Open House Picks

8th Street is (along with 11th Street) one of the prettiest blocks between 3rd and 4th Avenues. But that's still Gowanus. Is there no discount for that anymore?

For $1.1M, you get to buy a house in Gowanus. But it "needs TLC." Commence banging head against wall.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:07 PM

Huge discount. Would cost a signficant premium in cobble hill or park slope.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:17 PM

thoughts on market. Houses move quickly if move in condition and not stupidly overpriced. Doesn't matter what neighborhood.
re:8th St. - flawed logic that want discount 'cause that is 'still Gowanus'. Don't get so hung up on what block is called what. You think if moved this house couple hundred yards across 4th Avenue - they'd still ask same price? Probably another $100K or more. Besides - only newbies use the term Gowanus as a neighborhood. Sounds like very good price.
Re: Huntington. I don't see the $1.2 you claim that is on Vita website. I see another house in CarGardens for sale but not the same as this one. Nevertheless I think is overpriced too by $100-150k.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:26 PM

Wade, Like it or not these are the prices in brownstone neighborhoods that Mr. Brownstoner covers.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:27 PM

Continued from 2:27, I was on the house hunt two years ago and found a fantastically priced house listed in the NY Times and couldn't believe it was true. On second look it was in Brooklyn, Ohio. d'oh.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:31 PM

I like the carroll gardens house it is cute and worth the price i believe.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:38 PM

Wade, hang in there. You can find a home. You just have to be willing to make some sacrifices. Unfortunately, you are correct that this is not the right forum to discuss affordable housing.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 2:52 PM

Wade:
I'm with you bro;
Come on Mr Stoner, i've seen many good deals out there that aren't listed.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:04 PM

there isn't much stock AND decent stuff over a million is going very quickly and for way over ask. My theory is that there are about 8 bidders or more for every decent place, and one of them has a suitcase full of dirty unmarked bills from europe, or an investment bank (same difference).
But thats just my theory..

I'm sure people reading this who have bid and lost in the last few months can concur, but don't want to identify themselves in case their broker is reading.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:07 PM

Ability to buy a brownstone in brownstone brooklyn is not exactly in the Bill of Rights. Nor is "affordable housing"> This is why most people feel very lucky indeed when they buy at all in NYC and almost always a co-op or condo.

You need to either make more money, buy an apartment, or extend your brownstone search to the more "fringe" areas.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:08 PM

put 'em up here Anon 3.04. You're not going to be finding any "deals" on rowhouses until you start looking in far flung, underserved locations.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:09 PM

Only comment I have is to stay away from Vita realty. I dealt with them about a year ago and never met such a group of unorganized clueless people. Email me wintaki@hotmail.com for details if you want.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:13 PM

"dirty unmarked bills"

Hah, what the heck does that mean

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:19 PM

We gave up. Mortgage rates are going up, wall st is slowing, citi is whacking people, bloomberg is leaving in 1 1/2 years, and there is a massive federal deficit; cap gains rate goes up soon, etc.

Massive soak the rich campaign coupled with some new hack in the mayors office, and the retirement of the boomers should yield lower growth, higher rates, and lower prices.

Kind of like a repeat of 88-94, when dinkins follwed koch and the market tanked.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:22 PM

wade you are pretty unrealistic if you expect to buy a brownstone for less than a million dollars in the more desirable neighborhoods covered by this blog

owning a multifamily historical house in one of the most desirable areas in the country is not written into the consitution

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:22 PM

Someone should save 3:22's comments and revisit in, would that be 2013?

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 3:39 PM

Wade may be out of luck, but I feel his pain. When prices first went crazy, I wondered, how will young teachers or cops or nurses be able to afford housing? Now I wonder how young doctors and lawyers will be able to buy.

Best advice: visit local realtors (walk into a local lawyer's office and ask) or "downmarket" type firms like Fillmore.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 4:03 PM

Personally with Bloomberg's approval of AY and support of congestion pricing, I think the sooner he is out of office the better for Brownstone Brooklyn

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 4:20 PM

The 8th street house in the gow anus needs tlc, but you can walk over to the home depot to get them.

