House of the Day: 643 Jefferson Avenue

oops! posted this on the sty hgts thread but it belongs here:I saw this house when Brownstoner first featured it about 5 months ago. It needs a total gut rehab. I'm usually pretty low on estimates of these kinds because I am a die hard do it yourselfer, and would never spend the amounts of money usually tossed around here, so if I think $300k is low, there is a lot of work to be done. Make that $500-$800K. All of that wonderful woodwork, architectural detail and the great built-in that's still there need to be labelled and removed so that the entire house can be rebuilt. Aside from the aforementioned period goodies, the rest of the house is too far gone to even work with. Floors and ceilings too water damaged to repair, as are the walls. Fortunately the place has been emptied of all furniture, junk, old rooming house kitchens, and bathrooms, so you can really get a good idea of the enormity of the job.

Having said that, it could be an absolutely wonderful house. I think that the opportunity to totally rebuild and upgrade and then reinstall that great period detail would result in the best of the 19th and 21st centuries. If I remember correctly, you might have to get some new mantlepieces, but there is a complete oak butler's pantry and icebox on the ground floor, a wonderful built in cabinet/china closet on the parlour floor, and lots of great woodwork. I would also want to salvage a set of beautiful plaster corbels in the master bedroom. I think there was a clawfoot tub still there too. This is the kind of property that used to be pretty easily available in parts of Bed Stuy for a song. I have a friend who was picking them up 10 years ago for around $200 - $300K. When I was at the open house, I ended up walking around the house with a couple of contractors/investors who wouldn't pay over $500K. Corcoran is out of their mind on this one. The property is steps away from the historic district, and is on a very nice block, but they are obviously having a hard time selling this for the same price as other houses in the same area that one could at least move into and work on. This one is totally uninhabitable. The plastic on the window is there for good reason.

Aw, anon 1:20, I'm not that tough! However, I am a woman who knows how to use a reciprocal saw, so watch it! ;)

My high end estimate was for the full monty - super duper kitchen appliances and furnishings, top of the line heating and central air, (now's the time one could add radiant floor heating) new roof, foundation work, entirely new plumbing top to bottom, and brand new electrical systems with cable/wireless, etc. I would also want the woodwork and period details stripped, restored, repaired, replicated where necessary, and reinstalled. That's not cheap, either. Then there's all of the finishing work, hardware, lighting and plumbing fixtures, tile, bathroom appliances, etc, etc. I would want plastered walls, not sheetrock. Let's toss in any facade and back building work, new windows and a decent backyard. New furniture, too. Assuming the homeowner does very little of it him/herself, I can see all of that really adding up to $800K, easily.

Now, if it was me, I like to think I'd bring it in around half of that, as there would be a lot of sweat equity on my part, and some creative solutions for many other things. I also am not interested in top of the line kitchen appliances or whirlpool Jacuzzis either. One could certainly get a lot done with $300K, so I'm not sneering at it, I just think in this case, it's a bit low, unless you are an experienced renovator/restorer, something most people on this board are not.