Two agents, 666 days on the market, and this Lower East Side penthouse still wouldn't sell. We read the market, restaged it properly, and after 666 days of nothing it went into contract in 20.

The problem wasn't the apartment, it was everything sitting on top of it: pumpkin-spice kitchen cabinets that made a fine kitchen look like a gut job, two dining tables marooned ten feet apart, and small cluttered pieces that shrank rooms with epic sunset views down to nothing.

Before we touched the space, we read the market and found something interesting: comps were selling with cribs still in them, a sign the area was not landing with families. So instead of staging for a family, we played to the neighborhood, turning the kids' room into a disco-themed guest suite built around Lower East Side nightlife. We cleared the clutter, set modern and collectible vintage pieces against oversized art, and carved a formal dining room with a bar out of an unused corner off the main entertaining space.

Every move answered something the data showed, and results followed soon after.