The development team at 136 Baxter – the conversion of the Machinery Exchange building located at the corner of Hester and Baxter streets – consisted of six men and one woman, Alexa Lambert. When Lambert laid eyes on the preliminary plans for the bathrooms, rife with dark wood and stone countertops, she politely said, “Ahem.”
“She said, ‘You need to lighten up the bathroom; it needs more femininity to it,” says Michael Chapman, an executive vice president with Stribling Marketing Associates, which is selling the 14-loft project.
The developers took her advice, and now the bathrooms in 136 Baxter are all clean lines, white glass and light limestone. The result?
“All of the women that we’ve had come through the building have related to the bathroom,” says Chapman.
Two apartments so far, including the penthouse, have been purchased by women.
As single women comprise a greater percentage of the buying market and married women continue to play a key role in the buying process, more buildings are getting in touch with their feminine sides. The reconceived bathroom at 136 Baxter is part of a trend that’s clearly on the rise – New York developers responding to what women want.
“I think the female buyer is the most powerful buyer in New York City real estate,” says Shaun Osher, CEO of Core Group Marketing.
For as long as the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has kept track, single women have made up the second-largest buying demographic nationwide. They are currently 20 percent of the market. That’s behind only “marrieds” and more than twice the number of single male buyers. And it looks as though this number will only climb.
“The population of successful professional working women is growing,” says Louise Sunshine, development director at Alexico, which is developing the Laurel and the Mark. “And wealthy women who are divorced, that’s a whole segment of the population that’s huge. There is so much new wealth created all over the world, and as divorces are becoming more prevalent, those who have gotten divorced are richer and can afford more real estate.”
And that’s just single women. The percentage of married women who make the ultimate apartment-buying decision for the couple is impossible to track, but word on the street says the number is quite high.
“From my 22 years of experience, 90 percent of the time, the women make the decisions for couples,” says Jeannie Woodbrey, director of sales at the Laurel. “I think the women go out and discover the properties. I personally think women are better multi-taskers; they’ll research the listings for the couples.”
Ninety percent sounds a bit high, but if married women end up choosing their apartments even just half of the time, that still places women in the clear decision-making majority overall.
And it’s how they’re making these decisions that really matters.
“If I walk a couple [through an apartment], the women are scouring the apartment for intricate details,” says Melissa Cohen, sales director of 88 Greenwich, where 40 percent of buyers have been single women. “The men go right to the window.”
It’s no surprise, then, that developers and designers are bending over backward to please female buyers.
“We have a number of projects where in designing them, I felt that it was the woman who was going to make the buy,” says Nancy Ruddy of architecture firm Cetra/Ruddy.
Women are now affecting how projects are conceived and constructed, which finishes are chosen and what amenities are offered.
“At the Mark, we very much respected the needs of the woman by putting in the Frederic Fekkai Salon and Spa. And we will not only be delivering those services in the spa and salon but also to the suites, because so many women require last-minute hairdos, mani and pedis or massages before they go out for the evening,” says Sunshine.
“And I know Sant Ambroeus [located right next to the Mark; there will eventually be an entrance through the Mark’s lobby] is creating a menu that is light and nutritious, the kind of menu that every woman will want.”
But beyond frills like manis, pedis and a light dinner (it’s a stereotype because it’s so often true, folks), what other accoutrements carry weight with home-hunting women?
Cetra/Ruddy’s various projects – including 141 Fifth Ave., 305 E. 85th St. and the Barbizon – feature pot-fillers over the stoves (so large, heavy kettles can be filled with water without having to carry them from sink to stove); appliance garages (which keep toasters and coffee makers out of sight on the counters); laundry rooms (not with stackable washer dryers, but with units that sit side-by-side for larger capacity and room to hang clothing); and powder rooms in every apartment, even the small one-bedrooms.
“Women respond to that,” says Ruddy. “They can have a friend over or a party without the guests having to use the master bathroom.”
Ruddy is right. For Anita Silverstone, an art agent who is moving cross-country from Seattle into 75 Wall, the inclusion of a powder room ultimately helped her make her decision.
“It’s a real advantage to have that guest bath so people aren’t tromping in and out of your bathroom,” she says.
Design flaws are just as detrimental as perks are key.
When Edith Olanoff, who recently purchased a $2.5 million two-bedroom in the Laurel, was looking for her apartment, she saw one building with windows . . . in the pantry.
“It’s really nice to have a lit pantry, but if you had to make a choice between a bathroom window and a pantry window, I would have put a powder room in that area,” she says.
But not every design issue is a deal-breaker. Sometimes when a developer can’t fully please a female buyer, the buyer decides to please herself.
“It was exactly what I wanted,” says Olanoff, president of Contact, a satellite and broadcast service provider, about her new home at the Laurel. “I knew where I wanted to live, on the Upper East Side. I was looking for two to three bedrooms … I needed a building that was full-service.”
And yet, “Every kitchen needs a pantry,” she adds. “I don’t have one, so I’m going to have to rip down a wall to put in a pantry, then put the wall back up. But then I’m losing counter space, so I’m adding that counter space to the other side of the kitchen.”
The lesson being, it’s the attention to detail and a sensible layout that’s of the biggest concern. Those buildings that attempt to woo women with visions (in the form of renderings) of the type of life they might lead if only they buy in their building need to learn that it takes a lot more than that to get a woman to the closing table.
“There were moments that I realized some of the marketing [many buildings are] using, the sales packages, were very ‘Sex and the City,'” says Anastasia Griffith, who recently purchased a one-bedroom apartment in Williamsburg’s 80 Metropolitan. “These women in killer heels are walking through the atrium, but my life is never going to be like that.”