Rupert Murdoch’s One Madison unit recently topped Manhattan’s luxury contracts, but the condo traded at a $2.5 million loss. Unit 57A, which asked $16 million, sold for $12.5 million, public records filed Monday show. The sale came in $3.5 million below ask and $2.5 million less than the $15 million the media mogul paid for it in 2014. [Source: TRD]
The three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom unit spans over 3,000 square feet. Its one of two Murdoch bought in 23 East 22nd Street, a luxury residential property developed by the Related Companies and HFZ Capital Group.
Murdoch bought Unit 57A mainly for staff and guests to reside one floor below a penthouse built out to his specifications. The larger unit, a triplex occupying the tower’s 58th, 59th and 60th floors, is also up for grabs, asking $58 million.
Murdoch paid about $57.9 million for the two apartments in 2014. When they were first put on the market, the two units asked a combined $78 million, with the triplex asking $62 million and the smaller unit asking $16 million. The unit was the priciest on Olshan Realty’s weekly report on contracts for Manhattan homes asking $4 million or more.
It wasn’t Murdoch’s first chart-topping real estate deal. In December 2021, he and his then-wife supermodel Jerry Hall paid the founder of Koch Industries $200 million for a Montana ranch. The couple’s purchase of the property, which is home to 12,000 cattle, marked the biggest such sale in the state’s history.
The Murdoch family also owns a ranch in California and a roughly 25,000-acre sheep and cattle farm in Australia. In 2013, Murdoch purchased an estate and winery in Los Angeles’ Bel-Air neighborhood. Manhattan’s luxury market picked up in October after hitting a slump in late September. Olshan Realty’s report marked 30 signed contracts in the week of Oct. 17 to 21 — the highest total since the 39 recorded in early May. [Source: TRD]
