One57 Foreclosure Shatters Price Dreams at Billionaires' Tower
- Penthouse sale at $36 million was 29% less than 2014 price
- Auction price sends a message to resellers expecting a profit
The One57 skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan.
Photographer: Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images
When a full-floor penthouse at Manhattan’s One57 sold at a foreclosure auction, it didn’t just settle an international mortgage gone bad. The deal also set a new price standard for the Billionaires’ Row tower that once stood as a symbol of unlimited extravagance.
The 6,240-square-foot condo spanning the skyscraper’s 79th floor sold for $36 million last week to an unidentified buyer, the highest of five bidders in addition to the lender. The price was 29 percent less than the $50.9 million that Nigerian businessman Kolawole Akanni Aluko paid for the apartment when he bought it new in 2014.