Someone asked if any had the 100,000 downpayment to make on these places. I do. I just don't have the 8000/month I'd need if I only put 10% down on a million or more.

The real question is - who has the 400-500K downpayment that people seem to be making so they don't need to even use the two family as a rental? I hope they didn't have to work hard for it, because I work hard, and even if I could stretch and buy the gowanus place for a million, I'd be pretty sad that it took that much hard work to live there-- especially since I wouldn't even have the address number to myself. Just an "A" next to my split lot number.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 4:32 PM

After bloomberg comes ray kelly everything will be fine folks. vote to keep the city safe vote kelly in.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 4:43 PM

I agree that brownstoner has become a window to "acceptable" brooklyn for manhattan refugees or the overseas new rich. So anything showing up here, including agencies, are getting free exposure much wider than perhaps they deserve.

Probably is a good idea to look for the hole in the wall agencies and the forsale signs. Shame their bldgs are usually so awful! Makes what is already a fulltime occupation (house hunting) into fulltime+overtime :(

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 4:50 PM

wade perhaps brownstones are not in line with your budget

why don't you talk to a mortgage broker or a real estate agent about condos or coops

1MM for a brownstone is not a lot of money in this market

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 5:31 PM

"The real question is - who has the 400-500K downpayment that people seem to be making so they don't need to even use the two family as a rental?"

Well, there are my friends who bought a 2BR co-op in 1997 for just over $100K and sold it for over $600K, then used the profits to buy a $1M one-family house not far from the 8th street house above.

The people they sold their co-op to had to come up with a downpayment too, of course, but a smaller one, which they got from selling a smaller apartment. And so on...

It may not help you to hear it, but just because you don't have the money doesn't mean such people don't exist.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 5:37 PM

I was considering buying a very similar gowanus house to the one listed that was on 12th off of 4th (thank god I didn't, since it was right next to that enormous building that's been going up on the corner for a couple years). Anyway, that was 2.5 years ago and it was listed at 850k, so just to point out that prices are going up in gowanus, just like everywhere else. I think 1.1 is probably not a bad deal for this house.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 6:25 PM

The house in Prospect Park West (Ditmas Park?) needs work! This house could look like the house on E 19th that sold for 1.9 if you reno and decorate right. It looks like the bones are there under all of that white paint and ugly wallpaper.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 8:00 PM

258 Lincoln Road is cute but doesn't compare with the Rutland house that was featured on this blog last week. now that's a great house...could it have been snatched up considering there's no open house this weekend...? huh?

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 10:30 PM

258 Lincoln is still on the market--I have an appointment to see it this weekend. And the realtor with Corcoran called to tell me that the 3 story brick on Midwood I saw a few months ago asking 1.2M is now asking 999K. And the BHS realtor with the 2 story on Midwood asking 899K--the exact same house as this one on Lincoln but not renovated--has called to see if I'm interested. I saw it over a month ago--if I were interested I would have called her! While I know better than to second guess the market, Lefferts Manor is still very much a buyer's market. And this Lincoln Road listing is about 150K over-priced.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 22, 2007 11:34 PM

Wade's the only person out of all of you making any sense. Houses in East New York at 700K. East New York. $700K. I realize that most homeowners in Brooklyn who read this blog have seen their property values increase tenfold over the last decade -- if not more -- but you'd think someone would be sane enough to recognize a bubble when they see it.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 1:50 AM

PPS houses in need of reno and lacking detail are commanding prices of 1.1 million and more... Location, location, location... The Ditmas Park house that sold for 1.9 million may have even broken the 2 million if it were in PPS. You don't lose the easy access to the Park and your still close enough to the Slope for comfort, which seems to be important to some refugees.

The price is close to the mark - despite the nasty wallpaper and lack of detail, and, of course, the whole front of the house was altered at some point. Go look at recent comps in prime PPS (i.e. not Stratford).

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 9:29 AM

anon 10:03 you could not be more wrong

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 10:22 AM

i've been inside 109 and it's very solid, it has some detail (archways - original window colored glass...), it needs some cosmetic work, remove the carpets, wall paper (ugly!!!) paint job, kitchen and bathrooms, ... but it's H U G E ! ! ! i think they might be a little short listing it at 3000 SF. and that garden was really nice. no garage though...

