Why Plaza Condo Buyers Are Feeling Regret

Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photo: Peter Kramer/Getty Images

When Bob and Suzanne Chute of Naples, Florida, bought a three-bedroom spread at the Plaza in 2008, they seemed a little awed by their own daring, dropping $14 million on an apartment they’d never even seen. (“We are psyched, we are so psyched,” Bob, an entrepreneur, told the New York Times then.) The couple was charmed by the computer renderings of the views and, like a lot of buyers at the time, so dazzled by the opportunity to buy in such a famed building that they proceeded without much, if any, caution. “There was huge hype. People were very excited by the stature of the building and the wonderful location,” says a broker who sold some of the sponsor units after El Ad converted the hotel into condos in the mid-aughts. Such was the sales mania in those early days that the marketing team at the time reported working 17-hour days. The Chutes’ apartment, which has pretty Versailles-like paneling and views of Central Park and Fifth Avenue, is now listed for $13.9 million.

Downstairs, a three-bedroom on the ninth floor with Central Park views, a slicker renovation by Schoos Design, and a stylish art collection sold to an LLC for $14.375 million in 2008. It’s now listed for $14.15 million. Meanwhile, a four-bedroom duplex on the 19th floor with “one of the largest living rooms” at the Plaza, per the listing (it’s 1,000 square feet) and a gas-burning fireplace is trying for $15.9 million, a little more than the $15.1 million the owners paid in 2008. But it’s been listed since May. In 2008, the average Plaza condo sold for $3,726 per square foot, according to Mansion Global. The average price per square foot now is $3,836, according to an analysis by Urban Digs.

The prevailing wisdom is that you pretty much can’t make a bad real-estate investment in Manhattan. Plaza buyers might disagree. For many, owning an apartment at the fabled hotel has meant losing money or at best breaking even on resale. Sure, the condos were wildly overpriced at the start, but it’s been 15 years since sponsor sales started closing — years in which billionaires and oligarchs and other assorted LLCs set ever-higher Manhattan records in neighboring buildings like 432 Park and 220 Central Park South. These days, many sellers aren’t even trying to get more than they paid in 2008. “Everyone thinks their home is a palace, but at the end of the day, the market is the market and they become more realistic,” says a broker who has sold extensively in the building. So how did owning a condo in an iconic building in arguably the best location in New York City become such a terrible bet?

A photo of the living room, which is…