The other day I looked at what things were selling for in and around Mount Morris Park, so I figured I’d do the same thing for West Harlem (Sugar Hill & Hamilton Heights). I did a radius around a friend’s place in the middle of the historic districts up there and what I found was that prices per square foot just aren’t as high in West Harlem as they are around Mount Morris Park.
| Square Feet | $/Sq. Ft. | ||||||
| Address | Date | Price | Official | Actual | Official | Actual | Class |
| 406 W 146 | 27-Aug-10 | $526,050 | 4,510 | 4,250 | $117 | $124 | C0 |
| 410 Convent | 21-Dec-10 | $1,450,000 | 3,328 | 3,328 | $436 | $436 | B1 |
| 413 W 148 | 30-Dec-10 | $1,120,000 | 4,760 | 4,400 | $235 | $255 | B1 |
| 761 St Nic | 16-Nov-10 | $707,500 | 5,673 | 5,400 | $125 | $131 | C5 |
| 466 W 144 | 01-Oct-10 | $2,000,000 | 5,895 | 5,775 | $339 | $346 | B1 |
| 197 E’combe | 06-Oct-10 | $923,793 | 2,802 | 3,334 | $330 | $277 | C5 |
| 423 W 141 | 18-Nov-10 | $1,100,000 | 3,440 | 3,150 | $320 | $349 | C0 |
| 515 W 152 | 31-Jan-11 | $610,000 | 3,764 | 3,871 | $162 | $158 | B3 |
| 524 W 140 | 15-Dec-10 | $920,000 | 2,825 | 2,430 | $326 | $379 | C3 |
| 102 E’combe | 01-Oct-10 | $525,000 | 3,790 | 3,400 | $139 | $154 | A9 |
Red lines are 1 and 2 family. Blue is 3 family. Black is 4+ family & SROs.
There are fewer sales to work off of, and none of the shells were in as bad shape as the ones near Mount Morris (the West Harlem shells all had windows), so it’s hard to do an exact comparison. Also, some of the sales on the list had odd histories with auctions and lis pendens just before the last sale – I’m not sure they’re good comps since other things may have been in play on those sales.
Regardless, while one sale did hit $2M, what you’ll notice is that the price per square foot for that sale was only mid-$300s/sq. ft. – about $100/sq. ft. lower than in Central/South Harlem. Only one sale got above $400/sq. ft.
When I did the same analysis 5 months ago I saw the same trend – West Harlem prices just aren’t as high on the high end – which leads me to the same conclusion – West Harlem is a great place if you want to pay a bit less for well-kept house. That’s also consistent with the low prices in South Washington Heights – just north of Sugar Hill.
The other conclusion is that because there’s less of a gap between shells and the high end there’s less opportunity to make money renovating a shell in West Harlem than further south.
Hi Jay! We were checking out the 104 E’combe yesterday(too bad its already in contract)and it turned out the new owner of 102 E’combe had a “house worming party”. Very, very nice man and the renovation he did was pretty cool and colorful:)
It is such an inspiration to see the final product and get idea of the “before and after” result.
Wish you great day and thanks for writing the blog!