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 11:22 AM

if you put 100k-200k into it probably worth about 1.8M or so

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 11:25 AM

10:22, you're whistling past the graveyard. You'll look good in that Starbucks hat, yet, shillster.

Maybe there are some mortgage-backed bonds you'd like to buy from Bear Stearns, too? Now that everybody else is trying desperately to get out?

All the folks who "stretched," and all the folks who bet (and, amazingly, are STILL betting) that prices can only go up are about to take a bath.

I agree with Wade and the rest who still have some sense. A mil is a ridiculous price to pay right now for a house, compared with the cost of renting.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 12:22 PM

anon 2:29 how many houses do you own?

Perhaps you will be shocked to learn that the market is more expensive than you may think

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 2:48 PM

Just to add to Flatbush Gardener...

There are quite a few houses in PPS that have SERIOUSLY muddled exteriors... far less appealing than this house, which at least has uniform shingle... Take a walk down Stratford and Westminster between Albemarle and Beverley to see what I mean. Also, MKG has a house listed at 2.4 where the front porch has been entirely removed. I can add a couple of others on Rugby to the list, come to think of it...

I know for a fact, however, that the front of this house was reconfigured to enlarge the living room area. This is what makes the interior of the house feel relatively light and spacious.

So much paint to me is a turn-off - but the house on Buckingam which I hear is in contract for near the 1.9 million ask is also slathered in paint (although it does have tons more detail, but that means tons more detail to strip.... if your a stickler).

Posted by: Anonymous at June 23, 2007 3:27 PM

aonon 8:35 you must be crazy, attended an open house lately? "Lowball" is quite a ways off for brooklyn. Obviously brooklyn is not immune, but the dynamics of the current market are quite different for brooklyn right at this moment.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 24, 2007 1:16 PM

Because people REALLY WANT to live here in Brooklyn. That is the difference. Nobody really really wants to live in NJ or Iowa. They do it because they have to. Until that changes brooklyn will always do better because people with money have choices. Also whoever mixes $million dollar homes with subprime doesn't understand the dynamics what a subprime mortgage entails. Most likely it's not somebody qualifying for a $1 million mortgage or a 350k studio who suddenly can't make the montly payment. Until there is a major rift in the economy and heads start to roll on wall street or for some reason there is a flight to the suburbs prices will rise for single family homes. And if history serves my memory on this website, the only "suckas" out there have been those calling for a crash since 2005. Keep renting and here's hoping the landlord doesn't decide to raise the monthly rent next year.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 24, 2007 9:31 PM

By the way, if I wanted to live out by Coney Island Ave... I'd rent something for $1200/month. Hell, maybe even go as high as $1600. That would not, however, get me much of a mortgage these days, even on Coney Island Ave.

And that's what's wrong with the market.

Housing prices are almost flat across the entire borough -- by which I mean they're all overpriced.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 24, 2007 9:34 PM

well I saw 8th st, and the 25footer also on 8th st, a block further into gowanus that warren lewis had.

The area below 4th avenue is a long dusty treeless distance from anything, but I guess everyone knows that already. No matter what happens on 4th, it is never going to be cute -- not with no tree cover and 8 lanes of traffic.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 25, 2007 12:09 AM

trees can be planted. trees will be planted.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 25, 2007 9:47 AM

so what's with the huntinton listing saying "zoned for P.S. 58 school and Hannah Senesh Childrens School"?

Does anyone else find it strange that there's a "school for progressive Jewish education" in the middle of Carroll Gardens a hotbed of Virgin Mary lawn staues? Seems quite out of place.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 25, 2007 2:26 PM

No Anon 2:26. I don't find it strange. Nor do I find the Muslim Youth Center in Bensonhurst on Bath avenue right up the block from St Finbar's strange. The Buddhist Temple on Rugby Road isn't strange either. Brooklyn is more diverse now than it has ever been and considering the vast number of people from varying socioeconomic, ethnic, religious and sexual orientation we get along relatively well.

Posted by: Anonymous at June 25, 2007 8:33 PM