Open House Picks

The South Slope house looks like a good deal. Not a bad block (probably the best block this far West) even though it's between 4th & 5th.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:12 PM

very bad pics for the bedstuy home. there's even a fat guy in the pic.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:15 PM

These seem over priced. This must be why - http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_nations_gentrified

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:19 PM

I really wish they could have taken better photos of the Bedford Stuyvesant house... I know that block well and the homes are just beautiful from the facade. These relator's should do better with photographing these homes

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:24 PM

The Clinton Hill house is nice but not perfect. No powder room on the parlor floor and olny one kind of dinky bath on the second floor. People need bathrooms, it isn't 1890 any more. 2.5 million for this seems grossly over-priced.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:29 PM

Hey, 1:15! Dont be fat-phobic! The dude looks very Brooklyn to me!

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:29 PM

The Clinton Hill house has been on the market for some time... I saw this home last year... the broker was really snooty... But really nice home.. A lot of light in this house...

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:39 PM

1:29 -- haha! It's the Brooklyn 20: We all gain 20 lbs the first year we move to Brooklyn, but because everyone here gains that same amount of pudge, we don't notice it . . .until we hang out with our manhattan friends, who all suddenly look like they're anorexic.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:44 PM

As a Bedford Stuyvesant fan... I am really not feeling the house because of the interior photos..

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:45 PM

The Clinton Hill house has been on the market for many months and I am pretty sure it was once featured on this blog.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:47 PM

LOVE the south slope building. What's that area like? It's kind of between red hook and park slope proper. I imagine it's a bit desolate?

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:50 PM

fat-phobic lol. I have a house on the next block.. the pic is hurting the sale.

Stuvesant Heights Realty is realy old school. They need to upgrade from a
110 w/flash cube camera to a $100 digital joint.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:54 PM

Another thing that confuses me about the Bed-Stuy listing (besides the Helen Keller photos): they say it's a "5 family setup" but I only count 4 units. Am I missing something? I am looking for investment property in BS, so it's not just idle curiosity.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:55 PM

South Slope has been on the market for a while. And given BP's tendency to chronically overprice, I'm guessing there are some issues or it needs a very major overhaul. Also having lived on 11th St., that block gets all the fire engines coming past, sirens screaming, on their way down 11th St. to 4th Avenue. Not a bad block in terms of the way it looks though, as someone else noted.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 1:57 PM

johnife
Many people just get used to their homes' shortcomings and inconveniences. But it doesn't mean a new buyer will see it that way. Every major bedroom should really have its own bath and there should be a powder room somewhere for guests who are not spending the night. Those things are not necessary. I'm sure many people live in houses in Brooklyn with just one semi-operating toilet, but they are nice. And nice is really what one is looking for in a 2.5 million dollar house.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:13 PM

Eleventh Street between Fifth and Fourth is a pretty block. In fact, I'd say it's nicer than between Sixth and Fifth. And it's close to the F and the R trains.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:17 PM

that 11th st. house looks sweet toots to me. ah, if only i had the scratch.
1:50, I like that part of the slope a lot, but it's not for everyone. not desolate, just more down-market and light industrial than the fancy-pants bits of PS. it IS changing very fast though. (& that house is just 1 block from the F, M, R trains which is a bonus.)
also love that kensington house. seems like a good deal. if you don't mind living that far from manhattan, it's beautiful around there (in a quasi-suburban way). awfully nice place to raise the kidlets.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:22 PM

My gosh, I'll never have company over again and especially not overnight guests. Not until I get another bathroom or 3.
They must be aghast when they see my toothbrush.
Now I know I had a very deprived childhood.
Only four bedrooms with 1 full bath and 1 half bath for 6 children and 2 parents.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:22 PM

Guest 1:12 wrote: "[11th Street] South Slope house ... Not a bad block (probably the best block this far West) even though it's between 4th & 5th."

I've been looking for awhile in this area and the best block between 4th and 5th is 5th Street, hands down.

