Open House Picks: Six Months Later

I'm the one that bought 20 sterling. We're not gut renoing it per se, although we did put quite a bit of work into it. Main things really were painting (look at the colors it used to have!); the floors, which we put new ones over; and the facade, which needed a new scratch coat/brownstone coat.

It was totally livable as it was before, we moved right in. We just wanted to make a few capital improvements to bring it back to its prior glory.

I think they priced it assuming it was in top notch shape (maybe a little high) and we've gotten away with putting just a fraction of the difference into it in terms of renovations. I think the point is that if you don't want everything _perfect_ and forgo a complete gutting, you save tremendous amounts of money and the house still retains its character.

Posted by: justinm at December 19, 2008 3:22 PM

Thanks for all the good wishes. We did avoid doing renovation on the kitchen/bathroom, which is still planned, but I guess it did seem like we gutted it based on the facade work and all of the drywall trash because we moved a wall, raised a ceiling, and exposed one of the walls to brick.

Totally agreed though that it's better in the end to buy a fixer upper (not a trash heap) because you can use the price difference to fix it up the way _you_ want it, not the way that will sell it the best or the way the prior owners liked it.

I think this price is decent, and I think that contrary to the post's comments "Increasingly Ugly" it actually shows that the PS brownstone market is holding up quite well given the circumstances. The foreclosures are mostly localized to the new construction, I think. Places that have been around for a hundred years are commodities and have lots of intrinsic value that is just recently being realized, I believe.

Posted by: justinm at December 19, 2008 4:24 PM

At the very least, we took out the downpayment (more than half the price) less than a week before the market crashed. It was all invested in the market...so there's 20-30% right there. Not really losing sleep over the market price of the house anyway...we're going to be living here for at least a decade and are sure that in the long term it's as good of an investment as any (it has been for the last 100 years at least).

Good to have the discussion though -- some very heated debates on the future of the brownstone market. Probably what's the most telling of the future market will be how the new constructions do. Don't think the recession has hit the slope housing market yet, but will be interested what happens when the wall street bonuses come out this year 50% lighter.

Posted by: justinm at December 20, 2008 5:10 PM