Open House Picks: Houses

464 Macon was the HOTD 9 months ago at 899K. http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2007/02/house_of_the_da_260.php

They must not be in too big of a hurry to sell it.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 1:40 PM

cheever street is a possibility

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 1:40 PM

windsor terrace house is nice
wondering if the cobble hill place has any rc tenants?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 1:45 PM

$1.7mm for 357 7th Street? It is smack in the middle of what is quite possibly the ugliest stretch of houses above 9th Street.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 1:56 PM

Cheever was a pick back in August, seems to have been on the market forever.

http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2007/08/open_house_pick_136.php

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 1:57 PM

love the vintage 80's kitchen on the PS house

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 2:00 PM

Windsor Terrace brick home looks great at 1.49 compared to PS 7th street wood frame home at $200k more . I guess the market will decide.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 2:12 PM

Spectacular shot of the shampoo and conditioner in the PS shower. C'mon brokers, you need to WORK for your 6%!!!

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 2:15 PM

Was at 464 Macon earlier this year at an open house. The 2 things which made me nervous was that the small extension in the back was not properly sealed and there was water damage along the walls in the basement. This also caused significant mold buildup along the walls in the basement. Not sure how to abate mold, but it seemed like an expensive project to undertake.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 2:37 PM

The house to the left of the Cheever Place house is one of them sad jobs. Too bad. Takes away from the already blah redo on the house for sale.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:00 PM

I am sick of paying near $2000 for a one bedroom in LES and my family is growing my mini me will be here SOON and I need space fast... The other houses look great but the Macon is more in my Budget... Is this Macon house near the landmark part of Bedford Stuyvesnat? I really like that section of Bedford Stuyvesant and the neighborhood seems perfect for my family. Only thing I worry about is the schools in that area...

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:05 PM

if you have over $800 move somewhere besides bed-stuy like williamsburg or greenpoint. according to the school grading from last week all of the local schools are doing really well. by the time your little one is ready for school, they'll be even better.

also, there are tons of young families there. join the yahoo group: brooklynbabyhui. it's an amazing parents group for the williamsburg/greenpoint area. or visit mamalu's on N.12th to check out the local parents/baby scene.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:16 PM

yes, many of the local williamsburg schools look very good.

in the williamsburg or greenpoint neighborhoods area:

PS 13 (Roberto Clemente, S3 & Keap) B
PS 17 (Henry Woodworth, N5 & Driggs) B
PS 18 (Edward Bush, Maujer & Leonard) A
PS 31 (Samuel Dupont, Meserole & Guernsey) A
PS 34 (Oliver Perry, Norman & Eckford) A
PS 110 (The Monitor, Driggs & Monitor) B
PS 132 (Conselyea, Manhattan & Metro) A

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:22 PM

I was in contract negotiations for the place on Macon, and ultimately bailed because we found a place we like better and things were getting drawn out. I hope they got the stuff we brought to their attention resolved. That said, here are the things to look out for - the extension off the back was put on by the owners previous to this one and was not permitted, so there's a big open violation on that bad boy. Don't let yourself get stuck with that. Also, as a previous poster mentioned, the basement has a mold issue. Our inspector recommended taking down all the pretty walls they've put up down there and getting some ventilation - those foundation walls need to breathe. Finally, do all your homework with DoB, which you should be doing anyway, but do it here.

All of this said, it's a lovely house and I hope it finds a lovely owner. I would be willing to share my inspector's report for anyone who's interested. Let me know how to get in touch with you via this board.

Previous poster: It's on a landmarked block, but just outside the landmark boundary, so you kind of have the best of both worlds.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:22 PM

you realize those grade mean they are improving (like from very shitty to somewhat shitty)..they dont indicate that the schools are the "A" caliber

stop with the deceptive advertising

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:26 PM

slight highjack but how do you find out if a block is landmarked, and if so what the boundaries of the landmarking are?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:28 PM

The Bedstuy home is nice.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:29 PM

the Windsor Terrace house doesn't have enough teapots in their kitchen.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:36 PM

The NYC.GOV website has all the maps. Here's the map for Stuyvesant Hieghts:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/downloads/pdf/maps/stuyvesant_heights.pdf

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:37 PM

The house on 7th Street looks dark and crappy, plus who wants to deal with an illegal extension? I think they are crazy to be asking that price which seems several 100K's overpriced!

Also, the WT house seems overpriced given the HOTD last week in WT which was wider, with a much bigger lot, better location, and asked nearly 300K less! Ee gads, I hope the turmoil in the credit markets and Wall St will knock some sense into these brokers/sellers.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:38 PM

3:05 here... I would really like to find something on MacDonough, Hancock or Jefferson my wife and I both love those streets. Williamsburg is a great area and is so much like the LES, but we want to live in a brownstone. I guess growing up watching the Cosbys had a effect on both of us... I will check this one out this weekend but thanks for the heads up on the mold and the extension issue...