All intact original 3-story townhouses, no empty lots or new ugly Fedders stuff.

It's across from the park/school but that's a plus for me. Just my 2 cents.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:25 PM

A 4-bedroom house should have 3.5 baths. That is just modern standard. I actually like when the master bedroom has two baths (his and hers)that's luxury. Sure you can live like a peasant, but it's so much better not to have to.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:33 PM

"Every major bedroom should really have its own bath and there should be a powder room somewhere for guests who are not spending the night."

Move to the suburbs and your mcmansion will have this. We like it here. Anyone who can't climb the stairs to pee should do some keogels or not buy a 4 story house.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:33 PM

2 bathrooms is plenty for a 2-story 3BR place with guests staying, guests leaving, whatever. Powder rooms are not required in NYC. I've been in beautiful high-end townhouses in the West Village and the UES that do not have powder rooms on the parlor floor because there was not enough room to install one without the powder room opening directly onto the kitchen, DR or LR. It's not something one does in interior design traditionally. It's a newer thing, the very open, casual, share-everything, family layout in which people don't mind a bathroom in the living room. But you don't see it in a formal house. No value judgement. Just pointing it out.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:36 PM

I think 2:33 shares her mothers basement with her grandfather.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:38 PM

"The Clinton Hill house has been on the market for some time... I saw this home last year... the broker was really snooty... But really nice home.. A lot of light in this house..."

1:39 I totally agree about the broker. Who the hell does she think she is? Why the attitude? Totally turned me off.

I have been looking for a while though and I only saw this listing come up recently. Maybe it was on the market and then pulled off for a while. When you say "last year" do you mean december or last summer?

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:39 PM

Sure sure, fewer bathrooms are perfectly OK.
You really only need a bowl with a lid under the bed and in emergency you can pee in the kitchen sink.
Such defensiveness.
Whenever someone is offended on this blog, the sure fire worst possible insult to hurl is tell someone they should move to the suburbs (from Brooklyn!)
Such a bunch of provincial assholes.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:41 PM

Huh 2:41?

4 bathrooms in a 3BR house is SO suburban.

It's just the truth. Get over it. Oh and calling people assholes is more defensive than anything anybody else posted.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 2:50 PM

I have 2-1/2 baths in my 1500 sq ft 2 bedroom, occupied by three of us (returning post-college child). And there are plenty of times when we are coming home and each dashing to one. When we redid the apartment, everyone asked about enlarging the baths. No way. They are all still minimal in size -- but toally functional and USED. I would not give up closet ro other space for a larger bath but could not go back (even with just 2 of us) to less than 1-1/2.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:06 PM

Challenge: rank, in descending order of appeal, all Park Slope blocks between 4th and 5th Avenues--

11th
5th
13th
8th
6th
Union
14th
12th
Carroll
President
3rd
7th
Garfield
15th
1st
9th
2nd
10th

Not as familiar with blocks north of Union.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:07 PM

Who gives a crap about the tschotshkes. They're not part of the sale. The gorgeous fireplace mantels, are though.

It's the paved over back yard that I'm not grooving on.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:14 PM

The Clinton Hill house was on the market last summer...

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:22 PM

2:25 Since when is 5th Street in the South Slope? I was refering to South Slope blocks.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:36 PM

Stuyvesant Heights Brokerage should be fired for those photos.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:37 PM

I have a crush on that Kensington house, tschotshkes and all! But, I suspect I like the fact that it seems huge, has a backyard I would love to get my hands on and a rental. And, the price, when compared to the others is pretty freaking sweet! It makes me wonder if I am oficial "over" the Slope, Fort Green and the rest of Brownstone Brooklyn.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:47 PM

I think I met the Stuyvesant Heights broker once. He is like 80 years old.. but i really nice man.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:48 PM

Hands off,3:47! This WILL BE MINE. Unless of course, it's too expensive to add 3 more bathrooms.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 3:57 PM

We have an outhouse in our garden and that's been fine for us, except in the summer when it can get a little stinky (even when you're indoors with the AC on and the windows closed).

