« Inside Third & Bond: Week 82 House of the Day: 216 Maple Street »

April 30, 2009

Condo of the Day: 655 Washington Avenue, Apt. 3B

Things are going better than we thought at The Modern Post, the ten-unit condo building at 655 Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights. According the broker, four units are in contract and another two units have "contracts out." One of the remaining apartments, a 582-square-foot one-bedroom, is asking $379,000. The ceiling heights and windows are nice in this place and, if you are looking for a modern condo, the finishes seem well done as well. Any takers?
655 Washington Avenue, #3B [Aguayo & Huebener] GMAP P*Shark

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Dunno what it will sell for, but things can't be going too well for the developer if it lost 800% of its value in the last 5 minutes.

Posted by: toadie at April 30, 2009 1:03 PM

hmm, that's incoherent, isn't it? Darned swine flu, messing with my head.

Posted by: toadie at April 30, 2009 1:05 PM

I saw this very unit last summer. The condos actually seem pretty nice, but we felt it was way too cramped for 2 adults who actually own some stuff. The bedroom is pretty tight and not much storage.

Posted by: squaredrive at April 30, 2009 1:06 PM

Cool Apt - nice modern finishes - however it seems small and that area on Washington is bleh imo.
Might be good for 1 person or a couple who don't own a lot of stuff
I think they could sell around $325K - low CC's which are nice

Posted by: gemini10 at April 30, 2009 1:10 PM

a lot of the 2 BR condos that went up over the past year or so in PH are pretty cramped. There's a place on Bergen that's still trying to get like $600k for a 1+ on a middle floor, even though the bedroom is so small you couldn't fit a normal, adult bedroom set (queen bed, dresser, chest, nightstand) in it, and the plus-one is barely big enough for a baby's stuff. It's absurd.

But it has an iPod plugin with in-wall speakers! :P

Posted by: cwbuecheler at April 30, 2009 1:10 PM

Oh, as to the topic at hand ... I put $350 because people keep admonishing me for putting what I think places actually SHOULD go for, rather than what they will.

SHOULD? $300k.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at April 30, 2009 1:11 PM

Oh this place... This Condo nightmare has been on the market since 2007 and they sold a total of 0 Condos! Yes you heard that right 0 Condos!!!! They had a billion open house last summer and everything is now Tango Uniform! Your tax dollars will be used to bailout the retards that made loans to this failed project...

The What (Tick.. Tick.. tick..)

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: Return of The What at April 30, 2009 1:14 PM

Oh BTW Banks now require 50% of units sold before they loan you the MONEY!!

Good luck with that...

The What

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: Return of The What at April 30, 2009 1:17 PM

cwbueler, lol my ex boyfriend lives in Fedder's Row acrossed the street from that condo... the one with the huge advertisement on the building touting an ipod deck as an amenity!

*rob*

Posted by: PitbullNYC at April 30, 2009 1:23 PM

I like the look of this place. Has a Continental European look to it from my perspective. But I am not a fan of this stretch of Washington and newbuild condos are riskier than regular purchases. I guessed $300k.

Posted by: etson at April 30, 2009 1:28 PM

banks actually require 70% sold on new condos now. what a mess.

Posted by: noah at April 30, 2009 1:31 PM

Ugly ass building, cramped, small, cheap looking cubicle condos with beautiful windows looking out onto the chop shops, tire stores and hair braiding shops of lovely Washington Ave. I'll pass.

Posted by: clintonhillbuyer at April 30, 2009 1:31 PM

nice looking unit, good light, good finishes but location is so so. $300k? way things are going, some one might buy it all cash for 200k

Posted by: more4less at April 30, 2009 1:32 PM

How does a new condo ever hit 70% sold if banks are requiring 70% sold to loan money? What, they're expecting 7/10 of the people buying in a building to make an all-cash payment?