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:40 PM

Yes, it's weird that they have raised the price for Cheever when it's been on the market for a while and all the comments when it was HOTD on Brownstoner in the summer were very negative. I think they should ask a significantly lower price (1.5?) in the hopes of stirring demand, instead of letting this linger through the winter when prices could soften further.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 3:47 PM

wow, the desperate williamsburg brokers are out in force today.

i knew that developments were doing badly there, but not badly enough to start trolling the pages of brownstoner with their grades for schools.

little do they know those "good" grades they speak of have little to do with the quality of the schools now, but more about how awful they were last year and the slight improvement they've made since then.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:22 PM

3:40 - there are really beautiful homes on Hancock. Walk down and talk to neighbors on the blocks you're interested in, you'd be surprised of how much info they have on who's selling what. I particularly like Hancock between Bedford & Nostrand. I have a few block residents on the look out for me!

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:30 PM

I found my house on MacDonough that way... I just ask a guy .... Do you know anyone that is selling? "He said I'am selling my grandmothers house"... Landmark block details everywhere nothing has changed in 120 years... and well under 1 million for a four story brownstone... needs a kitchen and bathroom but the house overall is great... I hear the people next door want to sell next year also....

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:40 PM

The PS house seems cheap as hell for something above 9th Street.

Even if it needs work, isn't 1.7 kindof a bargain?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:40 PM

4:40 - Rita Knox, that you?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:44 PM

NO 4:44!

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:46 PM

It was a legitimate question. I look at these things every week and I never see a full house that looks this nice in PS for 1.7 million.

Certainly when compared to the place in WT for only 200K more.

7th Street is a great location, no?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:54 PM

cheap as hell? huh? wow...

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:54 PM

Hi Rita!

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:54 PM

The WT house looks beautiful but seems a little high for the area. Knock off about $200-300k and it would seem to be more in line with what nicer houses in the area have gotten recently.

Does anyone know what the story is with this house?

http://www.warrenlewis.com/cgi-bin/re/re_show.pl?re_command=show&ID=6163

$650k for a decent looking single family home in WT seems like a good deal. It looks like it needs a little work but from the pictures it appears to be far from a complete gut job.

Why would the price be so low? Location? Some underlying structural problems that aren't apparent from the listing?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 4:59 PM

4:59--there was a cryptic thread on the forum about "issues" with this house:
http://www.brownstoner.com/forum/archives/2007/10/windsor_terrace_4.php

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:19 PM

On 464 Macon.. I considered this one when it was at 899k. The block is amazing. In terms of mold, the basement seemed really clean to me. For those who dont know..almost any basement has mold. You can pay someone 3k to abate. All issues considered, it will likely go for 859k. I know Corcoran had another place on Jefferson that wasnt as nice that closed recently in the 860k's.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:24 PM

"Does anyone know what the story is with this house?"

as the comments said, the house as a distinct lean so you have to factor in an expensive repair unless you like living on a tilt. I'm not even sure how you'd do it if the whole line of houses has the same problem, what, you're going to be jacking up the neighboring common walls as well?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:40 PM

To the poster asking about Bed-Stuy schools: apparently there is at least one well-regarded charter school here. There are also some up-and-coming schools in Clinton Hill which have space for kids from outside the immediate neighborhood. When we moved here (to Hancock Street, to be exact) people did ask us, "What are you going to do about schools?" Frankly, no matter where I lived in NYC I would probably be doing the same thing I am doing right now: going on tours, exploring all options, trying to figure out how to work the system. I doubt I would be saying "Oh well, we're zoned for X so let's sign up!" I'm just grateful to have found a great home here for my family. That's my 2 cents.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:48 PM

5:40 PM: I've heard that the lean factor affects some WT houses from the construction on the Prospect Expressway in the '50s.

Is there a way that you could level the individual floors while the house itself still has some lean to it?

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:51 PM

7th Street is a good location, but that's an ugly house in the middle of a slew of ugly houses. Way too much for what it is.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 5:55 PM

I love it when people want to sell their house, but have requests such as "June closing preferred." On top of the fact that you must deal with the headache of legalizing and completing an illegal extension, they'd like you to close in June. The price is high for a small woodie with an illegal extension surrounded by ugly neighbors. The President street brownstone listed by BHS at $1.89 is a better bang for your buck, and a better location. And you could probably negotiate that price since it hasn't moved yet and they keep hosting open houses for it. I bet you could get it for the price of this unremarkable woodie.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 6:07 PM

park slope house looks the most interesting to me.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 6:12 PM

For those looking for a cheaper alternative, there's a nice looking FSBO on craigslist with an open house Saturday. The pics look good and for that price, how can you lose?
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/rfs/473486384.html

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 7:42 PM

Re: 7th Street - I agree with everyone who finds it way overpriced. The pictures look very 1970s, and the exterior of the house, which I've seen (I live in PS), is unappealing. There are houses in this area that have sold in the last year for way less that had much more potential, on better blocks. The legal shenanigans are the kicker - really, they should be asking more like 1.3 for this, tops (and even that seems high to me).

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 9:19 PM

Windsor Terrace house looks cramped and dark. They should have at least art directed better to remove the clutter. Why on earth would someone pay so much for a relatively small (2 stories, since english basement, is just that - a basement) unappealing house? WT has much better houses than this, and this is very high for that area.

