House of the Day: 714 Macon Street

These pictures were taken before the renovation. The floors are still not redone since properly refinishing ALL the wood work, skim coating the house and then painting and staining takes 5 weeks. Once that’s done the floors will be refinished. The new kitchen is in along with a new tiled floor. A gorgeous brand new half bath was installed. The laundry room was moved to the back of the house (small extension I usually find on brownstones) instead of the basement. The lay out was altered to a very open floor plan without tampering with any details (especially the tin ceiling which are in immaculate shape and run throughout the garden floors). As far as the duplex being a garden floor and parlor rather then a parlor and top floor, that was done because the garden floor has the amazing oven along with a built in ice box / fridge, tin ceiling and wood work etc. If you see the house you will understand why you can’t just fork that floor over to a tenant. As far as us altering the house to your needs that only regarding one room since it has a kitchen which can be converted into a master bath, huge closet or office. I like to give the buyer the option. Most would think that a master bath is the best option but I find that most of my brownstone buyers usually want to either use the houses as single families or want to use them as 3 families even though they aren’t supposed to. They make those changes after closing. Anyway if anyone has more questions of for more photos send an e-mail to ac@cactusrm.com

Thanks,
Adam

We like the garden duplex because we are the noisy ones with all the pets. Bedroom is downstairs. Living/kitchen in parlor. The tenants have their apartment door on the 3rd floor so we can share the hallway and see the lovely staircase. No deck at the moment. Maybe next year.

DIBS, that’s a nice solution and good point (appreciative tenant, higher price for garden rental, plus the privacy issue). I see some condos/coops where they divide the yard, so the garden has the front half, and the parlour/upper duplex has a deck which connects to a “hallway” that goes adjacent to the garden apt’s yard, leading to the back second half of the yard. That’s also a good solution to make everyone happy

tybur6,

Stability is a more important aspect of taxation than is the concept of “fairness.”

“Unfairness” is, unfortunately, a fundamental part of taxation. The “unfairness” develops in a variety of ways. One way it develops is from conflicts between the need for stability in existing taxation and the need to generate new tax money.

The financial benefit that NY would receive by your proposed drastic increase in townhouse real estate taxes can be (and has been) achieved in less harmful ways.

Take just one small example: the mansion tax. This enables NY to generate tax revenue on these very homes about which you complain. But instead of simply increasing yearly taxes (which would cause new unforseen hardship on home-owners) the money is paid at a less harmful time — upon the transfer of the property. It is less harmful because it is foreseen. “Foreseeable” relates to “stability.”

Of course, I chose the mansion tax example because it directly relates the the townhouse taxation issue you harp upon. But there are a myriad of examples of ways to generate new tax revenues while maintaining stability. The important point is that public policy favors stability.

In other words, the drastic tax increase you propose is a bad idea. For the sake of stability, it’s better to raise tax money in different ways.

Lovely house done by Henry Hill. This house would be easy to restore. This area is looking to be landmarked also…
http://www.stuyvesanteast.org/index.html