Inside Third & Bond: Week 167

Today the Third & Bond bloggers emerge from a long winter’s nap…Howdy friends, fans, and foes of Third + Bond. For the last couple of months, we’ve been mum on Brownstoner because we’ve been occupied with punch lists, sales, and getting temporary certificates of occupancy (TCOs). But for those of you wanting to see this behind the scenes real estate development through to the finish line, as we do, we wanted to bring you an update. We’ll continue with updates, although irregularly no posts about paint drying up to the end. Before we close the book on ‘Inside Third + Bond’ we’ll post about coordinating move-ins (started last week!), transitioning the building over to the property manager, procuring end loans, and getting to the magic 51% pre-sold, as well as lessons learned. Maybe we’ll even let you know about our next Brooklyn project…

January has been a very busy month. We got all 8 TCOs an exhausting journey too boring to go through in detail. (Lucky you.) We transferred responsibility for the building from Kiska to the property management company, Lisa Management. We finished up 98% of the punch list. We did a dozen buyer punch list walk throughs. And most exciting: buyers became owners, moving into Third + Bond.

Our first closing was the week of the 23rd and the buyer moved in the day of the snowstorm (and the photo above). No joke, her dad stood shivering against the building to direct the moving guys while she unpacked her newly purchased CB2 glasses and put them into her new dishwasher in her new condo. It was a pleasant domestic scene. Hope they tipped the movers well!

We expected open house traffic would pick up after the New Year and we predicted several offers would come in once we had TCO. Both have been true. We’ve seen a significant uptick in open house traffic. In the last week we’ve received 4 new offers. We are approaching 45% sold, which is just 3 units shy of 51%. While we have a few contracts that are waiting out the 51% mark, we also have end loan providers who are willing to close with Fannie Mae terms before we are at the 51% pre-sale requirement. After reviewing where we’re at with sales we decided to raise prices. (Can’t wait to see the outrage in the comments!) The first mover prices are running out it’s an investment basic, more risk, more reward.

We still do double-takes when we run into a condo owner in the hallway. It’s true: there are adults hanging flat screen t.v.s and angling the couch just so, kids lining up their toys on window sills, newspaper carriers dropping off the New York Times, and friends dropping by with champagne. This project, which began with a couple of industrial buildings and vacant lots, is now a place people call home.

Now if we can just sell the rest of the units!

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Our legal fine print: The complete offering terms are in an Offering Plan available from Sponsor. File No. CD080490. Sponsor: Hudson Third LLC, 826 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.