House of the Day: 491 1st Street

What a gorgeous row of homes.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 1:37 PM

****
What slowdown? In yesterday's Times, Josh Barbanel crunched some May numbers, and he reports that the median and average apartment price have edged up yet again, to a new record of $1.54 million. And before 500 commenters scream bloody murder about 15 Central Park West and the Plaza inflating the numbers, please note that Barbanel excluded the two big-ticket developments from the calculations. The number of sales, Barbanel reports, was higher than in any month since August 2007, and the 52 documented sales of $4 million or more was the highest ever. Yeesh, can anything stop the Manhattan market? Maybe. Many brokers still say that market uncertainty has clients on the fence, and the number of sales closed in May was down 20% from last year, but still above the volume of May 2006.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 1:41 PM

That was my first thought as well, 1:37, especially in the close ups on the T&G site. The Eastlake style spoon carving, and the other decorative details, along with the upper bays, with the handsome corbels, make this a really beautiful group of houses.

Worth 2 mil? Can't say, as all of Park Slope is absurdly high, but the curb appeal is certainly there.

Montrose Morris

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 1:54 PM

There is perfectly decent floorplan on the Townsley and Gay website.

Do some of you just write sh*t before you even look at the listing?

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 1:56 PM

"Bring your contractor."

And a ginormous bag of money for reno.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:01 PM

Looks like you're going to need to move the kitchen to a different floor and eliminate the rabbit warren of rooms on the top floor...I say the reno costs are going to be at the high end of your range
After all, the listing says "bring your contractor" (not even "bring your architect")...not a good sign.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:02 PM

You can do this reno for 500K, in which case it's still priced a little under market...
I mean, that 3 bedroom condo on Montgomery Place that was "just recently sold" sold for over 2 million. I'd think a nice house on one of the best blocks would get that easy.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:09 PM

I think Park Slope is 25% overvalued right now. I mean, $2mm for this nice, but nothing extraordinary house? That needs work? In an overcrowded school district? I think The What is right.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:19 PM

2:19...you might want to read 1:41...

That news about Manhattan affects Park Slope quite a bit, you realize...

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:24 PM

Kitchen above the parlor is traditional? Give me a break.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:38 PM

2:19 here -- yeah, I appreciate what 1:41 cut and pasted from curbed.com. I read the entire article in the paper this weekend and it wasn't titled, "What slowdown?" but "A Mixed Picture". I guess I can cut and paste otoo, if that's how you get your news:

____

Yet there were some signs of caution in the preliminary numbers, the first indicator of the contracts signed in the spring selling season, which usually continues through the Fourth of July. The number of sales closed during May was 20 percent below May 2007, when the number of sales set a record for any single month. They were, however, above the sales volume recorded in May 2006.

At a number of celebrated recent developments, from the Time Warner Center facing Central Park, to 40 Bond Street off the Bowery in NoHo, condo owners have trimmed their asking prices on resales.

At 40 Bond, the resale asking price on a three-bedroom triplex was cut by $1 million in late May, to $10.9 million, or about $2,900 a square foot. Dennis Mangone, a broker at the Corcoran Group who recently had three listings in the building (one was just rented), said that competition between the sponsor (there is still one unsold one-bedroom ) and individual owners had “cannibalized resales” and that he expected prices to appreciate considerably in the next year.

At Time Warner, there are now 16 apartments on the market, according to Streeteasy.com, including three for which the asking prices were cut in the last few weeks, two of them by more than $1 million.

And there were signs of a slowdown in sales of smaller, lower-priced apartments, though there too the picture was mixed. May sales of apartments under $1 million were roughly flat compared with recent months, but off by nearly a third compared with the year before, according to the sales tabulation.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:40 PM

That 4th floor looks more like an attic.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:40 PM

If you have the extra 500k to do the reno why not just buy the listing T&G have on Union between 7th and 8th? It's a full sized brownstone, full of qulaity detail in very good shape. I can't believe nobody has bought that place yet. I saw it, but really want out of PS. I can only assume it hasn't sold because Townsley Gay never bother to hold open houses. If you want a house, make an appointment and go see it.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:47 PM

That 4th-floor is unusable. It's the sloped roof/half-story that is more like an attic and storage space. So, $2 million for a 3-story house that needs a total overhaul? I don't know. Maybe a bit high.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:48 PM

Priced right for the location and will sell close to asking. Get over it people.

Park Slope is the shizznit!

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:48 PM

Choppity chop chop chop.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 2:53 PM

Will sell in a heartbeat.

And no, I'm not the broker. The house is just too charming from the outside. Someone will fall in love...

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:00 PM

This seems high to me. Location is great, but the rest of it is on the small side. You can get a bigger place in an equally great location for this price when you factor in renovation

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:04 PM

It's really three floors. The fourth floor is what you see in that tiny cornice window. Those spaces are attics.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:06 PM

And, if you get a parking space out front, you wont have to move it all summer!

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:10 PM

me likey

a lot

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:21 PM

Bidding war...

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:24 PM

I see a tree out front (hasn't yet leafed out in the pics).

I think you're looking at the wrong house, 3:16.

