House of the Day: 348 Clermont Avenue Shell

how does a building even get like that?

Cash only.. That crazy!! The current owner hasnt had the building a year and he wants to pocket $300K?

That's what the building on 7th Avenue looks like inside, I'm sure. The windows are all busted out just like with this one.

I'm all for saving historic bldgs and facades, but if it's so far gone it costs more than the property is worth for the new owner, to fix the facade, then the owner should be allowed to tear the whole thing down. If the city cared all that much about this house and its facade, then the city never should have allowed the house to get to this condition in the first place.

Why would obtaining a non-harrasment certificate be difficult to obtain? It's obvious that the house is uninhabitable and has been so for an extended period. Non-harrasment certificates are required to insure that property owners haven't forced out SRO tenants.

LPC does give permission to demolish buildings in historic districts if they cannot be saved. But from the pictures, it looks like the facade could be salvaged. That is, it looks structurally sound even though the brownstone is delaminating and the windows have rotted. The Certifcate of No Harrassment may not be such a hurdle if the building has been vacant long enough. As someone pointed out, it didn't get this way overnight.

Assuming no certificate, I'd pay 800k cash.

Corcoran has a 3 story shell for $750k on Union between Hoyt/Bond. I'd venture a narrower lot also.
Of course not LM area so easier to do but if know what you're doing Clermont would be better deal.

give it a rest, just tear it down. there is no way any new building would not be a huge improvement.

bob999--reason this deal would prob have to be all cash is cause it's pretty hard (especially these days) to get a home mortgage for something that isn't habitable/doesn't have CofO.

OK, Jack, I'll bite. Assume the worst. Rotten joists throughout the house, crumbling facade, leak situation as bad as can be on all exposures, everything sagging, nothing level, all kinds of structural problems. How much should it cost a savvy pro to get this house done right, including all fixtures and finish materials.

My tone may be a bit facetious/incredulous, but this is not a rehtorical question. I am truly curoius as to your answer.

all of this* is done all the time in Harlem.

* building out shells that were as dilapidated as this bld or worse. These brownstones were generally very solidly built and withstand an extraordinary amount of abuse.
* dealing with SRO issues (3yrs since last habited is the general window of risk but can be tricky - need specialist advice)
* dodgy ownership issues/brokers/speculators

That said, it takes a lot of $$$ & guts & I would be more wary of any place that has a freestanding side wall (like this one).

Dear 4:18, I am curious about how you would approach buying and rebuilding a house like this. Assuming that the Certificate of non-harrassment could be gotten and financing or $$ were available, how would you approach whether or not buying and rebuilding this house was possible? Getting a structural engineer to evaluate everything but particularly the freestanding wall? Assuming that it was stable enough, and you could sell the house for 1.8 million dollars in 2 years, how much would you pay?

Anyone that pays $950K for this place is going to lose their shirt. It will cost $700K to renovate and will take 3 years. Assume $950K purchase and $700K renovation (hard + soft). Cost is about $1.65. Carrying the place, even at 6.0% interest is going to add another $300k. You're cost basis is $2.0 million. How much are you going to sell it for? Factor in the risk with Landmarking + SRO. You really need to discount your bid if you're going to make money on this place.

OK,

People are throwing around a lot of numbers and opinions (which is great, of course, and part fo why we all love the site). Would a few of you (those of you who think it would be relatively cost-effective, and those of you who think this is a money pit) put some real metrics on the line? How do you go about arriving at your initial back of the envelope number for renovation costs? I and others (Donatella, I feel your pain every time I read one of your posts) am curious to learn more about what you see in dollars when you see a house like this one.

I agree with the above poster.

I've bought properties similar to the one above, gutt renovated them, and successfully flipped. I also have have long term relationships with contractors who give me very good prices.

If a contractor himself buys the house and does the work on his own, it still wouldn't be worth it.

A Million dollars cash is MUCH better spent as a downpayment on a 4 million dollar property with the potential to make a million bucks or more than on a one million dollar property with the potential to make OPPTOMISTICALLY two hundred thousand.

4:52 is correct about costs. This house won't go to some individual who builds a home for himself/herself. It will be a developer who makes condos on each floor and sells them for $800-900K each.

On average it costs about 100k a floor with a well priced contractor to gutt renovate a townhouse.

This is an average figure from experience.

What more do you want? It's impossible to be more precise unless I personally inspected the house with my contractor and I'm not going to waste my time doing that.

You'd also have to get a structural engineer in there. IF the brick work can stand, it'll cost a lot to replace all those water damaged beams. From the photos, they look terrible.

Replacing athe beams alone could be at least 50k alone and I'd be nervous the place would fall down in the process.

This is a job for someone with gutts of steel or brains of oatmeal.

Serge, Anon 1:41 (the first) here. I believe that LPC approved a tear-down on Cambridge within the past year. Can anybody confirm?

