House of the Day: 10% Off at 450 8th Street

easy answer: people selling manhattan condos or smaller Brooklyn houses and trading up.

is 450 8th really btw 8th and PPW? thought that was a 600 block

The listing is between 7th & 8th avenues. The house next door (452 8th Street) just went into contract. The original price was also $2.2, it got dropped to $1.9 million after about a week. It was also a Cororan listing. Compare to its neighbor, this place looks like a total wreck. I would really love to know the contract price for 852 becasue it would set a real benchmark for this place. Is the prospective buyer out there? can you help us out.

Despite the state of shabbiness, I love the location and the size and would buy it is a heartbeat ... if ... the seller would accept $1.6million. Seller, what do you say?

I think it is a broker by broker issue. I once interviewed Corcoran for a co-op listing and was told to list it lower that I wanted because a lower price would generate interest aka bidding war. A friend was told the opposite, list it high and if there are no offers after 1 or 2 weeks reduce price by 10% so that potential buyers think that they are getting a deal.

I dont think we should blame brokers if a house does not sell. The way I see it if a house is in good shape and reasonably priced it will sell. Sellers are the ones who ultimately set the price so if a house is on the market for a while without "serious" offers then it means that the house is either in really bad shape and/or is priced too high. The problem is "seller resolve" not the broker.

also, I am not a broker.

This house is horrific for close to 2mm bucks. i think they need another 10-20% easy. if these pics are best pics... just imagine the rest.

Totally agree with anon 1:14.

If the broker sets the price, yes blame the broker. For the person who said they are not a broker, there are comparable sales figures that brokers can look at. You just know when a house is grossly overpriced like this one. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I know brokers who don't take listings because they are overpriced and I have to agree, most go to Corcoran and are terribly disappointed.

What, no discount for the condition of the house?

In resposne to the first poster, the average Wall Street salary was about $290K in 2005 and is expected to increase 15% this year. That average includes CEOs down to secrataries. Assume your average VP makes $500K+. Standard old day forumula was to buy a house = to 4.0x your salary. 4 * $500K = $2.0 million.

The truth is that there ARE a lot of people in NYC nowadays with tons of cash -- they work in finance, law, management consulting, advertising, medicine, etc. So that's who has money for these types of real estate prices. NYC is turning into one of those trophy cities where the middle class gets pushed out, leaving behind only the poor to provide services to the rich. I make $250k and in this context, I'm far from rich.

There are many routes to a property priced at over $1MM. Not everyone moves from a rental to a brownstone. We had been in the market ten years when we bought ours and over that time grew our original downpayment from about $80K to $250K. During that time we amassed savings of a bit more than $150K and borrowed the rest for a purchase price of $1.3MM. We also rent out a floor. Before the mortgage interest allowance is factored in, but after rental income, we have a monthly nut of $3500. Still a lot of money but do-able for two professionals. And we have enough space to live here for the rest of our lives. That's our story but there are countless others. It's a fallacy to think everyone buying a brownstone is a Wall St millionnaire.

Okay BHS brokers, enuf already with the postings about how great u r and how lame the big C is. We get it. You love yourselves, you really, really love yourselves. Not that the big C doesn't overprice, but still.

I bought a co-op in 1996, sold it for around $400K in 2002 to buy a brownstone that cost, with renovations, about 700K or so. Of course, if I had waited until now to buy it, it would cost more -- it is probably worth about $1.2M now -- but my old co-op would sell for around $700K today. I might have a bigger mortgage if I bought today, but I could afford it -- buying the apartment early was the key. And no, I don't have close to a Wall Street salary.

Holy crap...People here talk about making 250K, 300K, 190K....
This truly is a city of filthy rich sons of bitches.

Don't hate the player, hate the game

Those of us who make lots of money sacrifice a lot to do so, are smarter than you, and have had a few lucky breaks along the way.

If I wanted to pursue something artistic or non-profit oriented, I'd move somewhere cheap outside the city.

Stop complaining.

The reason why the rich folks are coming to Bklyn is because of the poor artists who have made these nabes cool. So as you price them out you better get used to a lot of sneering along them way.

Being "artistic" is hardly the descriptive underlying reason for the migration path in my observations. It's more where the "young"/"younger" people are moving to... i.e. graduate from hs, college, find your friends got a "cheap" place "where ever", they said to come join them, they gather together after work/weekends, local people noticed something different, friends talk to other friends, those friends talk to their still in school/out of state, they come & join in, and then all hell breaks with "die hipsters, die!"

"Assume your average VP makes $500K+. "
Not true for all Wall Street. At my company VP's don't make anything like that. It's the Senior VP's or Directors that are making that much, or more.

^^^^ agree
You need to be a favored VP or better at a bulge bracket firm, of which there are only six, AND get the bonuses you're shooting for to clear 500k before taxes

This market is built up by its own bootstraps, not by people who can burn $12k+ per month before tax on mortgage, taxes and expenses.

I was able to afford my place by not spending any money on clothes or food. I weigh only 23lbs and dress in a barrel but I do have my down payment ready for when the prices drop.

Wife and me are both junior VPs in Investment Banks. Together we make 400k a year and pay seems to be rising going forward.

It is nonsense that every VP in IB makes 500k+. VP is not VP. Big difference if you are a VP in trading or in M&A or middle office or in technology.

The pay is extremely tilted to MD and the higher up. I would really like to know the median and not the average pay on Wall St. I wouldn't be suprised if the median is much less than the quoted 290k average.

Even if 400k after taxes and other expenses, we would be able to carry maybe up to 6k in mortgage NOW, but we would need to able to carry it for at least the next 10years. The next hic-up on Wall St will happen, but nobody knows when. It would dangerous in my eyes to do this it this point. Wall St is a very volatile place.

When people with money moved from the cities to the suburbs, they were despised for it. Now that people with money choose to stay in the city, they're despised for that too. I guess the only honorable thing they can do is give their money away to all the rest of us, and then kill themselves.