Open House Picks

Thems some slim pickins this weeek.

The broker is smoking, snorting and injecting Meth if she thinks that's a resonable price for the Gates house

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:18 PM

Westminster is a flip, and not a particularly profitable one at that, as i believe it sold for $1.25.

Anyone know the skinny on it?

My guess is that the buyer balked at the renovation costs.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:22 PM

How wide is that Gates place? I looks sort of squished.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:30 PM

I LOVE what they did with the Gate house. Wish I could see the lay out. Lovely interesting parlor floor layout.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:32 PM

its more squashed than squished.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:34 PM

Re: St. James

Kill the spiral and do a triplex over garden. 1.2 is the correct crackpipe ask. But it's close to Pratt. Someone, perhaps an Arch prof, will bite.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:46 PM

hows a prof going to earn enough to pay that mortgage. Don't think so.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 2:48 PM

Sad but true 2:48. A college professor can't earn enough to buy and maintain a house that "needs work" in a so-so neighborhood. Remember back to this when the rest of the world is eating our lunch in 20 years.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:08 PM

The spiral plan, while weird, is original to that house and the others next to it. That floorplan is especially difficult to deal with if you're a senior. But it's tough to gut and redo as a triplex over garden, since the windows/floors in the back rooms in the middle of the house are a different height than those in the front, due to the spiral. Very major job - gutting the entire house to shell status, including pulling out the staircase and replacing it with a side stair, moving rear windows to different heights to accommodate new floors the depth of the entire building....not worth it.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:10 PM

Revision: "...perhaps [a trust fund] Arch prof, will bite".

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:13 PM

Ah daveinbedstuy. Why don't you go play with Biff and Muffy on some other thread? I wish The What would come back. He was a far more interesting troll than you are.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:48 PM

3:10 here. The central spiral staircase plan means that as you're walking upstairs from the parlor level, the first room you encounter is at the rear of the house - and it's actually on a lower level than the next room, which you arrive at by continuing UP the spiral, turning toward the front of the house. So as you climb the staircase, the rear room's floor is lower than the next room's floor by three or four steps (look at the plan on the agent's website). While at first blush this plan can appear airy and charming, an immense amount of interior space is wasted on the atrium (air -the central column in the staircase) as well as the staircase itself. I looked at one of these when I was house shopping years ago, and concluded that not only was the usable floorspace miniscule compared to a standard brownstone layout, but as my parents got older, visiting me would be a real chore.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:51 PM

I don't see why Westminister Road is being called a "flip" by someone above. Asking for $100K more than purchase a year ago barely lets you break even between closing costs and realtor fees. Plus there are no cosmetic flipper-style renovations done on the place. It just seems to be somebody who needs to sell. Transfer, divorce, changed their mind about the neighborhood or property, etc etc etc. Might even be someone new to home ownership who didn't realize how much money and time it would entail. That's really easy to happen.

If any of us ever needed to sell sometime sooner than planned on a house it's pretty irritating to have someone who watches too much HGTV and doesn't really know what "flip" means as a real estate term, to be calling it a flip.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 3:54 PM

3:54, Why do you take offense to calling a house a flip when you clearly don't know that it was not purchased for that purpose. You came up with a lot of assumptions (i.e. watches too much HGTV, unfamiliar with real estate terminology) about the poster who called it a flip and your assumptions may not be true either.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:15 PM

3:54, Why do you take offense to calling a house a flip when you clearly don't know that it was not purchased for that purpose. You came up with a lot of assumptions (i.e. watches too much HGTV, unfamiliar with real estate terminology) about the poster who called it a flip and your assumptions may not be true either.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:28 PM

I've seen another of these houses on that St. James block. Definitely a lot of wasted space, but charming in its own way. It's basically a split level -- about six or seven levels in all! Essentially one largish room per floor. This one needs lots of work, probably more than the pictures would indicate. It was in the same family for decades and they did nothing to upgrade it. A nice project for someone with the bucks, but man ... I can't believe we're still in the days of the $1,000,000+ fixer-upper in a marginal neighborhood!

