Over at the tony but troubled Millennium Tower, time is standing still. The building hasn’t sold a single condo since August 1, and no present owner has listed a condo since then either.
There’s really no practical reason why the high-rise’s woes should hurt the appeal of any of the homes inside: The building is almost certainly not in any danger of collapse—barring the same earthquake concerns we all share—and although the fixes and lawsuits will be expensive, that won’t affect the building’s residents.
The tilting structure’s most immediate problem is public perception—one of the hardest things to change. The folks getting the worst of it are the luckless owners who were already trying to sell when the news broke. How are they holding up? Well, take a look at their listings:
#502:
The city’s most expensive one-bedroom home briefly delisted, then reappeared ten days later with $200,000 off the price, now asking $3.6 million.
#6D:
At under 800 feet, this is the Millennium Tower’s equivalent of an affordable micro-unit. Just before the bad news it chipped off $45,000 from the price, then in August it went for broke and cut back another $60,000 to $975,000 in all, a rare sub-million listing for the building.
#27E:
It took less than a week for this corner unit to drop nearly $200,000, down to $2.3 million. All told, the combined amount of money taken out of Millennium Tower list prices over the past month could pay for a top of the line condo in another building.
#19A:
And this one dropped its price so far that it fell off the market entirely. Asking $1.7 million a month ago, it’s since thrown in the towel and delisted. That might not necessarily have had anything to do with the building’s bad publicity, but it had to at least have crossed the owner’s mind.
Some units have pulled a disappearing act, briefly delisting and then appearing again a few days later. Others, like this one, vanish altogether
#48B:
Same story with this corner unit, now biding its time off the market. Again, we can only speculate that owners are pulling their listings for fear that buyers are skittish of the building’s declining stature. It’ll be more telling to see when or if some of these condos ever return with new offers.
#34E:
And some listings just don’t care. This one is staying the course: No price cuts, no disappearing acts, no shenanigans, at least for now. It was $2.59 million before the problems started and it still is. A little stability in a building that perhaps needs it right about now.
#24H:
Here’s the latest MLS listed Millennium Tower home to actually sell—on July 27, five days before the headline that’s caused so much headache for residents. The $1.12 million price was nearly $50,000 over asking.