« Victorian Flatbush in White A Double Dose of SWO for Quincy Street »

January 16, 2009

Is It Bottom-Feeding Time Yet?

Have any readers been out there looking to buy properties in fringe areas with desperate sellers? How about working directly with banks to take distressed properties off their hands? This Bushwick listing on Craigslist caught our eye. The bank owns it and is asking $349,000. Our guess is that it'll end up going for a lot less, given its condition, but we don't have a sense of where the real bottom of the market is. Why not $200,000? Or $100,000? Thoughts?
$349000 Bank Owned 2 Family [Craigslist]

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.brownstoner.com/mte/mt-tb.cgi/7988

Comments

Miss Muffet finally finds a house!

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 16, 2009 10:50 AM

I'm interested in foreclosed properties, but not in bushwick. I do feel kind of like a vulture tho whenever I look over the lis pendens on realtytrac or propertyshark.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at January 16, 2009 10:51 AM

A boarded up house for $350K? Totally bonkers. They should be happy to take $1 and get it off their books.

Posted by: NorthHeights at January 16, 2009 10:56 AM

if you could add an addition on top and back, then perhaps, you make floor one a rental and live in the top two?

the rental market for bushwick will continue to grow.

this would come down to inspection of course. if there's not extensive termite, water, etc... damage, then maybe it's not too much money to fix up.

Posted by: wine lover at January 16, 2009 10:59 AM

i know it's no one's cup of tea for the most part, but i think it's a cute house with some rusty charm. i like that fireplace grey walled room. 250K would be good. two middle income couples bought it together and each pay 125K.. why not?

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at January 16, 2009 11:01 AM

Arg. Yes, we are looking in Bushwick (which is a great neighborhood, you people are crazy). The problem is everything is in terrible, terrible condition. It's sort of like we cannot afford to buy a place this cheap, if that makes any sense.

Houses like this might be a good option for contractors sitting on piles of cash. Total cost of purchase and renovation cannot exceed $400,000 to $430,000 or so (for a two-family with one three-bedroom rental and one owner-occupied duplex), given the rents in the area.

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 11:06 AM

oh come on now mopar, bushwick is a great neighborhood? i don't know. the only people who seem to move there really are people pushed out of other hoods cuz the rent is slightly cheaper and still relative closer to the manhattan and williamsburg. if youre into the underground art scene, then yeah it's definintely a great neighborhood. if you need a place to rent for cheap with a bunch of other people, then it's a great neighborhood. other than that i can't think of anything else it really has going for it. im not hating on the neighborhood at all, it was my number once choice (maybe not so much a choice as more of a need really) of a neighborhood to move to last year before i decided to bite the bullet and pay a little more and rent to have a better quality of life for me and my dog living someone else.

that said, if and when i do move again, and my financial situation does not change, bushwick will be back on my radar as a potential place to live.

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at January 16, 2009 11:15 AM

mopar, don't blow it for us bushwick people! i'd rather keep the good aspects a secret and keep out the wusses! anyway, this part of bushwick has little to do with the arty lofty part on the other end of the neighborhood.

as for the house, i'm mildly excited to hear about relatively affordable properties out there. it's the people with less money who usually have the necessary gumption to fix a place up. rich folks want everything on a silver platter, let em have it. we might actually see some real estate parity finally.

Posted by: Jimmy Legs at January 16, 2009 11:21 AM

$25,000 in Buffalo (fully detached). Lots of artists there.

Posted by: Suburbandude at January 16, 2009 11:35 AM

mopar - I didn't say Bushwick was a bad neighborhood. I just said I don't want to live there. It's not near any of my friends and isn't particularly convenient to my job. It's also a little too industrial for my taste. Or at least, big chunks of it are.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at January 16, 2009 11:38 AM

are there really lots of artists in buffalo? are houses really that cheap there? i dont know anything about buffalo, what's it like

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at January 16, 2009 11:39 AM

There's a reason you don't know anything about Buffalo. As the song goes..."shuffle off..."

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at January 16, 2009 11:42 AM

I absolutely love it. However, I am living in a tiny corner that is safe, with many excellent restaurants, wonderful people, and great subway access. Also, my taste tends to run to areas like this, mostly recent Mexican immigrants with a tiny smattering of artists opening new businesses -- and that's entirely subjective and I realize not at all what everyone is looking for or needs in a neighborhood. Furthermore, there is virtually nothing to rent or buy in the tiny corner I live in. Other areas of Bushwick are different, and I'm really not qualified to opine on them.

Wine Lover, this is a two family. It's 20x45 according to Property Shark. Unless previous owners reconfigured it, it's almost certainly got a top-floor rental apartment with five to six rooms (three bedrooms), an owner's apt on the first floor with two bedrooms, and a basement/celler that is meant for storage but not living. An unfortunate previous renovation seems to have filled in the area under the porch and covered over the windows in the English basement.

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 11:43 AM

Oops, sorry, Jimmy Legs.

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 11:47 AM

Take it from someone who lived in Buffalo for a year: do not live in Buffalo. It is cold, cold, cold. Cold. Did I mention it's cold? Because it's cold.

And I grew up in Syracuse ... so it's not like I don't know cold. Buffalo, my friends, is cold.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at January 16, 2009 11:52 AM

That facade could be in Park Slope South.

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 16, 2009 12:01 PM

All these upstate cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany) have very vibrant and cool neighborhoods and are dirt cheap. The Times recently profiled a couple from NYC who bought an old Victorian in a great Buffalo neighborhood for 279K. Same house in in Brooklyn? Easy over 1M. And for 100K, you can get a reasonable house in a very safe neighborhood.