Posted by: guest at November 9, 2007 9:48 PM

We found a house on MacDonough between patchen and ralph for 415k by asking around. We have done some major renovations conversion from a 1 to 3 family,extension, cellar digout and finish. It was a challenging renovation but well worth it the house just appraised at 900k. We have small children but are right down the street from the new boys charter school which we are already working on getting them in for K. We were fortunate to find a school in Clinton Hill that buses the kids in and out for Prek, so things have worked out REally well in Bed Stuy if I might say:)

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 8:12 AM

We have that size house but a little wider, 9:48, and it's perfect for a one-family. I'd never want to pay to heat anything bigger than this. Especially with the crisis in the economy and energy that's only going to get worse. Plus English basements are fine. We love ours. However, we paid under a million for our house a year ago and I agree, the idea of paying $500,000 more than what we paid for house, I wouldn't do it. The whole point of a small house is to be economical. A small one-family house is basically a condo-alternative, and for $1.5 million you can get a 3BR condo in Park Slope. Look at it that way.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 11:16 AM

The PS 7th Street listing is a joke, right? That ugly house, that ridiculous price, the extension with legal issues, and a closing date in the middle of next year? ROTFLMAO.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 12:18 PM

to the same poster who posts this "rotflmao"....do you have ANY concept of what a moron you sound like?

as if your comment wasn't ignorant enough, then you use some idiotic thing like that to end it and expect that people would pay you one ounce of respect.

you negate everything you say previous with your 12 year old girl text message remarks.

it only makes me want to go see that house even more.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 2:44 PM

2:44 - LOL. KTHXBAI.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 5:33 PM

I'm not 12:18, but get a life 2:44. You sound like the angry seller. Get to work legalizing that extension, and don't insist on closing date conditions, if you really want to sell your house.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 5:41 PM

they call the PS house a "brick filled wood frame." i don't know shit from shinola about all this real estate jargon... what does that mean? is it a brick building with clapboard slapped on the outside????

btw, that IS an ugly stretch, but it's a wide lot, a long lot--someone WILL pay it. or not. you can take THAT to the mothafuckin' BANK!!!!!

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 9:57 PM

9:57, taking a stab in the dark here, but I think "brick filled wood frame" means the wood framing is filled in with brick.

Posted by: guest at November 10, 2007 10:56 PM

lol, 10:56.

As if wood framing filled with rotting 100 year old newspaper is a better thing. Because that's what a lot of wood frame houses have in their walls. Brick inside the walls sounds pretty good.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 1:31 PM

If Corc. had put one ounce of effort into the listing for the B/S house it would have sold months ago. Why tout an "immaculate renovation" but not include kitchen and bedroom shots. Yeah, I can see from the 2 bathroom pics that there's a new shower fixture...

I think the if you're asking potential buyers to trek to "fringe" neighborhoods like B/S, you have to really bowl them over on the listing. If I were the seller I'd be disgruntled, but, perhaps, they really don't care...

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 2:47 PM

the smart thing to do is fill the wood frame with turds from snarky bloggers.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 5:26 PM

good article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/realestate/11deal1.html?_r=1&ref=realestate&oref=slogin

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 6:40 PM

actually, broker in 6:40, it's a pretty useless article, just like any other stats or NYT articles planted by brokers.

If you read the article carefully, you come away with three conclusions:

(1) The broader market WAS hot pre-credit crisis.
(2) Now there is trepidation in the market
(3) New trophy condos are the one segment that remains hot because that's the only place foreign $$ can/will go.

Good fucking luck selling a pre-war co-op with a courtyard view to a buyer from Ireland or China. They wouldn't touch it with someone else's ten-foot pole. They still are paying stupid $$ for the trophy new condos with big windows and views, and let them. They're the last money in. No greater fools.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 8:17 PM

That's interesting. I came away with different conclusions.

I came away with the fact that a lot of people in NYC have a lot of money, and that there's continues to be a pretty steady stream of people who can afford million dollar plus apartments.

I also came away with the knowledge I've known for a quite a while...and that is that NYC was incredibly undervalued until about 2000, that that prices have now finally come up to more typical prices you would expect from a world class city.

To suggest that we should not have prices somewhat in relation to London, Tokyo, Sydney, Dubai only means that you don't truly value New York City as one of the capitals of the world.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 9:04 PM

9:04 - that's interesting, I came away with the conclusion that you're an idiot broker.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 9:51 PM

lots of houses in brooklyn are framed with large rough-hewn timbers and then the spaces between the timbers are packed with bricks and mortar. this not only added rigidity but it also provided some fire protection.

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 10:32 PM

Did anyone happen to go to the open house for the new Minsky listing on De Kalb?

Posted by: guest at November 11, 2007 11:54 PM

No, but I took a shit in Minsky's mouth today.

Posted by: guest at November 12, 2007 12:05 AM

Cool...bet he liked it.

Posted by: guest at November 12, 2007 12:56 AM

Did anybody go to any of these open houses?

Posted by: guest at November 12, 2007 6:20 PM