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18

Co-op of the Day: 235 Lincoln Place

Categories: Brooklyn, Co-ops, Park Slope

235LincolnPl.jpg
This two-bedroom in the prewar co-op at 235 Lincoln Place in Park Slope has been on the market for a couple of months now. After starting out at $735,000, the price has just been trimmed to $719,000. While the listing talks up what a great place it is, the lack of photos of any kitchens or bathrooms is a source of concern to us, and a potential explanation for why this place hasn't moved yet. Another possibility: The living room looks a little skinnier than one would expect in a typical prewar doorman building. Nonetheless, we love the generous foyer and the location, just off 8th Avenue, rocks. Anyone have any insight into why there've been no takers thus far?
235 Lincoln Place [Brown Harris Stevens] GMAP P*Shark
Photo by Kate Leonova for Property Shark



By Brownstoner at May 1, 2007 12:46 PM | Comments (18)

18 Comments

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 12:58 PM

what an awful layout.
It is bad in many ways.

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 1:11 PM

from the outside I don't see how this building is any better than the fugly fedders stuff being built now. Yuck

By anon on May 1, 2007 1:15 PM

that is one awkward floorplan

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 1:36 PM

this apartment has an accepted offer on it and should be in contract any day now.

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 1:37 PM

$1000 maintenance

By anon on May 1, 2007 1:46 PM

This is a typical NYC huddled masses re-do. This was a one-bedroom with a dining room/living room until a brainiac decided to improve the value by making it an awful, awkward, stupid, two-bedroom.
It worked like a charm.

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 1:50 PM

to each his own, but to me this is much better floorplan than the modern condo's kitchen and dining in the living layout.
And if 7'10" is not legal bedroom -does that mean I get arrested for falling asleep in there?

By zeebee on May 1, 2007 2:11 PM

I thought the only "legal" definition of a BR was that it had to have a window. Are there really restrictions on the room's size?

The concept of a big foyer is nice but it's really awkward in this place. If you use the LR/DR as a LR/DR, you have to walk food and plates from the kitchen and through the foyer to the dining area. If you use the foyer as a dining space, every time you enter of leave the apartment, you have to squeeze past your dining room table (and it will be a squeeze in that narrow a space, given the location of all the doorways leading off the foyer). Plus, the lucky resident of that second bedroom has to stroll through the foyer, whatever its use, to get to the bathroom.

I'd love to see which of those interior walls are load-bearing, because you could brainstorm a much more liveable space with this square footage.

By another anonymous person on May 1, 2007 2:25 PM

i used to live on this block--it's a great block. had friends in the building, and while some of the apartments are lovely and big, this ain't one of them. i don't know that i've seen this one, but i've seen one just like it at an open house a few years ago. this is one hideous layout--i'm pretty sure this is the one i saw because i can't imagine two homeowners would ruin their apartment the same way, layout-wise. it's tiny. oh well. the last people i know who lived there moved out because the maintenance was so damn high--it was $1000 five years ago, too, which was considered even more exorbitant then. i see that the exodus continues.

By anon on May 1, 2007 2:40 PM

thanks, but the place has multiple bids.

and your mass exodus comment makes no sense, considering every unit in the building is occupied. when someone leaves, someone else arrives.

useless.

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 2:49 PM

The 2.25 comment doesn't make sense to me - you know its 1000 maintenance going in - why would that suddenly be too nigh forcing you to move out.

BTW - anyone who pays 1000 per month maintenance for that place needs their head examined.

By anon on May 1, 2007 3:55 PM

yuk. hey wait a minute, that's my car!

By Dan on May 1, 2007 6:51 PM

JP-

Um...No

The issue isn't whether it's a legal bedroom but whether it's a habitable room, which is the definition that matters to DOB. That means that the room must have one dimension equal to or greater than 8'-0"(as for a height requirement I think anything below 7'-6" is out of the question) and that it must have a total window area equal to 10% of the square footage and an operable window area equal to 5% of the square footage.

Also, imagine an 8'-0" x 8'-0" bedroom. Sucks, don't it. Just because it's legal...

By Anonymous on May 1, 2007 6:52 PM

The living room isn't so narrow - the floorplan says it is 13.5 feet wide, which is a common size in brownstone living rooms, and they don't look narrow.

They just don't have the furniture placed so that it shows the living room off in its best light. The couch should be in front of the window, leaving enough space behind it to walk around it to tend to the plants in front of the window, which would love that light.

I've also seen this listing, and wondered why it wasn't snapped up right away. I think it is a staging problem.

I like the foyer, too - I'd put a small table against the wall there for breakfast and informal dining (there's room in the LR/DR for a formal dining-room sized table, which you can just see in the picture.) There'd be plenty of room to walk around a table against the wall.

I'd use the second bedroom as a study/guest room (which means that big old desk in the LR wouldn't determine the poor furniture layout of that room). I like the study off the foyer/breakfast room, and occasional guests are happy just to have their own room with a door, and not have to sleep on a pull-out couch in the living room.

I just sold my place (subject to my coop board's approval of the second buyer I've contracted with - don't get me started on 4-unit coop boards) and I am amazed that sellers (or their real estate agents) don't look at their apartments from the point of view of potential buyers. I moved out all of my files, books, bookcases, small misc. furniture, most of the stuff in closets, excess clothes and dressers, and even invested in some cheap Ikea furniture to show off my guest room at its most spacious, before showing my apartment.

Apartment buyers, especially first-time buyers (which many coop buyers are - I'd never buy another one again - no more shared ownership with crazy strangers for me - coop or condo - I'd rather rent until I can buy a house) can't visualize the space at its best - you have to rearrange it to show them (even if that's not how you (or they) actually live in it.

My strategy must have worked - multiple offers after each open house. Now if only I could also move out some of my coop neighbors .....

By BrooklynCouch on May 13, 2007 9:46 PM

Hey, I live on that block, but in one of the row houses down and across the street.

About to by 510sq ft. in an 1880's building coop on Lincoln for $300K with $500/m maintenance. Please tell me I am not insane...

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