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June 21, 2007

HOTD: 53 South Oxford Headed South (Finally)

53sox0607.jpgWe don't usually write about a house four times but the case of 53 South Oxford Street in Fort Greene keeps providing reasons to revisit its lack of success on the market. Let's revisit the timeline: The current owner purchased the four-family house house for $1,345,000 in July 2006; in August, a few coats of polyeurethane are applied before getting listed with Brooklyn Properties in September for $2,500,000. By January of this year, the listing had been moved to Prospective Properties and the price cut to $1,975,000. By May, Corcoran had taken over and the price was back up at $2,250,000. But not for long. The listing is now gone from Corcoran and the owner is now trying to sell it himself for $1,829,000. In retrospect, the first mistake this guy made was trying to do a flipper's reno on this place; the second was not paying attention to the comments when this was the House of the Day last January. At that time, a consensus emerged that this was about a $1,600,000 house given the state of the interiors. Here's what we said at the time: "We're thinking $1.6 million, $1.7 if he's really lucky." And the clock ticks on.
53 South Oxford Street [NY Times] GMAP P*Shark
House of the Day: 53 South Oxford Street [Brownstoner]
Houses of the Day: Fort Greene Languishers [Brownstoner]
Open House Picks 9/1/06 [Brownstoner]




Posted by Brownstoner at 1:20 PM | Comments (19)
Categories: Fort Greene, HOTD

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Comments

the hallway looks oddly institutional: is the rest of the interior like that? (lack of inside photos = a bad sign?)

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 1:28 PM


I like the owner's comment "the home is priced considerably below market value."

Market value of what. . . a penthouse on Park Avenue? Give me a break!

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 1:44 PM

still has stop work order from 1990 on DOB website. probably easy enough to get this stuff cleared up.
Also noticed that tax bill is over $10K. (easily twice what I would have guessed).
I would also guess guy is paying $6K month on mort. interest since show he borrowed $1.2 on this place.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 2:09 PM

Here's the problem. Each apartment is too small to condo without a big extension. There is zero traditional detail in the building and the price has always been too high. I think I offered him 1.9 Million in September and he said no.

It also doesn't stand out as a one family conversion because it has 4 separate boilers and hot water heaters in the basement. The guy was greedy and didn't understand the market at all.

His loss.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 2:34 PM

Greedy + ignorant deserves to go broke.

Posted by: jones at June 21, 2007 2:44 PM

Looks like he has other great deals.

http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/rfs/353791740.html

Posted by: bitter at June 21, 2007 2:45 PM

Why does 4 boilers and 4 hot water tanks make it not suitable for a 1 family conversion. It can't cost that much to convert to 1 boiler and you can leave the tanks so no one ever runs out of hot water.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 3:19 PM

I know this guy and he is very greedy he has a house on St. Marks in Prospect Hts that needs a ton of work he wants 2.6. The house is worth 1.7 tops its only a one family but he has it listed as 3...

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 3:21 PM

No idea that S. oxford was a "very hard to find park block" let alone that this was a good thing.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 3:33 PM

Walkin through this house is saddening. It's as if it had been burned to the shell and completely redone inside. In the worst, cheapest taste possible. There isn't one original thing left in it anywhere. Not the stairs, not the ceilings, nothing. And what there is is hideous and cheap. It's expensive at $1.6.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 3:33 PM

The front doors are nice LOL

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 3:41 PM

Good heavens. This poor rich guy doesn't have a chance after all of these comments!

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 4:39 PM

The house was purchased less than a year ago at 1.35 million, the owner is listing it at 1.829, which is about 33% increase in a year without any work to upgrade it. While the market has increased lately, it hasn't 33%. for that matter, it hasn't increased 20%, which is what it would if you paid $1.7.

This owner is defnitely greedy, but someone will pay it. In fact, someone already stated they previously offered $1.9. No longer is a house determined by its worth; people today just buy houses based on what they can afford. If they can afford it, they buy it, it doesn't matter if it is overpriced. Apparently, "I love it and have to have it" has turned into "I kind of like it, and we can afford it, okay let's offer asking."

Posted by: come on really at June 21, 2007 4:55 PM

Someone offered this guy $1.9MM, he said "no", and now he's listing it for $1.829 - seems like a real smart fellow.

Posted by: dcardoni at June 21, 2007 4:57 PM

come on really: what do you mean "determined by its worth"? You mean, the building's appraised value? Or someone's opinion on what it is "really worth"?

Of course people buy what they can afford. And they buy the best thing that their money can afford them in a given area of their choice. Right?

But what a building is objectively "worth" is the business of the appraiser, not the afforder.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 5:02 PM

^^^^ Someone didn't take economics 101

Worth and cost are completely different

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 5:10 PM

At least it has a decent facade, so it's not an exterior pox on the block. Then again, when we were hunting, we strolled by the place and could see through the windows that it was a total POS renovation. I think this guy needs to get into a different line of work--and I would say delivering pizzas, but if he has trouble finding South Oxford Street, that's probably not a good call for him, either....

Posted by: bob999 at June 21, 2007 5:45 PM

ha ha. altough i think he meant that a brownstone for sale on that street is very rare and hard to find, not that the block itself is.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 21, 2007 5:49 PM

Perhaps he has the biggest laugh of all. This is not the end all of where the real buyers congregate.

LOL

Posted by: stoner squad1 at June 23, 2007 1:40 AM

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