As for the cold, get a sweater. The weather today in NYC is probably a typical Buffalo winter day. And despite the fake panic by the local TV weathermen to jack up the ratings, I think today is gorgeous.

Posted by: Suburbandude at January 16, 2009 12:03 PM

Well, I don't find today gorgeous at all. I find it annoying, and I'm glad there will only be a few days like it in NYC all year. But to each their own.

Syracuse is dirt cheap for a reason, though. I have tons of friends and family still there, and I visit often, but I wouldn't buy there. The city's economy has been going through a 20-plus year depression with no end in sight, most of the area's industry has moved away, and they're counting on tourism dollars from a super-mall that may or may not ever get built to fix a large chunk of their problems. Percentage-wise, the murder rate is pretty high, and the area has fairly large swaths of bad neighborhoods.

Outside of the city proper, there has been a huge explosion of developments of the exact kind of bigger-than-you-really-need, more-expensive-than-you-can-really-afford housing that is a huge part of this current financial crisis. I should know: I grew up in one.

And the school systems are dramatically overrated. New York State's insane continued adherence to the Regents system is a huge problem.

SU's a pretty good school though, so that's something.

Buffalo and Rochester, while both bigger than Syracuse and somewhat better off economically, suffer from many similar problems.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at January 16, 2009 12:24 PM

BRG - our budget is over 1 mil and we're looking in prime areas only, or fringes of them i.e. south (or south south) slope. But no, I don't think it's bottom feeding time yet - not even close.

Posted by: Miss Muffett at January 16, 2009 12:26 PM

This seems pretty high for a boarded up building that references 'needs work' when it's also on one of the farthest flung streets of Bushwick.

I have no clue about that area but I always feel like I'm more than halfway to JFK when I'm that far down Bushwick Ave! Anyone live around there that can speak to that side of B'wick?

All I know is that my area of Bushwick DOES has a lot going for it (looking at you pitbull!) Is it gorgeous? Hell no. But with Aa new restaurant opening on my corner, and a new bar open (opening?) around the block from me, you can feel the slow and steady change. Odd timing for these new businesses, I hope they do well. I know I'll be supporting them. (unless they end up sucking hard!)

Oh, and to the person that claims big chunks of Bushwick are industrial...wtf you talking about? There are strips, but the vast vast majority is residential

Posted by: MAT at January 16, 2009 1:23 PM

OK, well I guess that rules out Syracuse and Buffalo for Miss Muffet.

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 1:26 PM

I want this house:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/reb/995153918.html

Posted by: boofer at January 16, 2009 1:38 PM

MAT - that was me, and I'll take your word for it. I've only driven through bushwick a couple of times, but the areas I drove through were all warehouses.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at January 16, 2009 1:41 PM

Nothing wrong with warehouses....look what happened in Williamsburg...thanks to the artists.

Once again, Miss Muffet displays she doesn't have a sense of humor.

Miss Muffett: with that kind of a budget, you can get 4 houses in Buffalo!
And NO house in Brooklyn in prime areas.

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 16, 2009 1:51 PM

BRG, I said *over* 1 mil - and I think I will laugh last.

Posted by: Miss Muffett at January 16, 2009 2:06 PM

MAT, have we met?

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 2:07 PM

Miss Muffett:
*over* 1 mil, that could be like 6 million....you can buy the whole city of Buffalo.....WOW!

Posted by: bayridgegirl at January 16, 2009 2:15 PM

you can buy huge fuckin brownstones in Albany for less than 300k.

Posted by: Santa at January 16, 2009 2:24 PM

mopar, I don't think so? (at least I don't 'recognize' you via web name!)
But sounds like we've probably walked past each other at some point in time.

Posted by: MAT at January 16, 2009 2:39 PM

That is right down the block from this fixer:
http://www.brooklynproperty.com/content/ProDetails.aspx?pid=85
Also a two family, but with a storefront and for under 300k! Any takers?

Posted by: smallie at January 16, 2009 2:42 PM

boofer....that's a nice looking place

Santa....have you checked into what the taxes are up in Albany!!!!!??????? That's one of the primary reasons things in Albany are so cheap.

On the other hand, Albany has the Orchard tavern!!!!

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at January 16, 2009 2:55 PM

How do you bottom-feed in the abyss?

***Bid half off peak comps***

Posted by: Brownstones Half Off at January 16, 2009 4:55 PM

Smallie, that is the cheapest place I have ever seen. Also kind of cute. With serious foundation problems -- or is the tree crooked?

Posted by: mopar at January 16, 2009 4:59 PM

Love how all the people who live in crappy areas ie. bushwick, bed-stuy etc say "I live there, its great and getting greater by the day!". Move on people, the speculative bubble has popped. Back to its intrinsic value of crap...

Posted by: cornerbodega at January 16, 2009 5:48 PM

Certainly someone named cornerbodega would know a lot about crap. Tell us, where do you rent, cornerbodega?

Posted by: daveinbedstuy at January 16, 2009 5:55 PM

just telling it like it is...

Posted by: cornerbodega at January 16, 2009 6:27 PM

Hi to every one,
This is peter. Are you looking for information regarding home loans and mortages. We can ell provide you with the information. For details on them please visit us.
_____
Peter

Home Loans

Posted by: parker120 at January 23, 2009 5:02 AM

« Victorian Flatbush in White A Double Dose of SWO for Quincy Street »

January 16, 2009

Is It Bottom-Feeding Time Yet?

Trackback Pings

Comments

Post a comment

Latest Restaurant Additions