But seriously: we had to do the unimagineable and put the nouveau powder room right off the nouveau kitchen on the parlor floor (yeah, we did that too -- put our food-making and storing facilities right on the same floor as our drawing room, reading room and reception room).

The room we converted into the powder room used to be some kind of broom closet or pantry for the dining room, so we didn't have to build new walls or anything; but it is teeny. No Brooklyn fatties allowed! har har Now that it's there, I simply can't imagine not having it there. I think without it, the house would seem awkward -- having people traipsing up to your private floor. Besides, I enjoy being able to spend all day on the parlor floor, cooking, watching movies, etc . . . without having to come upstairs to the sleepy, private part of my life. It's kind of a flow of habit thing. No pun intended.

Anyway, to each his own.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:17 PM

Biff,

Get a job or a hobby for crying out loud...

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:20 PM

I'm not 2:25 but MS 51 and part of Bryne Park are on 5th Street (4th - 5th Aves) ... probably what that poster was saying.

I do think 5th St (4-5) is a nice block ... not sure how it compares to others though.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:27 PM

damn^^^^didnt you get the secret memo?? It was written in fade. We're all banning them for 6 months. shhhh

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:29 PM

haters on this site, calling the broker snooty? is it because she is black? do you hate barack obama too? i hear the same thing about him.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:31 PM

The Park Slope house looks great! All the wood work looks amazing. Strange that at 1.379mil this is considered a good deal. But compared to other things out there, it sort of is.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:32 PM

(teeth sucking noise) that was wack 4:31

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:35 PM

I own a brownstone and I have never used a bathroom in my life.
Just hold it in like we did in the old days and then at night pee in a china vase. that's what they were made for.
Buncha pansies!

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:36 PM

^^^^^ Troll Alert!!! ^^^^^

Do not feed.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 4:42 PM

wack must mean the truth, huh? especially on this day when dr king was shot, we must speak the truth. karl rove says barack is arrogant, i guess this broker is too arrogant too!

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 5:04 PM

219 Washington was an Open House Pick a year ago at 2.375M. So a year of not selling means you add 120K to the price? WTF?

Nice place tho. Amazing picture window cut into the side of the top floor looking out at manhattan.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 5:07 PM

5:04 it's sad what happened to King, but no reason to bring up Obama here and activate the race card. Karl Rove is not RE broker or agent.

just incase yes Im black.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 5:42 PM

I don't know if she's arrogant. She clearly has no reason to be if she's had the house on the market since last summer and can't move it. I do know she acted like a bitch when I went to the open house.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 6:00 PM

Clinton Hill house has had several prices. Check streeteasy. At one point 2.8. Nice house but come on....

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 6:00 PM

MLK dreamed of his children being able to live WITH children of other races. He did not dream of the day you would accuse annonomous strangers on a blog of being racist when you don't know their race and they never mentioned that of the rude broker. Clearly, you are the kind of bigot he marched against. Look in the mirror, you are the racist.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 6:04 PM

5:42 race is always an issue and you must not be livin in america. don't be so naive. as for being a bitch, hillary is too and she is still in the race for president, will lose, but she continues on....

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 6:32 PM

he marched against people who called black people arrgant because they were educated or wanted to ride in the front of the bus, or wanted to be treated fairly, he marched for peace. all brokers are not scum as you people seem to believe. maybe they can see thru the people who aren't making offers! these people calling the broker a bitch who don't know her at all, that's what he didn't want and what you people seem to be perpetuating!

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 6:37 PM

Thanks to 5:07 I remember that house quite well, interesting but somewhat remuddled, they have taken down interior walls and the room proportions are strange.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 8:14 PM

6:32 I'm here in Brooklyn and I only posted 2 sentences..don’t judge me I'm not naive. The issue with race is older than America. Don't let race force you to say things or act a certain way. Especially today! Walk with your head up and come up with a better way to celebrate MLK's sacrifices and death.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 9:40 PM

And a better excuse for your own failure than the racism of those who achieve more than you can.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 10:02 PM

With the brick wall and fire escapes next door, the Kensington house looks straight out of "Death of Salesman." (For those too young to remember, that's the Arthur Miller play about Brooklyn traveling salesman, Willie Loman.)