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:29 PM

I've been in the sister house next door to the St James house and think the layout is charming and inventive -- a better flow of space than a classic brownstone, which is what I live in. I admire the townhouses in our neighborhood that were built 10 to 15 years after the wave of brownstones because it shows a progression in thinking about the use of space and light. I hope someone with vision and resources is able to buy this place -- it has good bones and could be quite special with tlc. The location within Clinton Hill is also good.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:40 PM

amazing - truly nothing pleases posters here - last time a house was listed as low as 1.2 on st. james it was bid up a couple hundred grand and sold within weeks of listing (earlier this year.) nothing in the immediate area has sold for nearly as low as 1.2 in years.

and to second post 3.54 - a 'flip' is when an investor purchases, does superficial and usually not high quality work, and sells quickly with a large mark up. selling for less than 10% more might not even cover their costs.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:46 PM

amazing - truly nothing pleases posters here - last time a house was listed as low as 1.2 on st. james it was bid up a couple hundred grand and sold within weeks of listing (earlier this year.) no house in the immediate area has sold for nearly as low as 1.2 in years. the location is really nice - one of the best blocks in CH.

and re:Westminister Road- it cant be a flip with such a small mark up - to second post 3.54 - a 'flip' is when an investor purchases, does superficial (and usually not high quality work,) and sells quickly with a large mark up. in this case, selling for less than 10% more than purchase might not even cover their costs.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 4:51 PM

st. james needs to come way down! what do they think its 2005?

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 5:03 PM

Re: Westminster Road
The old MKG listing (from brownstoner's archive link) shows the details:
SELLING PRICE: $1,175,000
ADDRESS: 169 Westminster Road
DATE CLOSED: August 2, 2007

Some of the pictures are the same in the old/new listing, so doesn't appear to have been fixed up. Maybe just a change of mind and trying to get a small profit on the deal.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 5:08 PM

The house on Westminster was purchased with the intention to "flip" it, but the timimg was not good and the current owners are now just looking to unload it without taking a loss. The term "flip" is not a legal term. 4:51's general definition can be used to descibe most of what happens when one flips a home but the term can also be used to describe any number of real estate transactions where a house is purchased with the intent to resell, at a profit, in a short period of time. The resale can include low budget or upscale renovations or no renovation at all. I used to "flip" houses for additional income and I flipped two homes that I literally purchased and resold without doing anything to them. Thank goodness I made my money and got out two years ago. Now is not a good time for those who flip homes as their main income.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 5:17 PM

The house on Westminster was purchased with the intention to "flip" it, but the timimg was not good and the current owners are now just looking to unload it without taking a loss. The term "flip" is not a legal term. 4:51's general definition can be used to descibe most of what happens when one flips a home but the term can also be used to describe any number of real estate transactions where a house is purchased with the intent to resell, at a profit, in a short period of time. The resale can include low budget or upscale renovations or no renovation at all. I used to "flip" houses for additional income and I flipped two homes that I literally purchased and resold without doing anything to them. Thank goodness I made my money and got out two years ago. Now is not a good time for those who flip homes as their main income.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 5:33 PM

The house on Westminster was purchased with the intention to "flip" it, but the timimg was not good and the current owners are now just looking to unload it without taking a loss. The term "flip" is not a legal term. 4:51's general definition can be used to descibe most of what happens when one flips a home but the term can also be used to describe any number of real estate transactions where a house is purchased with the intent to resell, at a profit, in a short period of time. The resale can include low budget or upscale renovations or no renovation at all. I used to "flip" houses for additional income and I flipped two homes that I literally purchased and resold without doing anything to them. Thank goodness I made my money and got out two years ago. Now is not a good time for those who flip homes as their main income.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 5:34 PM

A few years ago I saw a house like that on the Boreum Hill house tour, but assumed it was a chopped up building - it have many different levels. Perhaps it was built that way.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 6:34 PM

yeah, I first thought the poster who said kill the spiral meant the main staircase - then I realized that they meant the small spiral staircase between the lower two floors in back. That would make it work as a triplex, with a lot of work.

Having half floors at many levels can make a house seem larger - I remember a friend's center city Philly rowhouse with the half floors - every person's bedroom was it's own half floor, which was nice and very private - though I don't think the stair was spiral there, so it took up less room.

Still, this could be really nice, with lots of bucks put into it.

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 6:41 PM

20 percent off the ask on St James to get anybody to even take some time out of the day and through the door. That is still the ghetto and the house is Ugly

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 7:23 PM

I viewed the Gates Ave. home before with another agency. Lovely home..but too much for a 5-family, considering tying to get a mortgage as it's being used as 4 family. Just doesn't add up... Seller doesn't want to convert to a 4 which would be smart..

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 10:05 PM

Yes, something must be wrong with this blog since there have been no anti-Park Slope posts yet on this thread! (or for that matter, defenders of PS).

