacy of a townhouse at a third of the price.