The railings are gorgeous. I just walked by this house yesterday.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:25 PM

Won't even get a good contractor to change a lightbulb in this house for less than $1ml. Whatever, you think it will be double it, and you might be close. And that's before teh architect. Plus, commodities very expensive.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:28 PM

"I'm guessing 1.7, if the inside isn't a disaster zone."

Agreed, since it's 3-stories and 18' wide.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:28 PM

We just did a top to bottom renovation on a similar size house this past year. It was in the mid 400's.

And the kitchen and baths are quite high end. We are more than pleased.

Not sure who you people are who say it's a million bucks to renovate a home. That is absurd and I don't really think anyone believes it.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 3:54 PM

Cute on the outside, but if it really has so many intact details, why are there absolutely no interior pics? I understand what it's "ready for renovation" means, but I still think that if all the details are there, there should be photos of them.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 4:12 PM

if this was going to move so fast, it would have already moved. has been on the market for about a month already. nothing moving that is overpriced now...

i agree with 2:53 - choppity chop chop...

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 5:42 PM

Couple of questions:

Is the building delivered vacant? Does Townsley and Gay co-broke?

why no interior photos?

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 6:53 PM

$400,000, $1 million...who cares what the reno is going to cost. In this market, "bring your architect" properties aren't going to move as fast. Maybe move-in houses are still going like hotcakes, but any house where even the broker is embarrased to show the pics is going to require better marketing and lower pricing. Good luck getting this one appraised at ask.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 6:56 PM

Prop shark says this is a three story.

How high are the ceilings on the top floor? They look like they're about 6 feet high at the most!

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 7:01 PM

The fourth floor of these houses was meant for servants and children. The ceiling height is low, about 7 feet, except in the front, near the windows, where it drops to about 5 feet. The eyebrow windows provide light and ventilation. They were not meant for looking out. You don't want your servants ogling the people walking on the street. For the children, the windows were eye-level.
Hey, these houses were built for families that were nothing like modern families, that's why they are cool antiques. You want efficiency and convenience? don't buy a Brooklyn brownstone. I have lived in five of them. they are wonderful, i love them, but there were days when all I wanted was a ranch house with a driveway.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 7:40 PM

Looks like Bed-Stuy to me.

How long do you suppose people shopping around for a Brownstone will pass over 700k 2800 sq ft brownstone properties in Bed-Stuy, when there are no other neighborhoods left in New York with brownstones at a cheaper price?

Gentrification pressure from the west
(clinton hill) and south(Crown Heights), hassidic pressures from the north(Williamsburg) and hipsters from the east(Bushwick).

someone should do a documentary on this socio-economic struggle.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 8:47 PM

The whole of Bed Stuy has been off-limits to white buyers for generations. New York City, segregated as precisely as Johanesburg, had its white nabes and its black nabes, period.
The amazing thing is that people under forty, certainly those under thirty, are completely race-blind. Voluntary apartheid crumbles!!
Someone should do a documentary, although of course there are never entirely happy stories, many will be displaced, new Park Slopes will spring up in areas formerly thought of as entirely Caucasian-free. It is an intersting story. The next twenty years will transform the old segregated neighborhoods north of 64th Street -nothing will change Bay Ridge for a hundred more years.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 8:59 PM

More like a mockumentary, given the farfetched subject matter

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 10:40 PM

bag ridge doesnt have many black people but has plenty of other ethnic groups

kinda dumb to say its filled with whities.

Posted by: guest at June 9, 2008 10:43 PM

7:01, Property Shark and other databases based on DOB records usually do not count the garden level as a floor even if it is only slightly below grade. It's referred to as a "basement" and not counted, even though it is perfectly usable space.

Posted by: guest at June 10, 2008 9:19 AM

Hey 3:54, I don't care to hear about your Home Depot counter tops and recessed lighting. thx

Posted by: guest at June 10, 2008 12:13 PM

True. Bay Ridge has a very large Middle Eastern community that is growing and spreading. But in terms of politics and the old timer power base it is still very white Republican.

Posted by: guest at June 10, 2008 1:21 PM

This has to sell to someone who wants a one-family house. Nobody would spend $2 million plus $800K renovations (that is what it would take) to live on only 2 or 2.5 floors of a 18-foot house.

It's just something sellers in Park Slope will have to confront, as houses get up into a certain price per square foot. That they're not going to sell to somebody who needs the rental income to pay the mortgage, anymore. Those buyers in that price range (under $2 million including renovations) will have to look at other options. And ironically though that is a lot of money, that kind of buyer is soon to be priced out of Park Slope.

Posted by: guest at June 10, 2008 1:38 PM

Union Street has buses and trucks and more cars. More house on Union St. does not make a better purchase than 1st street. Lived on Union once - never again.

I heard from someone I know who owns one of these houses with the little windows on the top floor that they were done this way originally to save on taxes - something about them being treated not as a floor when originally built for tax purposes - don't know if this is correct, or not.

They can be made into a decent space, though if I owned one, that floor would be for the tenants, not for me (or my kids if I had any), nor any servants (which I wouldn't have.)

Posted by: guest at June 11, 2008 11:35 AM