To paraphrase his spouse: Attention must be paid!

But 900,000 dollars worth?

Somehow, I doubt it.

Posted by: guest at April 4, 2008 11:24 PM

wow. seriously? wtf is a powder room? you guys must have a serious coke addiction...

Posted by: guest at April 5, 2008 12:17 AM

I have seen powder rooms done very nicely on parlor floors, and it is a selling point. However like evrything alses, it is a case by case decision depending on the dimensions and set up of the house. It does not work in narrower houses or in very shallow houses,where it is best to have a guest bath either one flight down or one up. I agree that it is not so nice for the guest bath to be the same as the master bedroom bath.
The best set up I have ever seen was in a beautiful Greek revival house on West 12th, or West 13th Street in Greenwich Village where on one side of the master bedroom there was a fabulous bath with soaking tub and views of the rear garden (for her) and on the other side of the bedroom a much smaller, spartan bath (for him).

Posted by: guest at April 5, 2008 11:16 AM

9:40,

Actually, the race issue isn't much older than America. Although a form of servitude has existed in every society on the planet
at one time or another, it was the advent of the Atlantic slave trade that made "race" a perpetual and inherited condition of servitude. Before the Age of Enlightenment, men did not care about the conditions of those who were in servitude. They made no pretenses that all men were created equal and saw the enslavement of other ethnic groups - usually those that they conquered, as natural. The Slavs and many others white people served the Romans, not because of skin color but because they were conquered. After the Age of Enlightenment, men knew that it was wrong to enslave others but justified the practice by creating the concept of race and the concept that some "races" were actually inferior and therefore enslaving and Chritianizing them would actually be beneficial to them. Science then jumped on the bandwagon by dividing the one human race into racial categories based on skin color, hair texture and other superficial physical features. Recent science has of course disproved the concept of distinct races via DNA.

Posted by: guest at April 5, 2008 2:05 PM

I saw the house on 11th street a week ago.
I made an offer, they declined.
Owner is delutional. He want to paint the house
thinking he'll get his asking price.
Turns out they had 3 open houses already and
no takers, I mean no one made an offer except me. Can you believe that.

Posted by: guest at April 5, 2008 8:36 PM

MLK is my NIGGA!

Posted by: guest at April 6, 2008 1:03 AM

This blog is testament to group ability to get off track and not stay focused!

Posted by: guest at April 6, 2008 9:47 AM

anyone see the clinton hill house? thoughts?

Posted by: guest at April 6, 2008 11:02 PM

I saw the Clinton Hill house. Is the owner the NY Times real estate writer of the same name?

A good job overall. Nice building -- 21*45 on a wide street -- nicely renovated. Taking out the hallway wall was brilliant, and together with the furniture arrangement makes the living room appear much larger than usual. The kitchen is also very well done. Upstairs, less impressive. The middle floor has two bedrooms that have too little privacy from each other for teenagers but would be great for littler kids who like each other (and parents who want separation from them). On the top floor, the light is wonderful -- skylights and side lot-line windows taking advantage of the lower house next door. But the entire top floor is one room -- not exactly family friendly, and who else needs/wants so much space? What did they have in mind putting the toilet in the shower? And what about closets?

The picture window needs to be replaced already and some of the other windows looked like they may be of similar quality, so I'm slightly concerned about workmanship in the renovation. The floors appear to be softwood throughout and are in excellent condition, suggesting that the were refinished for sale; softwood like this won't stay looking new for long.

The house is set back on the lot, giving a small backyard, as seems to be standard on this block. Helps the light in the front, so probably a reasonable tradeoff.

