Better Living Properties pays $3.6M to Frank Wilson for residential walkup in East Village

Better Living Properties through the entity Asj Soudry, LLC paid $3.6 million to Frank Wilson through the entity 37 East 1st Street Trust for midblock 10-unit residential walkup building at 37 East 1st Street in East Village, Manhattan.
The deal closed on May 19, 2022 and was recorded on June 3, 2022. The property has 6,855 square feet of built space and 1,936 square feet of additional air rights for a total buildable of 8,800 square feet according to PincusCo analysis of city data. The sale price per built square foot is $528 and the price per buildable square foot is $411 per the PincusCo analysis. (The price per square foot analysis is the transaction price divided by square feet as reported in public records and assumes no air rights have been sold.)
The signatory for Frank Wilson was Frank Wilson. The signatory for Better Living Properties was Jonathan Soudry. Jonathan Soudry is with Better Living Properties.

Prior sales and revenue

Prior to this transaction, Pincusco has no record that the buyer Better Living Properties had purchased any other properties and has no record it sold any properties over the past 24 months.
The seller Frank Wilson had not purchased any other properties and had not sold any properties over the same time period. The former owners according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development includes Frankie Wilson, head officer and Irene Bokman, officer. The business entity is 37 East 1st Street Trust. The 6,855-square-foot property generated revenue of $222,906 or $33 per square foot, according to the most recent income and expense figures.

The property

The 37 East 1st Street parcel has frontage of 25 feet and is 89 feet deep with a total lot size of 2,200 square feet. The lot is irregular. The zoning is R8B which allows for up to 4 times floor area ratio (FAR) for residential. The city-designated market value for the property in 2022 is $1 million.

Violations and lawsuits

The property was involved in one lawsuit and zero bankruptcies over the past two years. The suit was a $3.9 million judgment concerning a contract filed on April 21, 2022, by Elliot Sohayegh against Frank Wilson. In addition, according to city public data, the property has received 18 housing violations and $600 in OATH penalties in the last year.

Development

There are no active new building construction projects or major alteration projects with initial costs more than $5 million on this tax lot.

The neighborhood

In East Village, the bulk, or 35 percent of the 19.3 million square feet of commercial built space are residential walkup buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 27 percent of the space. In sales, East Village has 2.1 times the average sales volume among other neighborhoods with $593.6 million in sales volume in the last two years and is the 21st highest in Manhattan. For development, East Village has had very little major development activity relative to other neighborhoods.It had 152,634 square feet of commercial and multi-family construction under development in the last two years, which represents 0.79 percent of the neighborhood’s built space. There were two pre-foreclosure suit filed among other residential walkup buildings in the past 12 months.

The block

On this tax block, PincusCo has identified the owners of six of the 10 commercial properties representing 33,154 square feet of the 69,545 square feet. The largest owner is Croman Real Estate, followed by Big Apple Properties and then Icon Realty Management. There is one active new building construction project totaling 16,366 square feet. It is a 10-unit, 16,366-square-foot R-2 building developed by Daniel Vislocky with plans filed April 8, 2019 and permitted January 8, 2021.

the majority, or 52 percent of the 90,816 square feet of built space are residential walkup buildings, with residential elevator buildings next occupying 24 percent of the space.

Surrounding

Within a 400-foot radius of 37 East 1st Street, PincusCo identified seven commercial real estate items of interests occurred over the past 24 months.
Of those seven items, one was in new building development. It was a new building permit issued on January 8, 2021 for a 16,366-square-foot R-2 building with 10 residential units at 14 Second Avenue.
One of those seven items was a sale which StorageMart bought the 52,497-square-foot, one-unit industrial (E7) on 28 2nd Avenue for $73 million from Edison Properties on December 29, 2021.
Of those seven items, five were loans above $5 million totaling $1.8 billion. The most recent of the five was East End Capital which borrowed $79.6 million from Fortress Investment Group secured by the 24,800-square-foot, one-unit retail building (J8) on 139 East Houston Street on April 8, 2022.

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