Posted by: cwbuecheler at April 30, 2009 1:33 PM

Rob -

That Fedder's Row development is actually not terrible looking. It's the rest of that block of Bergen that's pretty hideous. :P

The iPod thing is ridiculous. "We have a proprietary attachment for something that will almost assuredly be redesigned in the next five years, making our attachment useless. Also if you have any other digital music player, you're screwed from the get-go!"

All of these new condos are in serious jeopardy now that the market's dropped. Things like Brownstones will hold their value way better.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at April 30, 2009 1:35 PM

cwb, am thinking all-cash buyers and those 1st 70% of the units will be sold fire sale prices?

Posted by: more4less at April 30, 2009 1:40 PM

"How does a new condo ever hit 70% sold if banks are requiring 70% sold to loan money? What, they're expecting 7/10 of the people buying in a building to make an all-cash payment?"

Precisely--and there's the rub. Catch 22. These will sit. Anyone with $300K in cash lying around aint moving to Washington Ave.

Posted by: Squattersrights at April 30, 2009 1:43 PM

Can we talk about the enormous address on the side of the building? Other than that, this looks like standard new-condo fare, but the address thing is a bold architectural choice. It seems very seventies to me.

Posted by: Heather at April 30, 2009 1:47 PM

"Ugly ass building, cramped, small, cheap looking cubicle condos with beautiful windows looking out onto the chop shops, tire stores and hair braiding shops of lovely Washington Ave."

You just described nearly every block in Williamsburg, but there the same box is "worth" twice as much.

Go figure.

I don't like new condos, but these look better than most to me, and I really like Prospect Heights a lot. A couple new bars have opened on Washington just in the last couple months.

Posted by: 11217 at April 30, 2009 2:01 PM

"How does a new condo ever hit 70% sold if banks are requiring 70% sold to loan money? What, they're expecting 7/10 of the people buying in a building to make an all-cash payment?"

Precisely--and there's the rub. Catch 22. These will sit. Anyone with $300K in cash lying around aint moving to Washington Ave.

No - "sold" means in contract, in this context. What they expect is that buyers will sign, make their downpayments, then everyone waits around until the critical mass is reached, and lenders allow individuals to close. Of course that doesn't stop anyone who IS a cash buyer from moving in ahead of all that. And it isn't necessarily 70% either. It can be 50%. It can even be less - but then you are usually looking at jumbo rates and downpayment requirements that are unrealistically high for many people, unless the buiding got project approval with a lender a long time ago.

Posted by: johny0299 at April 30, 2009 2:07 PM

if I had $300k in cash lying around, I'd be using it as a huge down-payment on a $600k-$800k unit somewhere else, not buying a condo here.

Posted by: cwbuecheler at April 30, 2009 2:16 PM

"Ugly ass building, cramped, small, cheap looking cubicle condos with beautiful windows looking out onto the chop shops, tire stores and hair braiding shops of lovely Washington Ave."

"You just described nearly every block in Williamsburg,"

And much of 4th Ave in the Slope.

Posted by: East New York at April 30, 2009 2:17 PM

i can't imagine anyone who has actually seen these apartments happy with the construction quality.

Posted by: chortik at April 30, 2009 2:31 PM

i can't imagine anyone who has actually seen these apartments happy with the construction quality.

Posted by: chortik at April 30, 2009 2:31 PM

I think you'll find that the 70% means that the banks require 70% to be in contract before they'll close. They'll make their financing conditional on 70% in contract, so once the seventh of 10 condos go into contract, the banks will allow you to close. If you're looking at this situation, you have to make your offer conditional on financing and closing conditional on the developer having 70% of the units in contract.

I've lived in other cities where the banks won't provide construction finance unless at least 50% of the units are in contract - mind you in those cities there are significant incentives for buying a unit off the plan (usually transfer taxes are lower if the property hasn't started construction and increase as construction progresses).

Posted by: bohuma at April 30, 2009 2:37 PM

« Inside Third & Bond: Week 82 House of the Day: 216 Maple Street »

April 30, 2009

Condo of the Day: 655 Washington Avenue, Apt. 3B

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