The Penthouse at 975 Memorial Drive was recently reported as the most expensive for sale condominium listing in Cambridge. The asking price, however, wasn’t high enough. Like every other condo that sells in Cambridge, the highest price condo on the market sold for over asking, way over asking.
The 2,170 square foot Charles Square residence hit the market at $6 million about a month ago. And, if the three bedroom, three-and-a-half bathroom home had received an offer for just the asking price, it would have easily become the highest MLS listed sale in Cambridge condo history, about 40% more than the $4.25 million paid for its neighbor, 975 Memorial Drive #1008, which was about twice its size. Instead, just 19 days after coming to market, 975 Memorial Drive #1105 closed for an astounding $7.1 million, $1.1 million more than asking. Incredible!
The $3,272 per square foot the residence garnered is also amazing. Previously, the most valuable square feet in Cambridge sold at $1,831 per square foot, about half the rate paid for square feet at this Harvard Square penthouse. Heck, the much ballyhooed Millennium Tower penthouse, the most expensive condominium ever put up for sale in Greater Boston (currently under agreement), was offered at only $3,000 per square foot, about 10% less than Harvard Square.
The listing agent, Bonny Lamb of Hammond, confirmed that outside of what had been described on MLS “nothing extra” had been included in the sale to cause the luxury condo to go so far over ask, but Lamb refused to disclose anything else about the sale.
What made #1105 so worthy of such a sale?
A few things:
The listing remarks call the location “Harvard Square’s Premier Address.”
The property is a full service building and attracts luxury buyers.
#1105’s position in the building is so good that the building’s developer, Richard Friedman, kept the condo for himself before selling it in 2011 for $3,450,000.
The condition was described as “exquisitely renovated.”
It sure sounds like a great condominium, a special one. But sales like this aren’t about the residence, they’re about the market. Plenty of incredible residences have sold without the buyer paying $1.1 million more than the list price. Plenty.
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From the above linked post: “I suppose somebody had to do it. Somebody had to come out and make an offer so bold, so far over-ask, it was sure to announce to the Boston residential real estate community, “I am the king or queen of the over-ask world.” I bow to you, 66 Sparks buyer…”