The biggest negative, however, is location. The block and the neighborhood are stunningly beautiful (all the more so if you haven't been there in a few years). Still, the back of the house looks out onto the projects. The nearest subway is the G; the C is several long blocks away. There is little local shopping. This is definitely car territory -- but with limited parking.

Then there is the price. The broker told me that three offers have already been made and fallen through at or above asking. I don't understand why anyone would offer that much, but the falling-through part makes complete sense: no appraiser doing his/her job could justify this price.

The garden apartment is nicely renovated and rents for $2300. That conveniently helps to calculate the value of the place.

Rents are much **less** likely than purchase prices to include a "greater fool" component (i.e., prices always go up so it doesn't matter if I overpay because in five years I'll be able to sell it to someone even more irrational). Thus, rents are a better indicator of the actual market view of the right premium for NYC and a beautiful neighborhood and lots of hip looking people walking around, and the market discount for the lack of transit and residual crime fears.

Assuming a rental value of $10,000 for the entire building, its value to a long term investor would be no more than $1.2m. Short term investors (flippers) might pay more than that, but only if they thought they could sell to someone else who would pay even more -- and in a declining market that doesn't make much sense.

An owner-occupant can pay more than an investor because of the tax subsidies. Mortgage interest is deductible up to $1m principal amount, worth about $25k/year to owners in high tax brackets, which could allow you to pay about another 350k. More importantly, owner-occupants pay no taxes at all on the implicit income from renting to themselves, so they should be willing to settle for a lower return than outside investors. Even so, anyone paying more than $1.8m is paying more to own this place than they would pay to rent it.

And that is without putting any price on the landlord's labor in maintaining it. Usually in NYC, coop/condo/rentals have a significant premium to comparable single family houses because people are willing to pay quite a bit to avoid landlord's work.

Based on the rents, in a rational market, this place would sell for $1.2m - $1.6m, depending on whether buyers or sellers are getting the tax subsidy. Replacement value is about the same.

Markets are often irrational. But they generally cycle around the rational number rather than moving further from it indefinitely. It is hard to know exactly what the rational price is here, but there really is no question that it is a third to half less than the asking.

If price goes over this range, rational buyers will drop out, and rational developers will find ways to provide more supply, and eventually, basic Adam Smith will bring prices back to rationality. Why pay more?

You might do that if you fell completely in love with it. But it makes no sense if there is any possibility that you might want to move closer to a job, or your kids' private school, or to a smaller more convenient place when your kids leave home, unless you've got a lot of extra money that you aren't closely attached to.

This is an awfully large, inconvenient place for someone without several children. But if you have several children and enough money to buy it, why would you be living here? The local public schools are problematic and it is not easy to get to the private schools. Manhattan is harder to get to than from the 'burbs.

So who is the customer? This beautiful 3 BR house makes sense, it seems to me, for a work-at-home young couple with an income of $350k and $1m savings/equity, who like their car but not lawns, want to be in a young and hopping neighborhood but don't mind no services/restaurants/groceries/access to Manhattan, and love it so much that they are willing to risk losing $1m if/when the market returns to rationality.

Otherwise, it makes a lot of sense for lots of people at about 1/2 the current asking price.

Posted by: guest at April 7, 2008 11:04 AM

Actually the "projects" you mention are co-ops and one is a Pratt dorm. The co-ops are also filled with Pratt students. No projects. Liked the rest of your description though.

Posted by: guest at April 7, 2008 12:21 PM

Manhattan is not that hard to get to. Do it every day.

Posted by: guest at April 7, 2008 12:25 PM

Hey, 11:04 am poster, what's with the thesis-length comments about the Washington Ave house? This is a blog. Concise, snarky posts rule. I almost asleep reading your pontifications. "(I)t makes a lot of sense for lots of people at about 1/2 the current asking price." In your dreams -- and y'know the seller and the broker don't agree.

Posted by: guest at April 7, 2008 1:55 PM

all that matters is the buyer's opinion.

Posted by: guest at April 7, 2008 3:06 PM