The 6th St house looks nice but whoa, what a price tag! What do people think of that? I know folks who bought in 2001 a house that is almost identical very nearby for about a million - have houses really tripled in that time? And do people think townhouses are going to stay through the roof or finally calm down?

Posted by: guest at April 11, 2008 10:53 PM

The comments haven't been working for the past week or two. It's become too much of a pain in the ass to try to post a comment. Mine post maybe 2 out of 10 times. Fix the server!! That's why there are so few comments. Not all of them get posted, and people give up.

Posted by: guest at April 12, 2008 12:50 AM

The comments haven't been working for the past week or two. It's become too much of a pain in the ass to try to post a comment. Mine post maybe 2 out of 10 times. Fix the server!! That's why there are so few comments. Not all of them get posted, and people give up.

Posted by: guest at April 12, 2008 12:52 AM

The 6th street house does seem high. Most homes that size / that location go for 1.9 to 2.2. I could see 2.4 for a real nice one but 2.8+ ? Seems unrealistic.

Posted by: guest at April 12, 2008 7:54 PM

well for the most part we all agree on one thing. people have not accepted the reality of todays market. inventory is growing and the sellers will chase the ask down to where it belongs as they sit and sit. No point in buying now.

Posted by: guest at April 12, 2008 9:02 PM

Has anyone seen the new Corcoran 2nd Street listing for $3.995??? I think it's next door to 590 2nd Street, the Brown Harris Stevens listing for $2.995 that's been on the market for a while.

Posted by: guest at April 12, 2008 11:16 PM

Yes Sir/Mam @ 9:02. Falling knives. Why catch?

Posted by: guest at April 13, 2008 9:30 AM

I don't know the right price for 6th street but I do think incorrect to say most houses are between $1.9 and $2.2. They are certainly more than that.
6th street is great block and it is good sized house.

Posted by: guest at April 13, 2008 10:17 AM

It's not a reason not to buy - just to buy from someone who really needs to actually sell - they will come down to what is a market price if they need to unload the place, eventually, sooner or later, depending on their financial situation.

And if most buyers are staying out because prices are too high, then by the supply-demand rule, the market price for those who really do need to sell should come down more. I think it would be a great time to pick up a house if you are patient.

Posted by: guest at April 13, 2008 1:37 PM

Well, there's a house on 5th St bet 6/7 that's significantly bigger, priced at 2.2 and no one is biting - it's been just sitting for months. Granted it needs more renovation, but on a price per sf basis it's probably a relevant comp and it's basically almost the exact same location (same school, only one block away, both 5th and 6th bet 6/7 Ave are equally nice). So I do think this 6th St price is way over priced. Also, in response to 10:53, no, townhouses have not tripled since 2001 and so if there's a comp for a million on this block from 2001 that was comparable in size/condition, that's another indication that this house is currently overpriced. Will townhouses come down? No one has a crystal ball, but the lending tightening and seeping recession/NYC market slowdown inevitably will have some effect on the entire market...

Posted by: guest at April 13, 2008 8:59 PM

8:59 you want a cystal ball? Bear Stearns, Manhattan inventory and Credit Crunch. The housing market is the back part of the rollercoaster. Great time to sell

Posted by: guest at April 13, 2008 9:15 PM

St James Pl is a scary street. I was there last week to check out the neighborhood to lived and very quickly realized that is definitely not a place I would want to be at night. I am not a rich trust fund kid with lots of money but I could not see myself live there.

I will not say if the place is overpriced or not but do know that for $1.3m, I would hope to have some amenities. There were none right there. Is this Clinton Hill or some broker's wishful thinking.

Anyway, this looked for Bed Stuy. to me. I am a single woman and would never walk around there after sundown.

For $1.3m, I will get something a little bit smaller in a neighborhood not so scary.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 11:55 PM

St James Pl is a scary street. I was there last week to check out the neighborhood to lived and very quickly realized that is definitely not a place I would want to be at night. I am not a rich trust fund kid with lots of money but I could not see myself live there.

I will not say if the place is overpriced or not but do know that for $1.3m, I would hope to have some amenities. There were none right there. Is this Clinton Hill or some broker's wishful thinking.

Anyway, this looked for Bed Stuy. to me. I am a single woman and would never walk around there after sundown.

For $1.3m, I will get something a little bit smaller in a neighborhood not so scary.

Posted by: guest at April 15, 2008 11:56 PM