I was the poster who said I would buy
this for 800k cash. I would do this if
all the stars aligned - a) I really
wanted to live on this block of FG
b) had a place to stay for the duration
of the reno c) wasn't doing this for a profit but to get a place to my taste
for a reasonable price in FG.

I am not a contractor and don't have the
time or energy or patience to GC myself.
This job would cost me at least 400k, if
not closer to 600k. Even with carrying costs (and assuming SRO no-harrass cert
can be obtained within 6 months), it
would be a reasonable buy if this was the block I wanted.

Disagree with anonymous 5:24. That old $100K per floor renovation cost is out of date. Has anyone seen what's happended to the price of materials the other day.

I bid out a similar job 2-3 years ago to good quality contractors. All three bids came in at about $600-$700K. with the inevitable work changes, there is no way this job gets done for less than $700K.

All that $100K per floor would build is a crappy place to live. With walls and floors you can hear people whispering through. In other words, some cheapo condo flip job. In other words, ruining the building. Why would anyone be so proud of doing that? That doesn't take skill. That takes a lack of ethics. The fact is a decent gut reno and condo conversion will cost several hundred thousand dollars. But if you do a great job and sell them for $900K each, you still make some money. If you're not so greedy as to need a 500% profit on the endeavor, it's a perfectly fine profit to make.

All I know is we spent $85K on an all-new kitchen (good cabinets but without the pricey high-end appliances); an alarm system; updated (not all-new) bathrooms; new roof; new water heater; expanded breaker box; new storm sewer; new washer and dryer and new plumbing and electric for those; some other plumbing work; painting inside; carpet on stairs and in a couple BR's; a chandelier installed; yard clearing; and wood blinds throughout. So if you figure this house would need all those things AND to be completely rebuilt, it's hard to see it being done for $300K. Unless you hire the kind of contractor the seller of our own house hired, some of whose plumbing work we had to go back and fix it was done so stupidly and amateur.

I'm buy-it-for 800k poster. I can see where Jack Slade is getting his #s from. It's possible if you're in the GC role, and know which subs to hire and how to keep them on a tight leash (figuratively speaking). But even as someone who has a reasonable amount of time to deal with contractors and subs, I couldn't make it work unless it were my full-time job more or less.

I am anons 4:12 and 5:15. Apart from a bit of invective, I appreciate that a bunch of you have dug a bit deeper into the numbers to provide some perspective. I'm not going to referee this, but I feel I have learned something (even if Jack is still guarding his trade secrets). I know what I went through with an old house reno/restoration job for me and my family to live in, and was curious how one approaches a renovation without pity. So thank you all (and keep the thread going, if you wish).

I have seen the inside of this house with my own eyes. It's in the worst shape a house can be in. The agent would not even allow us to walk around inside (not that we wanted to). We took a few steps in to see rotten joists throughout the house or joists that have been removed completely, a crumbling facade, a whole in the roof that has been leaking for years, brick walls exposed and huge portions of the brick missing from the wall. The staircase falling off the wall and 1/4 of the floor board missing (the rest may have fallen into the basement). This house is in the worst shape a house can be in.

Jack may be closer to the truth with his numbers than most posters here think...

What many might not realize is that when you do a complete gut renovation, it makes all of the tradesmen's jobs go much much faster and easier, and, thus, cheaper! Why? because new work is easier than "retrofit" type work. It's also easier to make an accurate bid with fewer contingencies for "surprises."

You cannot compare your experience of remodeling your kitchen and/or having your house rewired or having your new toilet waste line installed to what thoses tasks would cost in this case.

the trades make a profit based on speed. They like gut renovations - it is understandably easier for them if there are no "hidden" obstructions when they arrive to do their work and can get the work done quickly. Just ask an electrician how much easier it is to install a new circuit when the walls are completely opened up - takes about 20% of the time it might take to run the same circuit through a simple plaster wall; (and then the plaster wall needs to be repaired and repainted, too. even more time spent.)

time is money, baby...this is why remodeling is usually more expensive than bidding for all "new work."

also, the sequence of construction events can be better controlled this way, maximizing efficiency.

the secret is to make sure that the foundation, masonry work and brickwork are structurally sound; if they're not, it could be expensive to repair. (although, 2:08, some missing bricks don't necessarily portend disaster) the brownstone cladding out front will be expensive to fix, and landmarks will make it a requirement to get it right, (one would hope.) the condition of the roof, stairs, beams, joists and studs don't really mean a thing. they will all be replaced and all the new floors and walls will be level and plumb.

level, plumb and exposed = easier, faster and cheaper.

anyway...

no one on this thread can look at photos and give accurate numbers to waht this would cost without knowledge and the personal inspections of several different experts - thinking otherwise is a ludicrous, ignorant notion.

this is not a restoration-type gig for those who learn things from "this old house" and bob vila, but it's also not really daunting to those who know what they're doing and have done it many times.